>Below is an article that was written on me in Junior College. When this article first came out I was really angry at the writer. I thought it would isolate me from my teammates. (My teammates were indefferent) Discussing my financial situation and family situation, In a culture were Finances are not a typical topic for a sports writer on a college athelete. Over the years my career had taken a crazy path, i look back at this article and realize that its all true. You cant help where your from or what advantages or disadvantages physically socially, economically you may have. We all are teamates in a game called life, basketball has no boundaries, I have met more people from every background possible in this game and you know what we all had in common, Basketball. Sport reveals mans need to compete and to work together to achieve goals. I love the game for that reason alone.
“Are You Elite?”
When I started this blog it is intended to give atheletes a resource and tell them my story. Read the article and the next one i post will leave you smiling.(Written 3years apart!)
www.eliteproperformance.com, Training in Northern Nevada, Reno Personal training
Atkinson not the typical JC player
Joe Curley, jcurley@insidevc.com Tuesday, February 11, 2003
It’s not just the floppy blond hair and eagerness to involve his teammates that distinguishes Mike Atkinson from most of his out-of-state California community college brethren.
While many of the urban outsiders that pepper California rosters come west to forget pasts intertwined with all the symptoms of an underprivileged upbringing — like hunger, drugs or gangs — the 6-foot-4 Reno, Nev., product comes from money, which qualifies as a skeleton in the closet when you spend your Saturday nights playing the city’s game with urban offspring.
“I wouldn’t like to say I’m from a higher class or anything,” said Atkinson. “I’d say my parents make a good living. I’ve never felt uncomfortable about that. I’d say I fit in pretty well.”
As much as he would like it to be otherwise, he is a very different JC basketball player.
A significant portion of his teammates and opponents live from check to check on financial aid. Atkinson pays the $650 monthly rent for his Simi Valley apartment by liquidating his stock portfolio. Most out-of-state players know the impotent feeling of living in California without a car. Atkinson paid for his 2000 Dodge Durango out of his own pocket.
He spent the first 10 years of his life with a successful entrepreneur for a stepfather, living in a 6,300-square foot mansion that included 21/2 acres of grounds, tennis courts and lake access in a private community outside Reno. Although his psychotherapist mother is remarried, to a dentist in a 4,800- square mountaintop homestead that overlooks the city, Mike bears Charles Atkinson’s surname and considers him his father.
Yet he has made his choice, spurning other life paths to play basketball against players for whom there were no shiny alternatives.
“If he didn’t have this love for basketball, he’d be at a four-year institution,” said Atkinson’s mother, Donna Hamilton.
Somehow the game reached past individual-based sports of the upper class, like tennis and squash (the loves of his stepfather), and gripped him. His first word was ball. At 4 years old, he started playing basketball at a local YMCA after his grandmother fabricated his age. A year later, he told his mother he wanted to be a Harlem Globetrotter.He was selected to take part in his school system’s program for gifted students, but used most of his creativity on the court. He developed into a refined, if undersized, post performer in a structured, winning program at Galena High, where he played in three Nevada state title games. When he disappointed in front of college coaches at an important tournament, he returned home to shoot for hours on a school night in the freezing mountain air.
“Maybe his natural, genetic ability isn’t great,” said Hamilton, “but his desire and his heart is.”
Making his teammates better became the most important thing in his life. When no scholarship offers came, he elected to continue playing at the only level available to him.
At Moorpark, he has made himself into the best 6-foot-4 center possible, averaging 8.8 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game while taking every loss like he would a cyanide pill.
“Whenever anybody watches him, you hear the same thing, ‘God, I love your No. 22,’ ” said Moorpark head coach Remy McCarthy. “It’s because he does everything he can for us. He gets by more with his heart and his head than his athleticism.”
Knowing a team is made up of more than simply five scorers, several four-year programs have shown interest in giving Atkinson the scholarship for which he has detoured his life. When he accepts, he will do so with the knowledge that he earned it on his own, without any advantage at birth.
“Basketball is Mike’s spiritual path,” said Hamilton. “Instead of being on a mountain somewhere, he uses basketball to go beyond color and beyond socioeconomic groups. It’s his way of telling his teammates, ‘We are the same.’ “
