Giving Him His Due One More Time

My position as a writer/scout for DraftExpress.com has given me some unique opportunities to watch a tremendous number of talented basketball players. It has also given me the chance to sit down and talk with some of them. During the months of April and May and I was placed in charge of the site's "NBA Draft Diary" column in which I would get to interview elite college players who were going through the process of trying to get drafted by an NBA team. After these interviews I would compile stories about the experiences of the players leading up to draft day.
As a basketball fan, just getting to learn first hand all of the preparation and training that goes on for one night, was tremendously interesting in itself. The most enjoyable part of my work though was getting to see these players beyond the basketball court and learn about them as people. By far the most inspiring story that I heard was that of Virginia Tech's Zabian Dowdell.
I interviewed Dowdell in late May and subsequently wrote my story on the interview just a couple of days later.
The first thing that struck me about Dowdell was how down to earth he was, and how generally interested he was in the interview. Here was an All-Conference college basketball player, a guy who has done more interviews than I care to imagine, and he was still doing his best to give me a great interview. As a journalist, especially one involved in sports, that is always greatly appreciated.
Now given that Dowdell was a Virginia Tech student, and the shooting was still recent news, I had to turn to that subject during the course of the interview. Even though the focus of the column was the preparation for the draft, I would have been foolish not to bring up the shooting, and this is where Dowdell suddenly became more than a basketball player, but he became an individual to strive to be like.
You see, Dowdell was so moved by the tragedy, and was so grateful to Virginia Tech for the four years he had spent there, that he donated $5000 of his own money to the relief fund. That's a tremendous gesture for any college student to make, but for Dowdell it was especially moving. Dowdell is from Pahokee, Florida, a town known for its storied history of producing pro football players, but also known for its immense poverty.
Here was a kid who had almost no money, and despite being such a good basketball player, was at best a 50-50 shot to even get drafted, let alone be signed to an NBA contract, and yet he was so grateful for the education and opportunity that he had been given by his school, that at the first chance he got he donated almost everything he had. The sad part of this story is that when I was at the draft in late June I spent the entire second round hoping to hear his name called, but it never was. Like so many other NBA hopefuls, Dowdell was not one of the 60 players to have their names announced at Madison Square Garden.
I haven't talked to or heard much of Dowdell since our interview a few months ago. I can only imagine that like so many other talented players that go undrafted, he is exploring options over seas in hopes of one day making an NBA roster. The point here though isn't whether or not Dowdell one day reaches the pros, the point is what kind of character he showed. Knowing full well that he was facing an uphill battle to get drafted and bring in a big time salary that he and his family could so desperately use, he still donated what money he had to his university. It isn't often that you see that kind of appreciation from people, especially ones who potentially have so much to gain. We would all be wise to mimic the actions of someone like Zabian Dowdell in our own lives.
So Zabian, wherever you are right now, just know that there is still one writer and a fan, who still appreciates what you did and is pulling for you.