Wednesday, June 25, 2008

New Era! Yeah Boy!

It’s official! Mike Bozeman is the Head Women’s coach at George Washington University! Good Luck Mike! You’ll be great there. The press conference was cool and the people at GW are very supportive. He handled himself very well and I’m happy for him. I took my son, Blake and my nephew Okoye, to the press conference to share their uncle’s special day with him! He’s a role model for them and they are very proud of him.

Hey the NBA draft is tomorrow! It’ll be a great day for a lot of families! It’s like hitting the lottery for folks! You can really see the exhaling from the mothers, aunties, etc. It’s like watching the show, “Who wants to be a Millionaire.” I really enjoy seeing people reach their dreams and goals! It’s the dream of a lot of youngsters to walk across that stage and shake hands with David Stern. Now, just because a guy doesn’t get drafted, doesn’t mean he can’t make it because there are countless examples of how guys were undrafted but still made teams. No one can and shouldn’t be able to steer you away from your dreams and goals! I would still encourage all the youngsters to get a degree because at some point they will transition into another phase of their lives and they need to be prepared. I’m all for young people working towards a career in the NBA. Sure the odd are long but the odds are long for a lot of professions. You need determination, sacrifice, a little luck and hard work but you need that in most everything you do, if you want to be successful. I just think that most struggle with the transition into life after hoops. The hoops life line is different for each person. The average length of an NBA player’s career is 3 years even though some enjoy the fantasy life for 10-18 years. Go for it fellas just be prepared when you have to re-position yourself.

Good luck to a couple of young fellas I’ve had the pleasure of coaching at some point in their young careers. I had the opportunity to coach Mike Beasley a couple of summers with the D.C Assault AAU program and O.J Mayo, who I had an opportunity to coach during the Reebok ABCD camp a couple of years ago. Mike actually worked as a counselor at my camp in Bowie, Maryland for a couple of summers. He still holds the record for being the worst referee in camp history. I had a lot of fun coaching O.J in camp...oh yeah, good luck to Bill Walker too he was on my camp team also. Those two had played together for years and put a show on during camp with alley oops and exciting plays. Mike and Bill played at Kansas State and O.J at USC. I remember those green room days during draft night with Jason, Lamond and Shareef, all three went in the lottery. Jason (2nd) went to Dallas, Lamond (7th) to the L.A Clippers and Reef (3rd) to Vancouver (now Memphis). Ed Gray went in the first round too but he was the 21st pick by the Atlanta Hawks. It’s exciting for sure so Congratulations to Mike (D.C Assault’s first potential #1 pick), O.J, Bill, Fatima (Mike’s Mom), Curtis Malone (mentor/Coach), Delonte Hill (College Coach), Joel Bell (Agent) and everyone else participating in tomorrow’s event. It’s a dream come true and lots of people play a role in these young people getting to this point. Enjoy people….but as my man B.I.G said …”More money, more problems” and it’s just begun!

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