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Just woke up from a dream. Seemed to last for hours. The most fulfilling and coolest dream Sammy Sportface has ever had.
I was at a pre-game shoot-around at Cameron Indoor with the other Duke players. Still didn’t have my Duke uniform because I had just arrived the night before. The day before Coach K called me and said he wanted Sammy Sportface on his team.
He knew I could really play. DeMatha Coach Morgan Wootten told him and that was all he needed to know. Morgan told him I could do it all and that just nobody really understood that. Plus Coach K liked Sammy Sportface because he knew, having seen me in action, that I was tenacious and wanted a guy like that on his team.
While warming up, I felt the stares of people wondering who the new guy was. They were skeptical. Six-foot-two-inch white kid. Figured I was some walk-on who was never gonna play.
Then as I warmed up, I started to realize I could play with the other Duke guys. I always knew this was true. But it took so long for this to become reality. The people started to realize it too. I was no joke.
A good offhand, solid – no, very good — rebounder, soft touch. Definitely understood the game. A really good basketball player who didn’t look like one. Got passed on by college coaches who didn’t take the extra time to really see how good I was.
Just warming up, I felt I belonged. I knew I belonged. I could play basketball. I knew it. And everybody else was just starting to realize it. The other Duke players didn’t seem better than me. I knew, down in my bones, that they weren’t better than me. They were about to find that out.
At long last, the doubters and skeptics were being proven wrong, sitting back in their chairs and saying “hey, this kid can play.”
Coach K was low-keying the fact that I joined his team. Wanted to undersell me. He knew I would over-deliver.
And I did.
Because I could.
Because I was good.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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