Champagnie makes the list for Wooden Award Watch List snubs
- Thread starter ariputtie
- Start date
beast of the east
Active member
It's just a list to draw attention to the award. meaningless
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In contrast to Panther’s excellent and informative post about Rasheem Dunn, who I mentioned years ago had dinner at my house after St. Francis played Concordia University in Montreal and whom I happen to like very much there are stories that work out very well. There are coaches and friends who truly have a players best interest at heart.
if we look at the Wooden Award List one of the players is Benedict Mathurin, of the University of Arizona and originally from Montreal. Without going into too much detail a few years ago Ben’s younger brother was run over by a bus and died and as a result , and no small surprise, his mom fell apart. At that time Ben could have gone any number of ways. His coaches at BrookwoodElite started to think what could they do for this very talented young man before it was too late. They sent him away to school at the NBA Academy in Mexico City in order to put Ben in a highly structured environment. As a result Ben could not practice with the BrookwoodElite team and really only showed up for major tourments which hurt team chemistry. Even in the summers right after each tournament ended Ben was driven to an airport and flew back to Mexico City for 12 months a year training and school. It also hurt the BrookwoodElite program because they played little if any role in Bens recruitment. And it would certainly have assisted the program to have numerous top flight coaches flying in to their little gym in Montreal.
Both Nelson Osse and Joey McKitterick did what was best for Ben never giving a thought for themselves or the AAU program they have been building for almost 20 years. They only cared about the welfare of this young man and I take my hat off to them for being such selfless and outstanding individuals and am proud to be associated with and to represent the organization when they need someone to review their contracts, assist them in fundraising, speak to the kids about police brutality and what are their rights when stopped by police etc. And this even though my son has graduated from the program.
there are some good people involved with the kids.
i hope that when they call out Bens name next spring at the NBA draft that his mom can attend and be there with him and that his brother can look down from heaven and smile at the brother he always looked up to.
i know that Bens BrookwoodElite family as well as my son who remains in touch with him, as well as my wife whom he would hug after games and I who give him encouragement are rooting so hard for him as no one deserves success more than Ben.
if we look at the Wooden Award List one of the players is Benedict Mathurin, of the University of Arizona and originally from Montreal. Without going into too much detail a few years ago Ben’s younger brother was run over by a bus and died and as a result , and no small surprise, his mom fell apart. At that time Ben could have gone any number of ways. His coaches at BrookwoodElite started to think what could they do for this very talented young man before it was too late. They sent him away to school at the NBA Academy in Mexico City in order to put Ben in a highly structured environment. As a result Ben could not practice with the BrookwoodElite team and really only showed up for major tourments which hurt team chemistry. Even in the summers right after each tournament ended Ben was driven to an airport and flew back to Mexico City for 12 months a year training and school. It also hurt the BrookwoodElite program because they played little if any role in Bens recruitment. And it would certainly have assisted the program to have numerous top flight coaches flying in to their little gym in Montreal.
Both Nelson Osse and Joey McKitterick did what was best for Ben never giving a thought for themselves or the AAU program they have been building for almost 20 years. They only cared about the welfare of this young man and I take my hat off to them for being such selfless and outstanding individuals and am proud to be associated with and to represent the organization when they need someone to review their contracts, assist them in fundraising, speak to the kids about police brutality and what are their rights when stopped by police etc. And this even though my son has graduated from the program.
there are some good people involved with the kids.
i hope that when they call out Bens name next spring at the NBA draft that his mom can attend and be there with him and that his brother can look down from heaven and smile at the brother he always looked up to.
i know that Bens BrookwoodElite family as well as my son who remains in touch with him, as well as my wife whom he would hug after games and I who give him encouragement are rooting so hard for him as no one deserves success more than Ben.
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This story continues towards a very happy ending. Last week Ben won conference player of the year. Yesterday Arizona overcame a huge deficit to beat UCLA and win the PAC 12 championship. Ben scored 27 and was named tournament MVP and today Zona was given a number 1 seed.redmannorth post=449517 said:
Wishing Ben continued success in the tournament, the deeper Arizona goes in the tourney the higher his draft status in June.