Kitchener’s Jamal Murray to debut with Kentucky Friday
Posted Nov 13, 2015 06:46:35 AM.
Last Updated Apr 18, 2017 09:49:54 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
By Martin Bauman
Many basketball fans will be keeping a close watch on Kentucky tonight — none closer than the man who has seen Kitchener native Jamal Murray’s rise from the very beginning.
Roger Murray, Jamal’s father, is invariably mentioned whenever the media-shy hoops phenom is asked by reporters about his path to success. It was Roger who first coached Jamal, helping hone his jump shot and break down film of the game’s greats.
“Believe it or not, from before he could walk, I gave him the ball,” says the elder Murray.
“I just started from there, and [he] progressed and progressed. I told him, ‘If you want to pay for your education, you can use this,’ and [we] worked both on the court and in school.”
Tonight, Roger will watch Jamal make his freshman debut as the starting shooting guard for the NCAA powerhouse Wildcats, a dream come to fruition after years in the making.
Not bad for a kid from Kitchener.
Murray says it’s a dream his son has worked hard on accomplishing:
“I said, ‘If you want to be the best basketball player that ever lived, you have to do certain things, and you can’t be regular.’ I always tell him, ‘There’s a million [regular] players around. Everybody’s the same. If you want to rise above, you have to do the extraordinary.'”
Extraordinary is one word to describe Murray’s play in the 2015 Pan Am Games, where the 18-year-old shone as the youngest member of Canada’s men’s basketball team, prompting compliments from scouts and pros alike — including NBA point guard Brandon Jennings.
To Roger, it wasn’t a surprise. It was just another example of the extra work his son has put in:
“Everyone says they want to do it, but they don’t know what it takes to get there. It’s hard sometimes, because life happens, and sometimes it pushes people off the tracks, but when you’re willing to stick and stay, it works in many ways.”
