For four weeks, it's been a constant grind, a simple schedule, an ease-in approach with an hour of weights and a 50-minute practice at Ice Family Basketball Center. The Kansas State men's basketball team, compiled of players from across the country but shooting for the same goal, eats breakfast together, competes hard on the court and gels off the court, consumed in a world of their own — a world that at the end of the day typically includes video games and a couch.
After four weeks of the grind, there' a break in this summer phase of preparation for the Kansas State men's basketball program. Players will enjoy this week and the Fourth of July and return to the Ice Family Basketball Center on July 5. That's when 23-year-old Isaiah Walker, who's in his first season as the Director of Player Development, will rejoin the rest of the K-State coaching staff and get his hands again on this new group of players, so eager, and so together, and so engaged in the 55-minute practice sessions each day under the watchful eye of assistant coaches and support staff — many who've seen it, who've felt it, and who are teaching the many intricacies of a recipe that's led to proven success under head coach Casey Alexander to the Little Apple.
He grabbed the microphone with his left hand and pointed to the sky with his right, this whirling, lavender polo-wearing, country traveling, sideline pumping, official-recruiting-visit speaking, 41-year-old son of Wichita, Kansas, who was born 6.1 miles east at Wesley Medical Center, and who today stands before hundreds of purple-clad Kansas State supporters at Chicken N Pickle, needing no introduction at the Wichita Catbackers gathering — just a microphone.
On the corner of Lillian Avenue and Beacon Drive sits a yellow, two-story house in north St. Louis, Missouri. The area has seen a history of severe gun violence, including several high-profile homicides, and a 16-year-old was murdered last July while riding his bike nearby. Freddie and Rosie Patterson have resided in the house for more than 50 years, and they refuse the overtures of their youngest son, Cory Patterson, to relocate them to a safer location. Freddie is blind and Rosie had a stroke, but the place is home. Young men mow their yard and trim bushes.
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