Basketball player likes feel of being role model

As Staten sat hunched over on the bench afterwards, “someone kept tapping me on the shoulder,” he said. “He called my name, and I turned and saw it was LeBron James.

“He told me I played a great game and to keep my head up.”

Staten met a hero who offered comfort when it was desperately needed.

Then, in May, as Staten was completing his junior year, his mother, Cecilia Hill, the secretary at Thurgood Marshall asked for a favor. “She came to me with a basketball to sign,” recalls Staten. “A father of a boy named David with leukemia brought it in. He said I was his son’s favorite high school player.”

“One of our cafeteria deliverymen brought in the ball,” said Hill. “His son is 12 or 13, and he wanted to know if Juwan would sign it.

“He hadn’t asked for a photo, but when Juwan got home that night, he went through our scrapbook, got out a picture, signed and framed it and asked me to take it back in with the basketball.”

The boy later sent a letter to Staten through his father, thanking him for the picture and for signing the ball. “He said he had watched Juwan all through the state tournament, and wished him luck at the University of Dayton, where’s he’s verbally committed to go for college,” said Hill. He also wanted permission to go onto Juwan’s Myspace page.

“I never met him, but I gave him permission and he wrote on my page and congratulated me on going to Oak Hill Academy in Virginia next year,” said Juwan.

Staten applied to and was accepted by Oak Hill, a prep school known for its basketball program, which provides strong competition and national exposure for its players.

“A part of me wanted to stay and play for the Cougars my senior year,” said Staten, “but I felt leaving was something I needed to do to be the basketball player I want to be.”

As a volunteer coach at the Daequan Cook Basketball Camp last month, Staten — like Cook — was asked for his autograph by young participants. Again, he was surprised, but is still especially proud of his fan David, whose attention to his season and future was surprising to him.

“It made me feel kind of like a hero, and made me realize I’m a role model. Somebody I had never met looked up to me, and it made me feel good.”

Contact this columnist at (937) 276-4441 or vburroughs@woh.rr.com.