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By ADAM HIMMELSBACH
After long afternoons of basketball practice, Colonial Beach junior T.T. Carey would return to his bedroom and see his motivation hanging on the wall.
He would see the baby-blue high school jersey that his father wore 17 years ago.
Jeff McDowney was a blur of a guard for Washington & Lee High School. He was a first-team Free Lance-Star all-area selection in 1990 and '91, and basketball was in his blood.
But for Carey, the 2008 Free Lance-Star boys basketball player of the year, that jersey on the wall is one of the only ways left to remember his father.
McDowney was killed in a car accident 10 years ago, when Carey was just 6 years old.
"It took a long time to deal with it," Carey said. "But that jersey is motivation every day. Everything I do, I dedicate to my dad. People tell me he was way better at basketball than I am, but that I'm catching up."
McDowney was in the military, and on his rare visits home he would shoot baskets with T.T. and his older son, Jamal. Before long, T.T. had gone head-over-hightops for the game.
He would never go anywhere without his purple basketball.
He would dribble in his bedroom.
He would dribble through the house.
Sometimes, he would make the floors shake. His mother would hear the constant thump-thump-thump, and she would send him outside.
Then he would dribble up and down the street.
"I just got kind of used to it," T.T.'s mother, Theresa, said with a laugh. "People knew that if they saw my boy around town, he would have his basketball."
He would practice crossovers. He would flick the ball back and forth between his legs.
It was all so rhythmic, and for T.T., it was all so comfortable.
Then T.T. would come home and sleep with his basketball next to him.
He would wake up the next day, and start his round-ball roundabout all over again.
"Sometimes people would just look at me like I'm crazy," T.T. said.
Colonial Beach coach Steve Swope saw heaps of potential.
"Even when he was in kindergarten, you could just tell by the way he walked that he was going to be a special player," Swope said. "By the time he reached fourth grade, he was dominating youth leagues."
T.T. was never one of the taller people in his class. He said he was about 5-foot-8 at the start of eighth grade, when he made the Colonial Beach varsity basketball team.
But then he began to sprout.
And as he grew, he maintained his agility and ball-handling skills. Even though he was one of the taller players on the court at 6-foot-5, he remained a point guard.
"People my size aren't normally as athletic as I am," T.T. said. "They normally can't do some of the things I can do."
This winter, Carey averaged 22.2 points, nine rebounds and 4.4 assists for the Drifters. He was a first-team all-Region A selection, leading the Drifters to the Division 2 regional semifinals in their first season of Virginia High School League competition.
Carey said he has received recruiting letters from Lehigh and Randolph-Macon, and he hopes this summer's AAU circuit gives him added exposure.
Carey said he joined the Richmond-based AAU team run by Tony Squire. It is the same team that former Colonial Beach star Chris Johnson, who now plays for Louisiana State, played on.
"It's a dream of mine to go to college for anything," Carey said.
When he is not playing for his AAU team this summer, Carey will be dribbling.
He got a new ball last summer, and he is ready to break it in.
Adam Himmelsbach: 540/374-5442
Email: ahimmelsbach@freelancestar.com
This week, The Free Lance-Star announces its 2008 winter sports All-Area team. Here is the slate for the week: TUESDAY: Gymnastics WEDNESDAY: Track THURSDAY: Swimming FRIDAY: Wrestling YESTERDAY: |
