Curry an inspiration to our youth

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June 2, 2015

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June 2, 2015

As a puny, shrimp-like point guard at Charlotte Christian School in North Carolina, Stephen Curry was doubted and discredited by all of the major college and universities around the country.

The consensus was that he was gifted, yes, but not capable of being a star. The son of an NBA contributor, Curry always had a surgeon’s precision from behind the 3-point line. He scored at will in his childhood. The Curry family always points back to Stephen’s middle-school days with pride – a time when the deadly accurate shooter would routinely pour in 40, if not 50-plus points in a game.

But surely, he wouldn’t survive high-level college basketball, critics believed.

He’s just too small, they said – not thick or strong enough to get up his jumpers at the college level. After all, Curry was nothing more than about 135 pounds soaked and wet during his teenage years. He was never the Herculean physique that LeBron James has been his whole life, but Curry sure could play him some basketball.

It didn’t matter. Blinded coaches ignored the eye test and worried more about the things that they thought Curry couldn’t do instead of all that he brings to the table.

They talked themselves out of interest in the young man, despite lofty prep stats and All-State acclaim.

Instead of going to Duke, North Carolina or Kentucky, Curry signed with little-known Davidson. He chose that school after just modest interest from low-level programs like High Point, William & Mary, Winthrop and Wofford.

Flash forward nine years to the present.

My, oh my, how the critics and naysayers were wrong.

Still not the biggest, fastest or strongest, Curry is one thing that no one else in the world is: The best offensive basketball player in the world.

The 2015 NBA Playoffs have been amazing, and Curry is completely at the center of all the entertainment.

The guy scores – at will. He shoots and almost never misses. You know that he’s getting the ball, sprinting to the 3-point line and looking to chuck the ball at that rim. It’s a shot that would be low percentage and frowned upon for any other basketball player in the entire world.

But Curry does it and hits nothing but the bottom of the net. Every single time. There’s no way to stop it. He’s not bothered if you have a hand in his face, and his release trigger is too quick for a defender to ever block his shot.

It’s ridiculous. Modern-day on-court basketball invincibility. If it wasn’t happening right before my eyes, I’d say that it was a level of accuracy and dominance that borders on impossible.

Of course, Curry is not local, nor are the Golden State Warriors. But the reason why we’re touching on his success story today is because of a lesson that Curry can teach to any and all basketball players of any age. That is, ‘Don’t ever take no for an answer.’

If Steph Curry would have listened to all of the naysayers that he’s encountered in his career, he’d be selling insurance at a Farm Bureau Agency in North Carolina.

At every step in every journey throughout his basketball career, some big-wig and supposed expert told him that he didn’t have the physical ability to play at that next level of competition.

Instead of pouting and/or giving into their assessments, Curry did the best thing that any athlete could do. He worked and busted his butt in the gym to perfect his game.

Athleticism is hereditary, yes. Curry is blessed with good genes from his father Dell, who played in the NBA for several seasons in the 1990s.

But being a good athlete and being a magician on the basketball floor are two entirely different things. Stephen Curry didn’t just roll out of bed one morning with the ability to shoot and never miss from behind the 3-point line.

Curry’s dominance tells me that he’s a tireless worker who has given hours of time and ounces of blood, sweat and tears to the game – all in the name of a dream.

And that dream was a career in the NBA – an opportunity to prove everyone that ever doubted him wrong.

An opportunity to show the world that even the little guy can sometimes have success in the big man’s game, if, of course, the little guy is willing to put in the time and effort to make it all happen.

Steph Curry has done all of the above. He’s a marvel. He is by-far the best offensive player in our generation – a guy that has truly been a pleasure to watch throughout the past several seasons.