By Nikos Varlas
His life could be a movie! It will not be a blockbuster like the one with Jeremy Lin in it, but the adventures of Joey Dorsey have excitement, a difficult childhood, an absent father that marked his personality and above all one unique feature!
This guy is one of the few athletes in the world that could make money from two, three, of maybe four professional sports. Let’s unravel his incredible story from the beginning. When Joey was still in his mother womb, his father abandoned them. Until Joey became two years old, his father had some kind of communication with his mother, but them he disappeared from their life for 11 years.
Dorsey never had the paternal affection that he should. When he realized it and wanted to meet his father, his mother tried to find the missing daddy for the sake of her son, without any success… The first try was held in a sports camp, in New York, when Joey’s talent was starting to show. It was a failure. His father never showed up and it took an other appointment for the big meeting to be a reality.
“This thing crushed him”, admitted Dorsey’s mother and little Joey had to wait until the age of 13 for the first news from his father! What was the shelter for a kid that wanted a father and could not have him? Sports of course! And there was none of them he was not good in it.
Baseball, football, even cricket! He had not try only one sport, until he was 18. What sport? Basketball. “I was 18 when a held a basketball in my hands for the first time and I decided that I wanted to give it a try”, says Dorsey and thinks how many years of…. practice he has missed: “That explains many things about my game. I wish a had a coach like Ivkovic many years before, so I could learn all there is to learn in order to be a complete player. But it’s never too late”.
It’s almost unthinkable, but it’s real! From the age of 18 until now, the 29 years old American plays only basketball! The first years of his career he was in the college of Memphis, a teammate of the great Derrick Rose, but every one remembers him for his bold statements before the game against Ohio State’s Greg Oden, a reason for many jokes and criticism from the press.
Then, he was picked in second round of the 2008 NBA draft from Portland, but Nicola Batum sends him immediately to Houston with a trade. His next team was Sacramento, he had some fairly good games in Toronto, and then what? Enters Caja Laboral and his European adventure…
But this is not the true story! Dorsey did not have any good offer in the NBA until July, the lock out screw his plans, but putted him in the radar of an other team in the States with money to spend. So there was a big offer for Joey in the summer, before the one in Vitoria, Spain?
“Houston Texans wanted me! They knew that I was good in football and they tried to sign me. I had the option to get from the NBA to the NFL and this, my man, is really rear! They talked to me, they had plans for me and they believed that I could be not only a defender, but also a tight end and a wide receiver! That means a major contract in the NFL. In this position only very strong and fast athletes can produce, because besides explosion and velocity, you must have the height to get the passes above the hands of the defense”.
The only other professional athletes that excelled both in basketball and football are Antonio Gates ( Kent State, San Diego Chargers) and Tony Gonzalez (Cal, Kansas City Chiefs). There is also a gentleman called Michael Jordan that wanted to play baseball, but thank – basketball – God, he changed his mind quickly!
But Joey said no to this great opportunity and risked, wanting to stay in the basketball courts. “In the NFL, if you get injured, the contract usually is not guaranteed and it easily brakes. And I was coming from a good season in the NBA”.
Our life is defined but little details and great dissensions that may came in a moment. But if you follow your instinct and fight for the best, you will find the right path. This is exactly who Joey Dorsey is! A fighter of life and when he makes a family, he will be the world’s greatest dad.
Now, he could be preparing for a second season in the NFL with the Houston Texans. But when we make plans, God smiles and it was meant for him to end up in Piraeus, with a little stop in Spain between, running the stairs of “Fenando Buesa Arena”, one of the very few things that he learned for coach Dusko Ivanovic.
Where he would land next season? What will be his sport of choice? Nobody knows, not even him. The sure thing is that he will find a way to survive. That’s what he learned from a tender age, when he had to fight in every sport and pulled through in life without a father. A giant with the heart of a kid. A Goliath… even if this expression brings back to him bad memories from his lost duel with Oden and the… anger of his them teammates, cause he teased the beast in the most crucial moment before the game.