Taquan Dean: “…a message that will forever change my life.”

10/24/09 – “…a message that will forever change my life.”

At the airport getting ready to fly to Buresa to play tomorrow. My 1st time back people and I know I’m gonna be winded, but my motto is “Go hard or go home.” It’s been 3 weeks since I’ve been on the court and this has been a long, boring week. I’m a ball player, that’s what I do. I love to compete and I love challenges.

The win in Belgrade was huge; I felt like I was in college again, cheering so much. Sometimes you forget that it’s a game and it’s fun when money is in the picture. You face so many pressures of performing well and hoping your next pay check comes, that you forget why you’re playing this game: because you love it. And if there’s one thing I realized from being out with injury, it’s that I gotta have fun. That little orange ball has taken me so many places and allowed me to see so many things that I never imagined.

I had a guy off of Facebook send me a message that will forever change my life. A few years back, Francisco Garcia and I were at a party and this guy came up to ask us for our autograph but he didn’t have anything for us to write it on. He then went into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. We pretended to take the dollar and walk away, but of course we signed it and then went on with our lives. What we didn’t know is that this autograph was for a kid who loved us to the point where he walked around with that dollar bill every day, happy. Recently, that kid died and his mother put the dollar bill in the casket, knowing that’s what he would have wanted. No championship, million dollar contract, or mansion can make feel the way I feel about that story. I touched someone so much that a piece of me went with him to his grave. Forever thankful. God bless.