As middle school basketball players and their parents shuffled out of the Comcast Center’s auxiliary gym on Sunday afternoon, Byron Mouton showed no outward signs of a man running on little sleep.

While sorting through registration papers for the just-concluded AAU tryout, the former Terrapin forward acknowledged nearly every departing player with a basketball tip, a promise to be in touch soon or in most cases, a playful joke.

Mouton — best remembered as a senior starter on the 2002 National Championship squad — seemed in his element. Less than 48 hours removed from playing two professional basketball games, including one that required a 20-hour round-trip bus ride to Vermont, he was back to work on the court.

And Mouton, who has spent much of the time since his career as a Terp ended bouncing around to more pro teams in more places than even he can keep straight, wouldn’t have it any other way.

Finally back in the area after his nomadic pro career, Mouton is relishing his current hoops-centric life. The 31-year old finds a way to balance a schedule that includes running local camps and after school programs, growing his fledgling AAU program, hosting an Internet radio show and playing for the local Maryland Greenhawks.

“I just love basketball, man,” Mouton said during a brief lull on a busy day of tryouts for his 6th Man Warriors AAU program. “I just love being around it. I just love playing and being around the kids. That’s what is keeping me up and keeping me going.”

It’s been two years since Mouton decided to focus his basketball efforts on the development side of the game. At the time, Mouton says he still had offers to play overseas, but the money was no longer good enough to make it worthwhile.

Instead, he’s focused his attention on the Maryland-Washington, D.C.-area, where there’s still enough name recognition from his Terp success to make him a viable brand.

In September, Mouton launched his first AAU team. The program has already expanded to include eight teams. One of his next goals is opening a multi-sport training center within two years with an eye on becoming one of the top AAU outfits on the East Coast.

Part of that plan to strengthen his business, reach kids and help build local basketball is his affiliation with the Greenhawks, who play in the Premier Basketball League — a nine-team minor league that includes squads in Canada and Puerto Rico.

Greenhawks general manager Adam Dantus said he’d been trying to get Mouton to join his club, which bills itself as “the first green professional sports team,” for several years.

Now, Mouton appears at local elementary schools as a team ambassador about twice a week, touting the values of education and conserving the environment. Nearly every printed ad includes a picture or reference to the former Terp who earned honorable mention All-ACC honors in 2002.

“It’s more than just basketball,” Dantus said. “He’s been all over and made a lot of money. Here he’s pretty much doing a good deed, talking to kids and teaching our young guys.”

Mouton has enjoyed playing opposite his cousin, Terrance Mouton, a 24-year old guard who went to Rider, but the transition back to being a player hasn’t been easy. The Greenhawks, who close their season Friday in Quebec, have gone through three coaches and utilized several different home arenas as they’ve stumbled to a 3-16 record.

Ultimately, in a league that struggles to garner publicity, especially in the tough local media market, Mouton, who is averaging 17.9 points per game, provides bonafide name recognition.

Some of the youngsters the Louisiana native works with in the Montgomery County school system weren’t even born during the National Championship season. But Mouton said he gets satisfaction when their parents recognize him and try to explain Mouton’s playing credentials to their children.

Greenhawks coach Chad Warren recalled a university alum who stopped Mouton in a Denver airport to thank him for helping deliver the Terps’ lone National Championship.

“Everywhere we go somebody knows him,” said Warren, who took over in February. “They know who he is and what he’s about.”

Mouton, who transferred to this university after playing two seasons at Tulane, can at least partly thank coach Gary Williams for helping him earn that staying power.

Since moving back to the area, he’s helped repay the favor by working out with Williams’ squad several times a week during the season.

Mouton, who also hosts a Terp basketball-focused radio show on www.playersvoice.com, said he often ends up pretending to be an opposing team’s best player on the scout team. He takes pride in keeping up with the next generation of Terps.

A notable exception to his abilities as a practice player came a few weeks ago when he tried to mimic Houston and their up-tempo offensive style.

“I did like 15 sprints full speed,” Mouton said of the practices leading up to the Terps’ NCAA opener. “I was like, ‘I can’t do this, man. In professional basketball, we walk the ball up, and we do pick-and-rolls and we pace ourselves.'”

Still, the 6-foot-6 forward knows being able to focus on basketball is a luxury. As he began his pro career, Mouton hoped to start a Web design company. His first client paid him $700 to construct a site that took him more than a month to complete. That’s when Mouton realized he’d rather work harder in basketball than anything else.

Mouton’s new aim is to become a college basketball coach or NBA scout. He is banking on the same hardworking grit that made him a Cole Field House favorite to deliver him future basketball success.

Surviving that grind means enduring stretches such as last weekend. The Greenhawks lost a game at Washington’s Coolidge High School on Friday night and then boarded a bus for Vermont less than an hour later. They dropped their sixth straight game Saturday afternoon, and Mouton arrived back at his Bowie home at about 4:30 a.m. Sunday.

By 9 a.m., Mouton was up to begin paper work in advance of his 6th Man Warriors tryouts.

Later that afternoon, with a meeting left before finishing his day, Mouton still flashed the smile that Terp fans might recall from the jubilant post-championship celebration in Atlanta.

“It’s tough, man,” Mouton said. “But I love it, and I want to do it as long as possible.”

edetweiler@umdbk.com