MARQUES OT SINGLETON, A BASKETBALL PRODIGY… FROM PHILLY STREETS TO OVERSEAS

MARQUES OT SINGLETON, A BASKETBALL PRODIGY…

FROM PHILLY STREETS TO OVERSEAS 

Interviewed by Tammy Orr

“I always said if I made it to the NBA or Europe or Asia and became rich off ball or something else I would write a book about my life”

Marques OT Singleton

Point Guard

Philadelphia, PA

TCO: At what moment did you fall in love with basketball and realize your calling was to be a professional basketball player?

MARQUES: I first fell in love with basketball when I watched Michael Jordan play in the NBA finals against the Utah Jazz.  I was won over with his will to win and his clutch performances that won him 2 of his 6 NBA championships each time he played them.

TCO: What do you love most about basketball?

MARQUES: What do I love about that game most?  I love the difficulty, the rush, the high, the competitiveness it brings to you as a person and most importantly as a man.

TCO: Who was one of your NBA heroes and idols growing up?  What about him did you love and idolize?

MARQUES: Allen Iverson was my favorite NBA hero growing up.  I admired his style of play and his mental and physical toughness.  I studied and mastered his famous killer crossover that he used to dominate his opponents with.  I have modeled most of my game after him.

TCO: Name a few current, famous, professional basketball coaches and players you would love to meet in person?

MARQUES: I would love to meet many people.  As far as coaches I would like to meet Chuck Daily because he coached the “Dream Team”, one of the greatest professional teams in sports history.  John Thompson is another because he coached Allen Iverson, who is my favorite player of all time.  When it comes to players I would of course love to meet Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant.

TCO: If you had a choice to play for any NBA team, what team would it be and why?

MARQUES: The Philadelphia 76ers because it is my hometown and I would love to play in my city in front of all of my family, friends and peers.

TCO: Growing up you earned and adopted several nicknames. What were they and how did you get them?

MARQUES: Ever since I was a teenager, I always have been given different nicknames on the court.  As a teenager people used to always call me “light skin”. In my neighborhood during the uprising of “AND1” and street ball, as I was becoming a young adult after high school, I was the only person in the area that had an “AND1” flashy type of game that people weren’t used to seeing locally.  I mean people watched street ball on TV but never really witnessed it in person.  So when I brought that style of play to the neighborhood, everyone loved it.  My old head and mentor Robert Green Sr is the one who gave me the name “AND1” due to my style of play.  After seeing me play, he continued to call me that so the name stuck.  In college my Juco coach Tommy Vaughn gave me the nickname “Smiles” because of one day in practice he kept making us run 17’s and suicides back to back to back.  He was so confused and amused by my great conditioning, pushing myself to the limit, smiling every time he kept yelling at us, so he gave me that name and it stuck with me for the rest of my college career.  As far as the name “OT” which is “Overtime” for short, was made up by myself.  One summer I always put in work at clutch time and late in almost every game while always doing street ball tricks at Rose playground’s unlimited league.  Guys were calling me ‘Overboard” so someone said, “naw, how about ‘Overtime’”.   I adopted the name and then people started calling me “OT” for short and it stuck to this day, so there you go.

TCO: Can you educate us on street ball vs. structured basketball?

MARQUES: Structured basketball is strictly controlled under the whistle, not too fancy or flashy, mostly just fundamentals.  Street ball is more local and mostly consists of flashy crossovers, passes, and highflying dunks.  Street ball is also more one on one and played outside locally or nationally.  Most people say if you can’t play street ball at the Rucker or in a top city league in Philly or  LA, you haven’t completely earned your strips.  That’s why every summer a lot of NBA guys play in the top summer leagues in the country to prove they can hold their own everywhere.  It makes sense though because everyone first learned or started playing on the blacktop before the hardwood.

TCO: As a young kid and through part of high school, your height and size was an obstacle for you. What challenges did you face?

