UVa’s Singletary deserves to be singled out

By Andy Bitter

Published: March 12, 2008

CHARLOTTESVILLE — The players towered over him. They always have and always will. But on this day, they were especially intimidating. Sean Singletary, then a 7-year-old with a growing appetite for basketball, didn’t want to play in the league with kids three years his senior and twice his size. They were too big, too physical, simply too much for the wide-eyed youngster.
That’s when his mother Jacqui imparted to him a phrase she’d repeat throughout his life, wisdom he remembers every time he drives to the basket, every time he undertakes another monumental challenge.
“The only giants in life are in your head,” she told him. “And you can erase them. You can conquer anything if your approach is right and you really set your mind to it.”
That’s how somebody who is 6 feet tall in platform shoes carved out one of the most memorable careers in ACC history. Singletary came to UVa four years ago with big expectations and delivered, leading the moribund Cavaliers back to relevancy while becoming one of five players in school history to top 2,000 career points.
And when his career finishes, which could be as early as today, when Virginia plays Georgia Tech in the first round of the ACC Tournament, his legacy will compare favorably with UVa greats like Ralph Sampson, Bryant Stith and Barry Parkhill.
In the last few years, the guard has been every bit as integral to the Virginia basketball program as coach Dave Leitao or the $130 million John Paul Jones Arena.
“What he does for our program — not just this team — is insurmountable,” Leitao said. “I don’t think I can imagine where we’d be in our building process if we did not have him. He’s legitimized us.”
A natural athlete
Harold and Jacqui Singletary knew they had a competitor on their hands almost immediately. By age 2, Sean was already dribbling a basketball and doing pushups. By 4, he was participating in the Junior Olympics (his parents had to get their own insurance because the team wouldn’t cover anybody under the age of 6). At the race, Sean won a sixth-place ribbon in the 400 meters against a group of mostly 8-year-olds.
“The biggest thing on him coming around the track was his head. It was so cute,” Jacqui said. “But we were shocked that he came in sixth place. A lot of people were shocked.”
It wasn’t long before Sean was waking up his father, a detective in the Philadelphia police department, to bum along during his 6 a.m. workouts. Harold, who boxed in his spare time, would hit the heavy bag with his two older sons. Sean would join in. They’d run and Sean would bolt out in front.
“He didn’t like me running in front of him because he thought he was the fastest runner,” Harold said.
Soon, basketball and football became his true loves. He’d sleep with either a dirty basketball or football in his bed depending on the season, despite his mother’s objections.
She encouraged his sporting interests in every other way, though, going as far as taking him to the roughest neighborhoods Philadelphia had to offer because, well, that’s where the toughest players were. But Jacqui bristles when she reads stories that Sean grew up on the mean streets of Philly.
“Far from it,” she said. “Sean went to a private school. Sean was raised in an 18-room home. Now, Sean was exposed to all of Philadelphia, because we wanted him exposed to all of Philadelphia.”
Those trips — always chaperoned by a family member — proved crucial in Sean’s development as a basketball player. He honed his skills against the best, getting knocked to the ground but bouncing right back up. The first half season of rec ball he played, the older, taller players blocked nearly every one of his shots. But he adjusted, showing glimpses of his current creativity to get a shot off in the lane.
His game grew and he spent his first two years of high school making a name for himself at Perkiomen, a boarding school an hour north of Philly. But he moved on to William Penn Charter School for his junior and senior seasons to get more exposure as a basketball player.
Though he still loved football and got serious offers from schools to play as a wide receiver in college, basketball won out. He’d always imagined himself playing in the NBA, just like his idols, Isiah Thomas and Allen Iverson, small guards with big aspirations whose pictures dotted his room.
His dad recalled what Sean used to say to him as a youngster: “One day, I’m going to be just like all these guys.”
No regrets
The Singletarys are not a “What if?” kind of family. The soft-spoken Sean does not dwell on how life would have been different had he chosen Kansas over Virginia, how things would have been easier had his brother not been sent to war and his parents diagnosed with separate forms of cancer in the same year, or how his career might have been altered if Leitao never replaced Pete Gillen as UVa’s coach.
He’s like his mother in that respect. To her, there’s a natural progression to life. You work hard to get to college, you get your degree and move on to the next step, whatever it may be.
Basketball’s no different. There’s a progression. Sean excelled his freshman season at Virginia, playing in all but one game and earning ACC all-Freshman honors, but he took his occasional lumps going against veteran ACC point guards and future NBA lottery picks like Chris Paul and Raymond Felton.
“I just saw it as a learning experience,” he said. “I never really stressed out about it. My answer to whatever was happening was that I just needed to work harder and make myself a better player and a better person.”
When Gillen was fired and Leitao came on board, Sean didn’t have any thoughts one way or another. It was happening regardless of what he thought. It just so happened the two are of identical mindsets, humble advocates of hard work who are aggressive on the court and in life.
When Sean had to decide whether or not to jump to the NBA after a junior season in which he earned first-team all-ACC honors for the second straight year, he, his parents and Leitao were all in accordance.
He should go to the NBA camps for the same reason he trekked to the tough neighborhoods of Philly — because that’s where the best competition was.
Jacqui did most of the research for Sean’s NBA draft foray, just like she did when he was sifting through college offers. Though scouts told him he could go as high as a late first-round pick, Sean, a lifelong scholar whose interests range from math to economics to music, returned to finish his degree in anthropology and lead Virginia back to the NCAA Tournament.
His senior season has not gone to plan, to say the least. NBA scouts wanted to see him play a more controlled game and increase his shooting percentage. But Leitao needed him to mask many of the Cavaliers’ deficiencies. As a result, Sean had to force things to happen on offense and look for his shot more often.
Sean’s reached several statistical pinnacles — he joined Duke’s Johnny Dawkins and Danny Ferry as the only ACC players with 2,000 points, 500 rebounds and 400 assists in a career — but the team has struggled far more than he would have imagined. Still, he doesn’t wonder what life would be like if he had left for the NBA.
“I don’t think like that,” Sean said. “I never live with regret.”
Unfinished business
The conclusion of most of Virginia’s games this season have followed a similar script. The opposing coach (usually victorious in what has been a long season for the Cavaliers), seeks out Singletary, pulls him close and whispers words of praise into his ear, probably thankful that he won’t have to face the guard again.
Virginia Tech’s Seth Greenberg did it. North Carolina’s Roy Williams told Singletary he was one of the best players he’s coached against.
If the coaches didn’t do it on the court, they did in the post-game interview.
“Incredible speed and daring,” a complimentary Mike Krzyzewski said after Duke beat Virginia by 16 last week.
“You have speed, daring and talent, you end up being one of (three) players to do what he’s done with all those stats. … He’s damn good. I love the kid. He’s going to be playing for a long time.”
In the NBA? Probably. But that’s for later. Singletary has refused to give up on this season, even as the Cavaliers enter the ACC Tournament as the 10th seed, an unfathomable four wins in four days separating them and an NCAA berth that seems impractical to even talk about.
But Singletary, ever the optimist, talks about it as though it can happen, a form of denial, possibly, but more likely a stubborn refusal to admit defeat, no matter the odds, no matter the obstacles.
There are giants ahead, you see, and Singletary hasn’t given them one thought.