Full Court Press: Navigating The Adversity Of Life On and Off The Court

By Maurice Kirby

Like every young child who plays sports, playing division one athletics is the dream. It is what athletes work for day in and day out. But what happens when the dream, the journey, takes twists and turns that lead you to a place you never thought you'd be at? What happens when the people you thought you could trust are no longer trustworthy? Full Court Press takes you on a journey through the life of Maurice Kirby, a professional athlete who learned the real truth behind athletics quicker than most. How does the recruiting process work? What does life as a college athlete look like? How does one become a professional athlete? The complex answers are given in a heartfelt, meaningful way that will allow readers to join Maurice on the journey that is, Basketball.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maurice Kirby
• Release date: Jul 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201889968

Book preview

FULL COURT PRESS

Navigating the Adversity of Life

On and Off the Court

Maurice Kirby

Copyright © 2021

All Rights Reserved

ISBN:9781955302241

Dedication

To my Mother. Thank you for all the continued sacrifice and wisdom through the years. For being everything that DK and I needed and more. Come hell or high water, we all we got.

I Love You

To my Brother. Inspiring me along the way and allowing me to make mistakes. You look up to me as the older brother but, I equally look up and admire your strength and perseverance.

I Love You

FOE

To You. I hope you find yourself and your joy in this world. May my story resonate and rest a soul that is weary, tired and hurt. If you have or are going through this, know you are not alone. Let this also inspire the next generation to do better than I did and more

A picture containing arrow Description automatically generated

Acknowledgment

Writing a book about your life, and going back and reliving those moments is surreal. The process was therapeutic but frustrating at the same time. I often found myself saying, this isn’t long enough, this isn’t good enough, nobody cares about my life and what I have to say. Yet, here we are at the end of the process with a finished product.

I have to take a moment and thank all the people in my inner circle. Those that sacrificed time to hear me bounce ideas off of, editing, and enduring the process with me. Thank you to those who poured into me, believed in what I was doing, and invested in me and my idea. I can never repay you for the confidence that you have given me to see this through to the end.

Although I have not spent many years on this earth, I believe I give a unique perspective on the battles I have faced and overcame to this point. Here is to many more years of handling the pressure and finding the path to my purpose.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgment

About the Author

Preface

Man in the Mirror

My Younger Years

High School

Flagstaff High School

Basha High School

College Years

Virginia Tech

Coffeyville

Loyola Chicago

Nail in the Coffin

IUPUI

Former Loyola Chicago Player Wonders What Could’ve Been

My Adventures as a Professional Athlete

Uruguay

Barcelona

Thailand

Mexico

About the Author

Maurice Kirby was born and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona. The oldest of two sons, Maurice considers himself the trailblazer for his younger brother and the one that leads by example. Playing basketball since he was young, Maurice accumulated many awards along the way like making the Jr.NBA/Jr.WNBA team in the 6 th grade. After years of playing basketball, Maurice got his bachelor’s degree in Communications and Media from Loyola University- Chicago, he then followed that up with a Master’s degree in Sports Journalism from Indiana University Purdue University- Indianapolis.

After college, he started his professional basketball career in Uruguay playing in Montevideo. Following that, he made appearances on teams in Spain, Thailand and Mexico. Maurice currently resides in Arizona as he contemplates his next career move post pandemic in 2021.

Page Blank Intentionally

Preface

They don't tell you that it's going to be an uncomfortable journey when you first pick up that ball. Nobody tells you about the issues you might face when picking a college, having to trust a coach, or how your career will take many twists and turns before its final destination. There are days when picking up a basketball is the last thing you could possibly want to do. Being around teammates isn't always enjoyable, and there will be moments where it feels like all the time and extra work you put into the game was for nothing.

Basketball is the game you love, though. The game you haven't been able to quit since you were little. The game you would exclusively play for decades and part ways with everything else. The game you ate, slept and breathed. The game you couldn't get enough of. The one thing that would make you sneak downstairs past your bedtime for – even if that meant you had to watch it on mute.

This was your life or death; your all or nothing.  The anxious feeling you got in the pit of your stomach every time there was a close game or every time you shot a basket. The one true escape from the world and all the evil in it. You found peace here on this 94- by a 50-foot rectangle of hardwood. As I take you on this journey of my basketball career thus far, I would like to let you in on a few things that I have learned and share what I hope my story will do for you.

First, I understand I am not unique. I mean, I am, in a way, but my story isn't, as I’m sure you know of people with similar histories: kids that struggled in high school, were lied to in college and floated around trying to find their way in this world of basketball. Secondly, I hope that you will have a better understanding of this life and what is to come. I hope to share some of the ins and outs of this game that many people don't know or don’t talk about. I hope this gives insight into my feelings while making decisions and how they have shaped my life thus far. I would like you to put yourself in my shoes at the time these situations happened and think, What would I have done?

Lastly, I don't want you to read this as a poor me type of thing or what my mother would describe as a pity party. As fans and prospective players out there, I simply want you to understand that these things happen. I would hate for people to feel sorry for me because, as I said, my story isn't unique. It happens more than you might think. I have had to live with my decisions as all of us have to. Looking back on it, though, I wish someone would have been real with me when this journey started. That someone would have told me the highs and the lows and what could possibly happen to me as I pursued this career.

Further, this is in no way a shot to the people I have met along my journey. Teammates, coaches, friends, etc. This is not a burn book, but I'm not going to hold back my truth. These things happened, and I will portray them in the following pages to the best of my memory and share how I have grown and learned from them. I have had many great experiences and some not-so-great ones, and that is the beauty of life. You can't have the flowers without enduring

the storms.

Man in the Mirror

Here’s the truth, I have struggled for most of my life with understanding why my mind works the way it does. I have contemplated the cliché sayings of a journey of self-discovery, what is my purpose, or other similar variations which have honestly been some of the worst things I could ask myself, yet I did – those questions wouldn’t relent.

The questions were accompanied by some of the things that often drove me insane – like why certain things happen to me and those I love? How can one be so obsessed with self-improvement and still continue to struggle daily? The latter one, I believe, was often the reason for many headaches.

I am sure these are questions you have asked yourself as you continue your journey. That's why I'm quick to say that these situations aren't uniquely mine. My mom has always told me,

"Son, all we can do is play the hand we have been dealt. We can complain and say how unfair

it is, but that won't change anything. Do the best you can with what you got."

I have taken her words in stride as I go through my own life. I know some people are born into better situations and have things handed to them. I also know at some point, someone else has had a worse hand dealt to them and still ended up winning in the long run.

Still, it doesn’t minimize the fact that I must go through this life. I still have things I question, things that don't make sense to me, things that the world says we are just supposed to accept. Like it or not, it’s part of my story, and I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t try to help you understand who I am and give you all the facts to draw your own conclusion about me at the end of this experience. I know that's what I would want if I were in your shoes: having all the information in front of me before I make decisions.

So, before we dive into my story, I'm going to take a look in the mirror and tell you what I see and how I view myself. For starters, throughout my life, I have had a problem trusting people, and as I have gotten older, that has only gotten worse. I have mastered the ability to tell people just enough about myself to cause them to believe that they know me, but in reality, I’ve barely scratched the surface.

This isn’t something that I wear as a badge of honor.