MARQUES: I was always taller than most kids for my age, but never was tall compared to other basketball players my age.  When I was a freshman I was only 5’9”, then starting my sophomore year I grew one inch every year.  By my senior year I was 6 feet tall and then after high school I grew two more inches and got to about 6’ 1” ½.  Not being that athletic and short before I had that growth spurt, my height got me overlooked a lot when it came to basketball.

TCO: What are your strengths as a ball player?  What areas of skill and performance would you like to improve?

MARQUES: I am and always have been a great shooter.  I always have had a great street ball “AND1” type of handle that is very difficult for a lot of guards to stick.  I would love to work on my explosiveness and jumping ability because that is the one thing that a lot of basketball players have advantage over me.

TCO: What are some of your other talents?

MARQUES: I am also a great baseball as well as volleyball player, believe it or not lol.  Not to forget acting and telling jokes.  I’ve always been good at imitating people and telling jokes.

TCO: What are your hobbies?

MARQUES: Besides basketball my top hobbies include reading, blogging, watching rap battles, working out and working on and repairing computers.

TCO: Your mother is a strong, independent, and amazing woman.  She played an important role in raising you right and the best she could, keeping you out of the streets, struggling as a single mother to pay the bills, and placing a high importance on education.  Can you share with us?

MARQUES: My mother has been my backbone all my life.  Even though my mother only had one child, times still got rough.  She always pulled through when I needed her most.  She kept me out of the streets by placing me in the top basketball and recreational camps in the area to keep me busy and away from drugs and bad crowds.  Education was always important in my family.  My grandfather and grandmother didn’t go as far as they could, due to racial and financial problems they went through during their youth.  My grandfather didn’t make it past 5^th grade due to some racial problems he had in the south growing up and my grandmother had to drop out of college because she couldn’t afford it, so they made sure all three of their children finished high school and went to college.  Since she was raised this way, she brought me up the same.

TCO: During college at DCC (Delaware Community College) you were in a terrible car accident, the victim of a brutal stabbing, and battled several severe health conditions.  Can you share with us?

MARQUES: The whole time I was in college from day one to the day I graduated.  I had plenty of hardships that made school difficult as well as depressing.  My very first semester of college I suffered a minor concussion from a head on car accident that forced me to withdraw and come back in the fall.  When I returned in the fall I was visiting some friends in my old west Philly neighborhood of Overbrook Park and was robbed and stabbed.  I got lucky and was noticed by two of my childhood friends who drove me to the hospital and saved my life.  These incidents caused me to red shirt my first year of college and miss the first half of my first season.  Once I went, I graduated and transferred to SRU.  I lost my great-grandmother, best friend, and some other childhood and close friends of mine and contracted MONO somehow with a three semester time period that caused me to struggle with my course load my last two years of college.

TCO: You have had many people, important and close to you, pass away in your life. Can you share with us someone who was
influential to you growing up and their significance?

MARQUES: The most influential person who was in my life growing up was my grandfather.  I looked up to him so much because he came here to Philadelphia in 1936 at the age of 21 all the way from Waterboro, SC with basically nothing and built himself from the ground up.  He took care of all his family and helped less fortunate people whenever he could.  By my father never paying attention to me and not ever having a steady father figure in my life, he was the only real father role model I had growing up.  When he passed at the age of 88, I was only 18 years old.  It crushed me and took me a very long time to get over his passing. They don’t make men like my grandfather now days.

TCO: You graduated SRU (Slippery Rock University) with your bachelor’s degree after many years of hard work, dedication, focus, and sacrifice… congratulations.  I understand that for an athlete, going to school full time and playing sports competitively can be very difficult, stressful and challenging. How did you struggle with this?

