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Former Michigan basketball guard Demetrius Calip won a national championship as a sophomore in 1989, led the Wolverines in scoring in 1990-91 (20.5 ppg.) and played briefly in the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers before heading overseas.

Now Calip lives in Southern California, where he's helping to mentor basketball players and working on his next venture: animation. AnnArbor.com caught up with Calip this week.

Q: What have you been up to? Demetrius Calip: (Laughs) I’ve been up to a lot, actually. ... After … going overseas for a little while, came back, had a few tryouts with the NBA teams, didn’t work out. Went into mortgage brokering and real estate, was a real estate agent first and then became a mortgage broker. I was putting together a mortgage company and had another business going on as well called The Gymbrats. It started off as basketball training for kids, and it turned into an animation project. It’s one of my dreams, one of the things I worked really hard on, ‘The Gymbrats.’ We’ve got a website and everything.

Q: You said animation, is that something you always wanted to do? DC: Actually, it’s not something I always wanted to do. I always liked drawing, so I’d draw here and there, but once I did the whole basketball training with The Gymbrats, I needed a logo. I just had my first son and my second son, actually, little DC, and I needed a logo for my company. So I made a caricature of him and his name is ‘Crossover.’ So that was the logo for the training center. So I said, ‘Why don’t I put some friends around him and call it Gymbrats, the animation. So I started doing that, adding friends and it became a little project I’m doing. Got some interest from some people that I’m waiting for it to finish developing.

Q: Did you take classes for drawing or is it just a side thing that spawned into a second career? DC: Yeah, it was a website and something, a hobby I liked and ended up doing. Once I got out here and I saw animation and saw different things that were happening with “Spongebob Squarepants” and “Dora the Explorer” and the different methods that were built around these things I thought, “This could be exciting,” so I went and took some classes here in LA, some 3D modeling classes - because that’s what the animation was evolving to - and worked with some designers over at the Art Institute here in California and began really just developing the project.

Q: When you were playing ball were you drawing or did it go off on the side? DC: Yeah, it was something always on the side, a hobby. It wasn’t like something where I was like, “One day I’m going to do animation or cartoons or something like that.” It was just something that I liked doing as a hobby.

Q: When you look at your Michigan career, what stands out the most? DC: Obviously the national championship, the team and the time. But even then, the football because the basketball and football program, we were really, really close and was great friends with Desmond Howard and Tripp Welborne. We were always close, both the football and the basketball programs. So during our time there, we just had this amazing run. We look back, some of us being older, look back at the things that we did during that time on campus is just amazing. Just seeing Glen Rice and his career, Desmond Howard and his career, the different other athletes around that time. Those are things that really stand out, the national championship run and it was just an amazing time.

Q: Do you still have the ring? Where is it? DC: I’m actually looking at it right now. It’s in front of me at my computer here.

Q: When you watch Michigan now, what do you think? DC: Well, right now I think we’re going through and have been going through a rough period the past seven, eight years. It hurts, actually. The Spartans have been getting a lot of attention the past decade. And I know the things that a lot of us former Wolverines built up and the foundation we laid. It pains us, and I talk to some of the other guys, Jalen (Rose) and Terry Mills, we look back and we see it and it hurts to see where it is, and we’re encouraged that one day it will return. And I think right now with the young talent that we have there, you’re going to see an inkling of it coming back.

Q: What was your reaction when they beat Michigan State on Thursday? That would seem like it was a step in that. DC: Oh man, it was total elation. The Twitter world went crazy. Jalen and all us alums, we were just ecstatic. That was just a huge win for them, and I was really, really happy for Darius (Morris). Going through a rough time in the Big Ten, he had a lot of success early and then having a really young team going into a solid Big Ten conference where you have four or five ranked teams in the Top 25, which most of them you have to face twice, and you have a very young team. It could be really, really rough. That’s what I think they were going through, starting 1-5, 1-6, so going down there those guys had close games with Kansas and Ohio State, so being right there and just not getting over the hump and then going into Big Ten season, to get a win like Michigan State up at Michigan State was just incredible.

To check out Calip's work, check out both of his Websites for the Gymbrats here and here.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein