Press Releases

May 14, 2002
No Small Feat: Fallen Hoops Star Gets Second Chance and Slam Dunks Degree

Curtis Small Survived Mean Streets, Gangs, Juvenile Detention and Resurrected a Broken Dream

Contact:
Darren Johnson (PR@southampton.liu.edu)
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081

Southampton, NY ? You've heard this part of the story before: Curtis Small was a playground basketball legend, started hanging out with gangs, had a kid, went to jail. And that's usually the end of the story.

But ? found tossing the ball around on broken Brooklyn streets by a scout of former New York Knick Sidney Green, he started a miraculous, albeit rocky, comeback that led him to a completely different universe: From urban Brooklyn, he found himself at a college in the Hamptons, and, there, he also found himself.

It took five years, but Curtis Small is graduating from Southampton College of Long Island University ? the first in his family to go to college but not the first to finish. His grandmother, just before she died two years ago, got a two-year degree and it inspired Curtis, after failing out, to go back and give college one more try. And did he ever!

He not only shored up his GPA and is finishing up his degree in Business, but he also had his best year ever in basketball, scoring 668 points, leading the nation in free throw percentage (94.0) and being named to the All Metro team. He now is being scouted by pro teams from around the world, and his mother, Edna ? the person who stood by him even though she's been homebound with lupus ? will be there as when he walks at Southampton College's Commencement on Sunday, May 19 at 2 p.m.

He is just a few credits shy of his B.A. degree, which he is expected to complete later this year. Southampton College allows students to walk at graduation if they are six credits or fewer shy of the required 128 credits.

Curtis parlayed his legendary status on Brooklyn's courts ? a talent that resulted in his being placed on a sneaker poster with Allen Iverson and profiled in top magazines and on New York TV ? to being a star player at Southampton College, where he was recruited by former coach Green. Then things went wrong.

The death of his grandmother and his mother's sickness conspired against Curtis during his junior year, when he went from being New York Collegiate Athletic Conference scoring champ to the Colonials? sixth man. His grades fell to the point where it looked very unlikely he would graduate, let alone ever play organized basketball again.

"I kept thinking I had everything under control, but things were taking their toll," Curtis said. "I was pretty much in denial, but things were tearing me apart. When I went down, things went down with my grades."

Meanwhile grandmother Mildred Small, fighting near-crippling arthritis, struggled to get her degree at Nassau Community College. She made Curtis promise that he too would do whatever it took to get his degree. When she died, her words suddenly gave Curtis a newfound focus and determination. Academically suspended from Southampton College, Curtis retook core courses at Suffolk Community College and got the necessary grades to return to the Division II school that's known for its waterfront setting and small class sizes.

"My grandmother always told me to get my degree, and I knew that I was going through a lot of things, but I realized I wasn?t going through anything as tough as what she went through," Curtis said. "She did it, and I at least owe this degree to her. I look at my situation and I say, 'You know, she had to have it tough in a wheelchair getting up to go to class every day,' and if she could do it, I can do it."

In his years at Southampton College, Curtis volunteered and then became a spokesman for Big Brothers Big Sisters, taking other underprivileged kids under his wing. He did it because he missed his own son, K?Sean, who was born nine years ago, when Curtis had fallen in with the wrong crowd and spent a year in juvenile detention for weapons possession.

"I got involved with Big Brothers mainly because I have a young son and he lives in Maryland. I know that I am not able to get out with him and talk with him one-on-one, so I figured if there are programs like that where he is, then that is a positive thing for him to be in," Curtis said.

"I thought it was my duty to talk to the young kids about where I've been and how there are a lot of obstacles. If you believe in yourself and if you believe in God, you can bounce back. You can have a second chance in life."