About 20 minutes prior to the start, mama Curry arrived with garbage bags, scanned our section, and despite having only met a couple times, waived both mom and boys up. At which point she delivered a big hug to my surprised wife, and gave the boys two of the 30 Curry TCC towels. It was a moment that I think said a lot about moms and their common journey with their boys. Both what they hope for them, and what they hope they aspire to be as young men.
NEW YORK -- From starter to splinter-gatherer, that pretty much describes Stephen Curry’s evolution over the first eight games of the season.
At least Warriors coach Don Nelson had an explanation Friday night, no matter how invalid it turned out to be: “I told you. He needs to get some tattoos.”
Nelson was only joking, and Curry certainly stands out in the Golden State locker room for being one of the few players not to have a majority of his torso covered by body art.
But none? Nellie got that one wrong.
When the “He has no tattoos” comment was related to Curry, he rolled up his left shirt sleeve and turned his wrist up, revealing the tatooed letters T C C and the number 30. “That’s trust, commitment, care -- a little slogan I picked up at Davidson.”
Back when he was making his decision, then still to some extent when he made it, I figured I’d have some mixed emotions come draft day: happy for him, but wondering what might have been, or something like that. No. None of that. I’m looking forward to tonight, unconditionally, really happy that our guy has gone out over this last month or so and done so well in workouts and moved himself into a very fine and deserved position heading into this evening. And I’m also totally looking forward to next year, games at Belk, Blue Moons at the Brick House, a new team still playing what we’ve come to know over so many years as Davidson basketball.
When the Wizards met Curry in Chicago, he wowed them in the interview from what I hear. Curry is probably the most NBA ready of the three point guards at Verizon Center that are expected to go in the lottery. He seems grounded and has a great basketball IQ (At one point, Wizards Coach Flip Saunders shouted up toward Grunfeld and tapped his right temple, which I assumed was a signal that Curry was pretty smart. After all, the guy is still studying for his college degree at Davidson).
Curry has just one tattoo: the letters TCC and “-30-” on his wrist. TCC is a Davidson motto that stands for “Trust Commitment Care,” while 30 is Curry’s number. Of course, -30- also means the end of a newspaper story, which I guess Curry wasn’t referring to. He also said he would never become a tatted-up NBA star.
“I’d go home, my mom would slap me around,” he said. “Can’t do that.”
He doesn’t really owe it to Davidson so much as he owes it to himself to stay and graduate so that it can be said that he genuinely “walked the talk.”
The kid has “TCC” engraved on his body, right? And it’s the only thing engraved on his body, right? And he’s not the kind of kid to do something like that just on a whim, right? Given his strong spirituality (constant pointing upward as an ever present reminder) he likely believes in the “body as a holy temple of the divine” thing and so “TCC” engraved on the “holy temple” is something pretty significant, right? When he originally signed up, he understood and appreciated “TCC” better than most, right? All about how it is supposed to mean through thick/thin and good/bad and 4 years rather than 2 or 3 he’s got to be as much a part of “TCC” as “TCC” is a part of him. He invested in all that more than most, right? And so “TCC” will win out in the end, right? The decision is already engraved on his body and all he needs to do is look and realize it, right?
That amateur (NCAA)/pro (NBA) line is to me one that will likely forever equate at least to some extent to some childlike innocence still left/not so much childlike innocence left anymore and so I guess I’ll never really fully understand why anyone would cross that divide before absolutely needing to …
