My Hoop Journey (PART 1) The Beginning

In junior high I fell in love with basketball. My good friend (Darroll Phillips, NCAA2, CCAA FT record holder) moved to my hometown and became my "partner-in-hoop." (along with other friends, but no one was as competitive as him) We would stay after school everyday in 8th grade playing 1 on 1 for hours (I'm talking about 3 hours straight). A local man, Rob Gray, who loved basketball as much as us began to work us out seeing potential. This is really when I understood that I could have whatever I wanted in hoop as long as I put in the time and my work ethic was molded and ingrained in me when I saw the improvement.

In high school I played on a very good team at Atascadero High School. Our freshmen year we only lost once. So the next year we were all sophomores and the varsity coach (Jerry Tamelier) moved our whole 4 out of the 5 starters up to varsity along with an incoming Freshman. This was a great move by him. Although we had a mediocre season as sophomores everyone got a lot of experience except for me really, but I didn't deserve as much playing time as the others who all started.

So what now? It was probably one of the best off-seasons I can remember. The workouts moved from the outdoor courts of the junior high to a fitness club (Kennedy Club Fitness). This became the mecca of hoop in the small town of Atascadero. The next year I became a starter and helped boost our team to a league championship and 3rd place in CIF southern section losing to Artesia. I was a point guard back then and was the ultimate team player not even taking a 1 shot in some games (which really did hurt me in getting recruited), but I wasn't thinking about that then.

By being league champs, winning 20 games, and returning all starters we all were very excited about the next season. We had a team full of hoopers. The next season was looking very promising....Until the next post