Not so Young anymore

Sam Young recently told Sports Illustrated about a motivational writing he has posted in his… Sam Young recently told Sports Illustrated about a motivational writing he has posted in his room and in his locker.

It says, “I am strong in body, mind and spirit. I am different. I am cocky, confident, conceited but humble. I am serious but hilarious, independent but incomplete. I am special. I am a king in my own mind and have the wits of a god. I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. I am a believer, for believing is understanding life. I am a winner. I can’t lose to any man, for when they come into contact with me, they have entered my world. I am impatient. I will leave anyone behind who doesn’t want to help themselves.”

He closes with a statement with which friends, family, coaches, players and fans from all over the country are becoming very familiar.

“I am one of a kind. I am Sam Young.”

Young is a pianist, gymnast, basketball star, SportsCenter fan, student and best friend.

He can listen to music and tickle the ivory committing the tune to memory. He had competitions with his friends back home in Clinton, Md., when he was younger, jumping off fences and the 15-foot wall of a nearby elementary school.

He grins when he gets a chance to think about free time – something he rarely has as a student-athlete at a major Division I school, and rarely had at Hargrave Military Academy three years ago. He beams when he gets a chance to talk about his best friend, Chris Howard, a basketball player at South Florida, and their strong, unbreakable friendship.

One thing is clear: There’s more to Young than meets the eye, and he loves chatting about it. Ask him yourself – he wants you to.

“I see people on the street [at Pitt], and they just whisper, ‘There’s Sam Young,” Young said. “They don’t think I can hear them. They should just say, ‘What’s up?’ I love my fans.”

The 6-foot-6-inch, 215-pound junior started playing basketball seven years ago in ninth grade. A natural-born gymnast, Young possessed the athletic gifts kids dream of. But the owner of a 35-inch vertical leap could only avoid basketball for so long, and Young grew into a phenomenal basketball player in an alarmingly short amount of time.

Howard’s AAU team, the Bullets, always tormented Young’s lesser talented club, the Ball Handlers. Howard and his teammates had been playing hoops forever, exposing Young’s and his teammates’ inexperience.

“They whooped us every time,” Young said, laughing. “They always had more talent. They knew the game better.”

Young transferred his sophomore year to Friendly High School in Fort Washington, Md., where several Bullets players attended. The Bullets’ coach happened to be the junior varsity coach at Friendly, and he wasted no time recruiting Young to the Bullets’ roster.

“I resisted at first,” Young said, “but I liked [the Bullets].”

That’s where Howard’s influence helped shape Young’s game.

“We played well together,” Young said. “He taught me a lot.”

Then Howard came to Friendly, and the rest was history. Howard, Young and company guided Friendly to back-to-back Maryland state titles. Friendly lost one game in two seasons. With the Bullets, the duo paced the team to a 73-game winning streak. They became legends in the Washington, D.C., area.

After they graduated, Howard headed south to Florida Prep and Young left for Hargrave Military Academy.

“[Hargrave] was tough,” Young said. “There were times when I told Chris I was about to quit and he told me to hang in there and keep everything up. When he was down, I picked him up even though I wasn’t there physically.”

Young endured a rigorous year at Hargrave. There was a curfew, no TV, cell phones or girls, marching at breakfast, lunch and dinner – a lot of difficult challenges for a kid who had just graduated high school. Young saw friends and classmates expelled just one week before graduation for slipping up. It taxed his psyche. “Just being a guy leaving high school when you’re just starting to get more freedom at home, going out and having fun, it’s tough,” Young said. “It tests you mentally and forces you to become a better person. If you don’t buy into it, they will have no patience.”

When he graduated from Hargrave, Young burned his uniform. He has nothing left to remind him of his time there. But abstract, intangible things influenced by Hargrave’s rigorous education remain in Young’s everyday life. Stricken with terrible pain in his knees and the lack of much shooting range, Young used his enhanced work ethic and dedication to overcome those obstacles.

“In any drills we run in practice, he’s the hardest working guy,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “He’s the guy who has improved the most over the past three years.”

Young took countless jump shots in the offseason, extending his range beyond the 3-point line. He totes a 52.6 percent shooting clip from 3-point land this season. He only attempted 42 3-pointers last season; this year, he’s already taken 38, and made 20 of them. That addition has easily made Young one of the toughest players to guard in the nation.

He saw his minutes jump from 17 a game last season to 30 this year. He averaged 7.5 points per game through his first two seasons; he averages 18.4 through 16 games this season, including a career-high 28 against Seton Hall on Saturday.

He’s almost become unstoppable, and a lot of it has to do with Pitt’s new style of play – a faster-paced, fast-break offense.

“I feel comfortable playing that way,” Young said. “It lets me get out and show off for the crowd, or step out and hit jumpers. It’s fun.”

Eight years after Young started playing basketball, he’s graying the hair of coaches all across the country. He has that gymnast’s athleticism, the pianist’s patience and the undeniable determination of a kid who wants to do big things.

It took a lot for Young to get where he is today, and if you ask him about it, he’s glad to tell you. He might’ve taken a different trip than your average college basketball player, but after all, he’s one of a kind. He’s Sam Young.