The past three months have been a whirlwind that has tested Chris Silva’s faith, resilience and strength.
It has been a whirlwind that has kept the 23-year-old Heat rookie isolated in a Miami condo. A whirlwind that has kept him from playing the sport he loves. A whirlwind that has left him without the mentor he has leaned on almost daily for the past eight years.
The NBA season was suspended amid the Covid-19 pandemic on March 11 and team facilities across the league were closed to players and staff starting on March 20. Basketball has slowly returned to Silva’s life, as the Heat began allowing players to participate in voluntary individual workouts at AmericanAirlines Arena on May 13 and the NBA recently approved a 22-team restart plan that has the season tentatively set to resume on July 31.
But Silva is still trying to accept the fact that he will need to move forward without Tommy Sacks, who suffered a heart attack and died on May 11 at age 60. Sacks was the associate head coach for the boys’ basketball team at Roselle Catholic High in New Jersey, where Silva attended high school.
“He meant a lot,” an emotional Silva said of Sacks, who was married with four children. “He was like a father figure to me.”
When one of Sacks’ sons, Tommy II, called to deliver the bad news shortly after Sacks’ passing, Silva remembers the pain. He also remembers trying to gather himself for a virtual Heat team meeting an hour later. It wasn’t easy.
“It was kind of hard to keep a straight face and just pay attention to the meeting after I received the bad news literally an hour before the meeting,” Silva said. “It was just hard. … I did everything I could to gather myself to hide my emotions that day.”
The emotions were too real to hide. When a 15-year-old Silva left Gabon, Africa in 2012 to come to the United States with a dream of making it to the NBA, Sacks was the one who picked him up from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Silva, who knew little English at that time, greeted Sacks with four words: ‘Coach, I go NBA.”
With Silva’s parents and siblings remaining in Africa and only a few relatives in the United States, Sacks began looking after Silva. “I basically grew up by myself,” said Silva, who had seen his parents and siblings only once since arriving to the United States before a surprise December reunion with his mother in Miami. “So he used to invite me to his house during the holidays to come and spend time with him and his family. I remember I used to say no all the time. But he insisted. When I started going there, the first time it was alright. The second time, I started to like doing it because it was kind of fun. It became like a ritual throughout high school.”
Another ritual throughout high school? Sacks was the one who picked Silva up in the morning to take him to school and the one to give him a ride home after basketball practice. If there was no basketball practice, Silva was usually going through a workout led by Sacks.
On senior night in high school with Silva’s relatives unable to attend, Sacks was the one who walked alongside Silva.
“When I first came, I wasn’t speaking English so me and him were in the gym just trying to figure out how to communicate with each other to get the workout done,” Silva recalls. “We used to spend hours in the gym to get a workout done because we couldn’t communicate. At times I was getting frustrated, I couldn’t tell him. At times I was happy, I couldn’t tell him either. With the years and time spent together, we started to get close to each other.”
Silva’s home base quickly became Sacks’ house in New Jersey. During Silva’s four years at the University of South Carolina, summers and breaks were spent with the Sacks family.
Despite turning into one of the top players in the Southeastern Conference, 5am workouts still awaited Silva when he returned to New Jersey every summer. After summer workouts with Sacks, Silva remembers spending the rest of the day at the pool or in front of the television watching old basketball games.
“When you go to college, some people go away and just leave. But he was always there,” Silva said. “Every time people used to ask me where I’m from, instead of Africa, I used to say I’m from Jersey first. Because of him, I think Jersey is home. That was the main reason I called Jersey home because I knew every time when I wanted to go back to Jersey, I went to his house and it was like my house.
“It used to be a routine that I knew every summer I was going to go back to Jersey and wake up in the morning and work. Stuff like that, things you just think are going to keep going forever.”
Silva’s uncle and legal guardian, Miguel, lives in Boston. But there was just an understanding that most of Silva’s off time would be spent with his New Jersey family.
“He was like a father figure, but also like a basketball mentor,” Silva said of Sacks. “My uncle knows as much as he can, but he’s not really involved in basketball. He doesn’t really know how that works. He’s always there to provide support and stuff, but coach Tommy was the one who knew basketball and everything about my skill set and what I can do and dealing with all my issues and problems. Everything.”
Silva credits Sacks with helping him become “one of the fastest players from my high school to become eligible to play in college,” which is a big reason Silva believes he might not have reached the NBA without Sacks’ guidance.
Even with Silva’s busy NBA schedule during the past year, Sacks remained as a constant and reliable voice in his life. Through it all — the predraft process, summer work, the NBA season — the two still found time to share special moments Silva will remember forever.
from Gulf Times https://ift.tt/3hlxDsU
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