By Ryan Dezember
HOUSTON--When March rolls around, few will have a tougher time
filling out NCAA basketball tournament brackets than Steve Trauber,
Citigroup Inc.'s top energy banker.
Over the past decade, the banker and his wife, Leticia Trauber,
have groomed some of Houston's most talented young basketball
players, sponsoring a regional travel team that won two national
championships. As those players now start their freshman year at
colleges around the country, including basketball powerhouses Duke
University, the University of Kansas and the University of North
Carolina, several teams have claims on Mr. Trauber's loyalty.
His involvement with the hoops stars began as something of a
hobby. Mr. Trauber, who played one season for Rice University, was
seeking a good team for his youngest son and wanted to help coach.
But his interest in his son's teammates soon broadened. He and his
wife decided to shepherd each of the players, many from
less-privileged backgrounds, to college.
"As the years went on they became like sons to me," Mr. Trauber
says. "There was a compulsion to see them succeed. We were
fortunate enough, and we felt compelled to help these kids."
Wall Street's largess takes many forms, from funding university
endowments to sponsoring museum halls. The Traubers, who are
involved in several Houston charities, chose to zone in on a small
group of youngsters.
A dozen players, many of whom Mr. Trauber first met as
third-graders, are now scattered at campuses around the country,
most with athletic scholarships. A few, including Justise Winslow,
a 6-foot-6-inch jack-of-all-trades who has become a star at Duke,
are expected to play in the National Basketball Association.
"Mr. Trauber, with how successful he is, showed us that no
matter how big or famous you become, you can always help someone
else out," says Mr. Winslow.
Success at big banks arranging multibillion-dollar energy deals
afforded Mr. Trauber, 52, the deep pockets to bankroll a team of
players from backgrounds that ranged mostly from working class to
desperately poor.
With parents, coaches and sometimes even tutors in tow, the
players traveled three weekends a month when they weren't playing
on their school teams, going as far as Hawaii and Italy to play in
tournaments. The Traubers paid for plane tickets, hotels, meals and
outings such as tours of Washington, D.C., and civil-rights sites,
as well as trips to the movies. Sneakers, uniforms, physical
therapists, tutors and league dues also went on their tab.
Over the decade they sponsored the team, the Traubers estimate
they spent as much as $2 million.
Their investment wasn't just monetary. Mr. Trauber helped coach
the team himself. Mrs. Trauber spent late nights in hotel laundry
rooms washing uniforms, and she once hauled the team to a country
club for etiquette classes. She monitored dinner plates,
instituting a greens-on-every-plate rule, and report cards. "If
they didn't make their grades they couldn't practice, but they
still had to come to practice and study instead of play," Mrs.
Trauber says.
As the players finished high school earlier this year, Mr.
Trauber fielded calls from some of the biggest names in college
coaching. His team had three McDonald's All Americans, an honor
shared by many NBA players. Along with Mr. Winslow, coaches vied
for smooth-shooting Justin Jackson and Kelly Oubre, a rim-rattling
dunker, who now suit up for the North Carolina Tar Heels and Kansas
Jayhawks, respectively.
Others were snapped up by smaller schools. A few, like the
Traubers' son, J.T., joined college teams as walk-ons. The deft
passer and hound on defense received scholarship offers but, like
his father, opted to pay to attend Rice.
Mr. Trauber says he got a kick out of calls from iconic coaches,
"but there was also a mission at hand, which was to give these kids
an opportunity to play for these guys, and to make sure that
everything was going to be above board," he says, referring to
National Collegiate Athletic Association rules governing
recruiting.
The globe-trotting banker basks in the players' success like a
proud father. In his corner office in downtown Houston, tournament
trophies share space with Lucite mementos commemorating corporate
deals. Photos of the players abound, some depicting gangly
preteens, while more recent shots show muscular men.
Mr. Trauber, a 6-foot-2-inch guard, was offered basketball
scholarships himself after starring at his Massachusetts high
school but chose to pay to attend Rice, a Houston school better
known for its academic rigor. He came off the bench for the Owls in
the 1980-81 season.
He went on to work at Credit Suisse Group AG, Morgan Stanley and
UBS AG, where he and his team helped arrange oil-patch deals such
as the merger of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Kerr-McGee Corp., and
Schlumberger Ltd.'s acquisition of Smith International Inc. In
2010, the team was lured to Citi, which now boasts the top-ranked
energy investment banking business.
The Traubers' resolution to get each of the players into college
was forged through their relationship with Augustine Rubit, a
talented teammate of their older son, Matthew, who also played
competitive youth basketball. Mrs. Trauber once asked Mr. Rubit
where he planned to attend college. Mr. Rubit replied that he
couldn't afford it.
"I said, 'Augustine, the way you play basketball you can. No
coach has ever told you about a college scholarship to play
basketball?' " she says. "It made me so mad."
Her frustration grew when she learned he wasn't even enrolled in
classes required to graduate.
The Traubers took Mr. Rubit, whose childhood was particularly
challenging, into their home. Intense tutoring and night school
followed. They paid his way at the University of South Alabama
until his grades were good enough for a basketball scholarship. He
went on to become a top rebounder, earn a degree and try out for
the NBA.
"I honestly never planned on playing college ball. It never
crossed my mind until I met them," says Mr. Rubit, who now plays
professionally in Germany. The "simple things," like being invited
on a Trauber family vacation, motivated him most, he says. "I got
to see what you get out of working hard."
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