DES MOINES - Terry Woods' laughter carried him back to a time when he played in the Gates Park Youth Basketball League, and he needed a nickname.

Nicknames were everything to a kid like Woods, a piece of the game almost as important as a good jump shot. So the young Woods took a look at one of his favorite players, Tyrone Scott.

"He was 'Ice,'" said Woods. "I admired his game. So my angle was 'Ice Water.'"

Woods laughed, and laughed. Ice Water. IceH20. Say or spell it however you wish. It was part of the formula for fun and basketball back in the early days of the GPYBL.

By all accounts, the league was not active in 2008. Woods wants to bring it back to life under a modified name - the GPYBL Remix.

He's still a Des Moines resident, but the former Waterloo West and Iowa State basketball star is taking his shot at running the league.

Woods intends to take an oversight role and enlist the help of others in the community.

"I haven't lived in Waterloo since graduating back in 1986, but Waterloo is and always has been my home and my heart," he said.

Ultimately, his vision goes beyond the game itself.

"My goal is to help our youth gain a healthy respect for themselves, respect for one another and respect for their community," he said. "And in order to reach these youth, we've gotta approach them with respect."

It's going to take a lot of things to revive the GPYBL. Time is one of them.

Woods' aim is to begin play in 2010. Meanwhile, he hopes to use an all-star game in August as a springboard for a revived league.

The plan is to select a group of former Gates Park players and match them up against a team from AND1 at a venue to be determined. It's a chance for the GPYBL's 30-year past to create a present and maybe a future.

"We'd like to honor people for their careers and basketball," said Woods.

Raising money for any venture in today's economy is no mere pick-up game. Woods understands that. Still, he believes it can be done. He's also pleased by the early response for his GPYBL blueprint.

"I see a lot of people stepping up," he said. "I've heard from people who have said, 'Tell me what you need me to do.'"

In a sense, Woods needed basketball a few years ago when he ran into legal trouble. He pleaded guilty to charges of willful injury causing bodily injury and false imprisonment following a 2005 incident. At the time, he owned a share of the Des Moines Heat, an International Basketball League franchise that has since folded.

"My attorneys advised me to move forward with my life, and that's what I did," said Woods. "That's all behind me now. But it made me focus on my priorities."

Along the way, Woods said he got back in the gym and rediscovered the game. Sometime later, he touched base with Walter Reed, Jr., who ran the Gates Park Youth Basketball League until moving from Waterloo to Des Moines.

"He's been like a mentor, a kind of instructor," said Woods, who works for the Heartland Mortgage Group in Clive. "He supported my vision of what I'd like to see the league be moving forward."

So the Waterloo West and Iowa State guard, the kid who played in state tournaments and Big 8 Conference games, is moving forward. Nothing is assured, of course. Maybe Woods can bring the GPYBL Remix to what it was decades ago. Maybe his dreams will disappear, pulled down by the undertow of tough times.

Who knows? A kid may need a nickname. And the laughter will come.