Basketball
Favorite athlete: Derrick Rose
Favorite team: Oklahoma City Thunder
Favorite memory competing in sports: During our first scrimmage, my first game with the team, I made three three-pointers in a row.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that happened while competing in sports: At one of our Saturday practices, the underclassmen performed in a talent show. The other seniors and I were the judges. Their talents were hilarious.
Music on iPod: Drake and Eminem
Future plans: I hope to attend college when I graduate this year. I also hope to play basketball at the collegiate level.
Favorite motto: “We play for the 3900.” This is the motto that our team plays for. There are approximately 3900 students in our district. We want to consistently exemplify strong character for our community. We don’t just play for us, we play for everyone.
One goal before turning 30: Finishing college and having a respected job.
One thing people don’t know about me: I used to live in Upper Darby.
By GORDON GLANTZ
They call it the 3,900.
It is what Upper Merion Area High School boys’ varsity basketball squad, under the guidance of first-year coach Jason Quenzer, is taught that it represents.
It represents something more than just the individuals on the team, or even the team as a whole, but the school district – students, teachers, etc. – and the community.
In the locker room, there is a bulletin board. Each player is asked to put up a picture of someone outside the team they are playing for this season.
Senior guard Joshua Grant has a picture of himself and his mother, Michelle.
“I’m going to ask him to put it up there,” said Quenzer.
A lot of people, teammates included, may not fully understand the story behind the story.
Grant is not only a newcomer to the team, but also to the school.
He came to area in June, after Michelle succumbed after a long battle with multiple sclerosis, to live with his father and grandparents.
Not only does he now have a place on the team, but a key role drawing the assignment of stopping the opposing teams’ top gun.
“I think he plays for his mom,” said Quenzer, formerly the head coach at Upper Merion Area Middle School, where he teaches. “He just goes out there and puts his game face on.
“He’s our top defender. He gives us that spark, that edge.”
Grant’s older brother, Michael, was at Upper Merion last year, playing football and basketball.
When he entered the school this September, there was natural confusion – and questions – as to who he was and where he came from.
“I was here for the summer, but I mostly just stayed inside,” said Grant. “It was different. People knew who Mike was and asked if I was his brother.
“I wanted to make my own name.”
Despite having not risen above the junior varsity level at Hart County High School in Northeastern Georgia, which he describes as being a smaller school than Upper Merion, Grant decided to attend open gyms run by Upper Merion coaching staff in hopes of being noticed and finding an identity.
“Anybody can come (to the open gyms) and shoot around, and the coaches are there and run drills,” said Grant.
And despite being a little undersized – Quenzer says he is 5-10, but Grant admits he is really 5-8 – he made enough of an impression to land an invitation to formal tryouts.
And then, a spot on the roster.
“There was a little bit of doubt in my mind,” said Grant, who also plans to run track as a sprinter in the spring. “I had come to a new school, and I was on the team.
“I was real happy.”
The feeling was mutual.
“He’s a great kid,” said Quenzer. “He’s one of those kids you want on your team. He’s a hustle guy, and a good leader. The other guys look up to him.
“He helps us a lot. He quickly found his role and is a real team-first kind of a guy. He’s great to have on the team.”
While Quenzer initially watched Grant from afar during the open gyms, the two got to know each other better through the tryout process and formed a unique bond.
“We started talking more during tryouts,” said Grant.
Quenzer said he didn’t know the full story about Grant and his mother, but he knew enough.
“I had heard a little about it,” he said. “We had a conversation. I told him that I lost my father when I was in high school. We have that common ground. I think he considered it a valuable conversation. I know I did.”
Grant said the conversation meant a lot to him, maybe more than Quenzer realizes.
“It did, a lot,” he said. “I feel like I can trust him more; like I can talk to him about things more.”
While Grant is finding a niche within the team, fitting in as a quiet newcomer in a school far from his home remains an understandable struggle.
“Absolutely,” said Quenzer. “He made a comment that he was just trying to get people to like him. I told him to just be himself and that he’ll be fine.”
“It’s been pretty different,” said Grant. “Had to come to a new school and make new friends.”
As for the team, though, Grant has quickly become part of the family. Therefore, Quenzer is going to ask Grant to get up in front of his new brothers and talk about his mother and explain why he chose a picture of the two of them for the bulletin board.
“I think he’s ready to tell his story,” said the coach.
Grant agrees.
“I won’t really have a problem with doing it,” he said.
That story will include how Grant was his mother’s primary caregiver as the disease progressed.
“It got worse as years went by,” he said. “I had to take care of her, with her all her pills and everything.”
But it was more than that.
“We just had a real good relationship,” he said.
The day she passed away, despite some bad days, was surreal for Grant.
“I didn’t expect it at all,” he said. “The day it happened, she was fine. It happened at night. They told me (at the hospital) that she had a seizure.”
While a day doesn’t go by that he doesn’t think about his mother, Grant is now able to set his sights on the future.
He plans to attend college, and currently lists West Chester University as a frontrunner. He plans to major in either business or criminal justice.
And the positive experience of playing basketball for Upper Merion, and the 3,900, has played a big part in writing new chapters of the satisfying life his mother surely wanted him to have.
