Why I'm Zero

Some people think Gilbert Arenas is crazy. For the most part I do too. I can respect it though. You got to think all athletes have to be crazy. We put so much time into our sport, but most of us will never even make it to the top. I spend about six hours with the team everyday. I don’t get to have home cooked thanksgiving meals, and I only have about 2days for Christmas break. My roommate thinks that’s crazy. I respect Gilbert Arenas because of his great success story. He became something from nothing. At the University of Arizona he was expected to average zero minutes, so that was the jersey number he chose. He spent hours in the gym shooting so that he would be ready when he was given his chance. Arenas was finally given a chance and capitalized on it. The same thing happened to Arenas when he went to the NBA. In both situations he went from zero to hero.

All spring, all I did was shoot. I didn’t attend one outing with my teammates. My goal was to make 1500 threes a week. One day in early spring training, Candice and I were shooting together trying to get our 300 makes for the day. She was using Matt (our practice player) as a rebounder while at the time (because of my terrible shooting) it was more efficient for me to use the shooting gun. Candice got her 300 makes in about 30 minutes, it took me hours. I finally left the gym at 8:30, successfully reaching my goal of 300 makes. I texted Candice that night to let her know I finished. Candice always took me under her wing as a guard, but I think that day is when Candice and I started getting really close.

To me zero represents the athlete struggle. It represents the doubters, the haters, the non-believers. For everyone who thought I couldn’t hold my own in games, and that I wasn’t good enough. Every game I get into I need to prove myself. I’m no longer a star in high school, I’m a normal player, I’m a zero. My goal is to go from zero to hero, just like Gilbert Arenas did.

“I’m the peoples champ. I’m robin hood. This is the role I was born to play”

I want to give a special shout out to my mom Rochelle Murphy, my dad Joseph Murphy, my sister Monique Murphy, my friends Candice (birdman), Tiema, Charisma, Lauren, and Nyla for always believing in me.