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JAKE’S TAKE: After 2 years, Sylvester finally shines for Troy

Dan Stickradt | February 21, 2012 | Comments (0)

TROY — The cheers bellowed from the student section: “LAR-RY! LAR-RY! LAR-RY!”

Troy’s Larry Sylvester had just hit six 3-pointers in a row in just his fifth game with a uniform. He was having the time of his life, the best game ever.

That was only the victory after a year and a half of defeats, though. The sharpshooter doesn’t have much in the way of height, so he was passed up twice in a row on varsity cut days.

He was a senior this year. He had been cut from the varsity team his junior year, then played junior varsity as the only junior on the team. He paid his dues, then came back for one more year.

Sylvester thought for sure this was the year.

But for a kid with such a great passion for basketball, lightning struck twice.

Twenty games on JV as a junior, with his friends on varsity, and he thought he had fought enough. He went home every day after school, moped, and slept. It appeared his high-school career was over.

He blamed only himself for the second cut.

“I could have done a lot more than I did,” he said. “The first month after the season, I was in the gym every day, working out, and then started fading and fading and fading. It was partly my fault that I didn’t make the team. I put it all on my shoulders.”

Snow on the ground, leaves off the trees, chills in the air, and Sylvester wasn’t playing basketball.

He just couldn’t stand it.

This wasn’t the first time this was happening. A year before, Sylvester had gone into the same office with the same coach at the same school and been told that he would just ride the bench all year.

“I don’t like sitting on the bench all season; I like to play,” he said. “I don’t care if I’m playing freshman, JV, or varsity. I just like to be out there and play. Sitting on the bench gets frustrating.”

So, when Fralick gave him the opportunity to play JV for Smith again, he jumped.

Up-to-speed with the JV game, Sylvester led the team in scoring and was a key shooter for the team.

For Fralick and Smith, his decision said a lot about his character.

“I think when you love something, you’ve got a passion for something, you’ve got to swallow your pride and swallow your ego and do what you’ve got to do,” Smith said. “That wasn’t easy, I know.”

“A lot of guys would say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ He said, ‘Thanks, and please pass me the ball,” Fralick laughed.

Still, Smith and Sylvester had their share of talks. Sylvester would be laughed at for playing JV as a junior. But he stuck it out, then came back this year, ready for a spot on the team.

But a spot on the team wasn’t ready for him.

Smith advised Sylvester again after a cut that was near “back-breaking,” as Smith said.

School was out and Sylvester went home, not to practice.

“He was just in a lull a little bit, and he turned that lull into ‘What can I do?’” Smith said.

After tryouts, he spent two weeks on the couch. Then, after getting advice from Smith, he did something about it — a lot of things about it.

First, he texted Fralick “to death.” Then, he asked for a meeting with Fralick. They met. His dad asked for a meeting with Fralick. They met. Sylvester came back, and Fralick finally offered him a spot — on the practice squad.

He’d be just practicing, not playing. Just filming the games, not being filmed. Just in shirts and ties, not shorts and sneakers. Still, Sylvester accepted.

“Basketball’s my life. It’s just so boring to go home and sleep, and I can’t live without basketball, so I didn’t care if I ever got a uniform,” Sylvester said. “I just wanted to come back to be a part of the team and hopefully get the jersey at the end.”

After an off-season he regretted, Sylvester made sure he was the hardest-working player at practice. He learned the plays. He was the shooter for the second string. He labored to finish first in sprints.

But the first half of the season was almost over, and Sylvester’s basketball career as an upperclassmen included practices, game tapes, and zero varsity minutes.

Then a door opened to the senior’s Christmas.

It was the week of the Berkley game. The same coach who had cut Sylvester twice called him back into the equipment room after practice.

After two years, Fralick finally threw a uniform to Sylvester, who went ballistic.

“I felt like a schoolgirl,” Sylvester said.

His first reaction was “Are you serious, Coach?”

“He told me he was the happiest guy in the world and he loved me,” Fralick said. “And I said, ‘Well, that makes me feel happy.’

“I just happened to be Santa Claus at that time.”

Evan Mahone, another sharpshooter who was in his third year on the team, opened the door. Mahone left the team, and the following week, Sylvester’s opportunity came.

He could always shoot. The way he earned it, Fralick’s decision was an easy one.

His first game on the bench, Sylvester got in the game against an outmatched Berkley team. He did what he does best: took the ball, lined up a 3-pointer, and swished it.

“It was a relief,” he said. “I felt like I had just lifted a hundred-pound weight off my shoulders.”

Two weeks later, everything came full-circle. Against the same Berkley team, Sylvester got in early and often. He hit a 3 early, then another, then another. He was shooting it like old times, 6-for-6, for 20 points.

As the senior held back tears later, he was speechless.

“To say I’m proud of the kid is an understatement,” Smith said. “There’s nobody in this school who loves basketball more than Larry.”

He certainly deserved the recognition he got that night.

Sylvester said he’d buy the film from Fralick and save it his whole life.

Then, Smith started to continue the progression: cut to junior on JV to cut again to practice squad to game squad to scoring 20 to…

“Dare I say, there may be a moment this year when this kid wins a game for us, hits the game-winner,” Smith said. “He loves that moment.”

Funny he should say that.

It was maybe the biggest game of the season. Troy, one game behind Ferndale in the league standings, went into the Eagles’ rowdy gym on Senior Night for a rematch.

Things went well early. Junior Joe Leonard hit five 3-pointers, and Troy led by as many as 13 points. But as the night wore on, Leonard turned cold, sophomore Craig Duggan was off with his shot, and Ferndale could focus solely on James Young.

So, Fralick walked to the end of the bench, stuck his finger at Sylvester, and sent him to the scorers’ table, a guy who’d only had a uniform three weeks.

Anyone else would have come off the bench cold after sitting for more than three quarters. But one thing about Sylvester: he never comes off the bench cold.

So with Ferndale all the way back from down 13 points, leading by one, Young brought the ball up. Ferndale clamped down on him, and he dished to Sylvester in the corner.

Money.

The bench went berserk. Young finished off the win, and Sylvester was the hero. It was the team bombarding him in the locker room after the game.

“I was glad that I got the chance to go in,” he said after the game, “because I felt like my shot was on today.”

Sylvester didn’t even think he was going in, but Smith saw it one coming from a week before.

“Real shooters love that moment,” Smith said. “He embraces it, and any time there’s a chance to win a game, I know he wants to be the one taking the shot, no matter what he’s done prior to that point.”

One week after his 20-point outburst, it was time for Sylvester to hold back tears again. He had been through so much.

“When adversity shows up,” Smith said after the 20-point game, “you’ve got a choice: you can either just give up, or you can say, ‘No, I’m not accepting it.’ And that’s what he did.”

Troy is 12-5, tied for first place in the league. The Colts have one of their most talented teams in school history. Every game, there are a lot of cheers for Young, who puts up 30 points every night.

But every once in a while, there’s a big “LAR-RY!” for the former practice-squad player who never gave up.