MARQUES: Well, by the time I got to SRU, I was ineligible, so I was just going to school full-time and practicing and playing intramurals with past and present Slippery Rock University basketball players.  School was much easier than my first two years of college.  The first half of college I was a full-time student athlete at DCC.  Those were my hardest days of college.  I had practice four times a week and games two days a week plus four to five classes at a time.  Being a student athlete isn’t easy at all.  Every time you turn around you have a game, practice, or a project/test.  It’s not for everybody, but if you dedicate yourself it is very possible, trust me.

TCO: After finishing college you were asked to participate in the Eurobasket Summer League in Chicago. What is ESL?

MARQUES: The ESL (Eurobasket Summer League) is one of the top overseas versions of the NBA summer league.  It is a free agent summer league for guys who didn’t get NBA summer league invites and still wanted a chance to play overseas.

TCO: Who was one of your favorite basketball coaches and how did he help you learn and grow as a player?

MARQUES: When I was playing for Tommy Vaughn at DCC he taught me mostly everything that I needed to know on the college and pro level.  Growing up through high school, I would say St. Joe’s head coach Phil Martelli taught me the fundamentals and basketball basics.  I attended his camps from the age of 8 to 18, so I learned a lot from him.  Best coach I ever worked with.

TCO: You impressed owner/head coach Ron Hicks of the Chicago team of the ABA. Seeing talent and potential in you, what was the offer he made?

MARQUES: He offered me to a contract to go on tour with the Chicago Steam to play in Spain and China for $100 to $300 a game depending on my performance. There were 10 games to be played in Spain and 6 games in China.  The Spain trip kept getting postponed due to the NBA lockout.  NBA players were out of jobs, so they were taking all the jobs overseas, it was bad timing.  The China trip was chalked by me due to all the strict rules that they have over there that I wasn’t ready to follow.  I really couldn’t see myself playing in a communist country being from the US.

TCO: How did the NBA lockout in 2011 affect you and other players in basketball?

MARQUES: The NBA lockout in 2011 affected mostly just the NBA undrafted rookies and mid major basketball players without household names, because most of the NBA vets where taking all of minor league and overseas jobs.  This made it very difficult for under the radar players like me to find jobs because most teams outside the NBA where only marketing themselves to household name players only.

TCO: Through your journey in basketball, what have you learned about yourself and your dream?

MARQUES: I have learned that if you work hard enough anything is possible. “What you get out of things is determined by how hard you work” Nothing is going to be given to you unless you earn it.  You have to be self-made out here. When I sit here and look back on all the hard work I put into my career it really makes me understand how life works.

TCO: What advice can you give to young aspiring players sharing your same dream of becoming a professional basketball player?

MARQUES: Work on your craft and do well in school.  The better your grades are and the harder you work, the easier your journey will be.  Stay away from drugs, bad crowds and anybody that doesn’t support you and tries to bring you down with them.

TCO: What was one of your successes and achievements for the year 2012?

MARQUES: One of my best achievements of 2012 was playing in Peru last spring.  I loved it there and the people there loved me too.  Thanks to Calvin Brown Jr the owner of the Metropolitan All-Stars based out of the DMV area.

TCO: Where do you see yourself five years from now? Ten years?

MARQUES: Five years from now I see myself still playing professional basketball on either the NBA, Minor League, or streetball level, or coaching youth.  Ten years from now I see myself having my own youth basketball clinic, coaching somewhere, and maybe still playing basketball somewhere.  As far as I am concerned, I will be able to play basketball well into my late 30’s or early 40’s like Rasheed Wallace and Jason Kidd.

TCO: What did you share with me the other day that you would do if you made it to the NBA or Europe or Asia or became rich off something else?

MARQUES: I would write about my life.  It would do well and sell a lot of copies because I personally think a lot of people could and would relate to my life journey.

TCO: What’s next for Marques Singleton? What are your goals and plans for 2013?

MARQUES: Continue to grind hard and pursue my dreams of playing professional basketball on the highest level I can reach.  I’m returning to Peru this spring to play on tour with Calvin Brown Jr. and the Metro All-Stars.