It is the so-called "death before the teacher is successful". Terrence Clarke, the hot rookie of the class of 2021, was frozen in a car accident that put his life at 19 forever and made his NBA dream come to naught, and there were still 5 months and 7 days left before the 2021 draft. SLAM magazine author Deyscha Smith writes an article in memory of the genius who died young.
Clark is otherworldly. He came from a well-off family and loved basketball, and as a Boston native, he wanted nothing but to enter the NBA and make his hometown proud of him. We visited the people closest to Clark and remembered him as a good son and a good brother with a magic smile, always playing exciting games.
There was a light on her son's face, and whenever she looked at his picture, she always noticed it first. He looked like an angel, so happy. The light not only flashed on his face, but also seemed to radiate around him. This is Osmine Clarke's most cherished memory of his 19-year-old son Terence. On April 22, 2021, he tragically passed away in a car accident in Los Angeles.
On a rainy August afternoon, about four months after Terrance's death, in Terrence's grandmother's whitewashed yellow house in Boston, Ausmin curled up on a soft gray couch in her bedroom and began quietly telling stories in the dim light.
She remembers it was March 19, the day Terrance announced for the NBA draft, and she and her daughter Tatyana were in Brockton. Tatyana teased her 4-year-old brother Gavin while she inadvertently caught a glimpse of the photo. The photo was no doubt taken from Face Time, and Terrance strayed slightly off the camera, grinning as the sun shone all over his body. The photo is accompanied by a line of text: "Guess who just announced the draft!" Congratulations brother, I'm so proud of you. ”
Remembering that scene, a smile appeared on Osmin's face. "He was shrouded in sunlight, and that picture was really beautiful, I felt like an angel," Osmin said, "and so much has happened since then, and Terrance is gone." It's like, I don't want to say it's a hunch or something, but aren't angels going to leave us in the end? ”
Osmin choked up, and all emotions suddenly came to mind. At this point, Gavin climbed onto her lap and drew a tissue from the box on the wooden table on the side and handed it to her mother, as if to say, "Mom, hold on." ”
"I think there was a precursor to this accident," Osmin kept saying, "but unfortunately we didn't know it at the time." ”
Terence was born on September 6, 2001 at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, a full month behind her due date. As a child, Terrance had the ambition to play in the NBA.
He was always taken by his father Adrian to see the Celtics play. At the age of 8, Rondo became an idol of Terence Jr., and the former encouraged him to "keep working hard" as well. Osmin remembers a picture taken during a Celtic game where Terence Jr. was standing on the field, looking up at the ball flying, with an expression like, "Someday I'll come." ”
"When he came home after watching that game, he said to me, 'Mom, I want to go to the NBA.'" He's been adamant since then, 'This is my ideal. ’”
Terrance's physical education teacher at the time, Brandon Watson, often thinks of the elementary school student who had been involved in sports since the second grade and was extremely obsessed with the game. He remembered crying every time he left the gym.
Growing up, Terrance spent most of his time at roxbury's Vine Street Community Center, training with Coach Dexter Foy, whom they met when Terence was in fifth grade. Terence was playing at the Tobin Community Centre in Roxbury, and his height attracted the attention of Dex and AAU coach Maurice Smith. At the time, the duo were looking for a big player for their Giants. So Dex went straight to Terrance and asked for his parents' phone numbers.
That's where it all begins. It didn't take long for Dex to take Terrance with him and his two sons, Jamali and Keon, to Wien Street to practice possession and shooting. At the time, Terrance's passion for the game was unquenchable, and he showed a deep, unadorned desire to play the right way. No matter what others think, Terrance just wants to get everything right.
This also led to his emotional loss of control sometimes on and off the field. Both Osmin and Dex remember one time Dex took the kids to the Randolph Theater to see one of the Fast and Furious movies, but the other kids didn't want to go, and Terrance refused to listen to most people's arrangements.
Osmin laughs and recalls: "He told me, 'You know, no one else wants to go to the movies, but I told Dex, I'm going anyway!' I said to Terrance that time, 'You can't be too selfish!' This is the typical Terrance, have you ever seen him play? Then Osmin straightened up, pouted, and danced to imitate the way Terrance played on the field, "As soon as you see him like this, it proves that he is in shape." ”
In Dex's opinion, whenever Terrance enters this state, he is always misunderstood. "He was passionate on the pitch. He just wanted to get it all done. I think it's all he developed in training. You know, Terrance always does a lot of practice, just hoping that everything will go according to his heart. People don't know how much he's been through to this point. ”
Terrance once said that he didn't enjoy much of his childhood because he had been playing. Dex later revealed that before his junior year, Terrance couldn't even ride a car. Terrance spends all day in the stadium with trainer Brandon Ball.
At first, Bauer and the athletic number two only practiced once a week, but soon upgraded to twice a week. After Terence got bigger, they stayed together almost every day, even twice a day. Every day at 5 a.m., Bauer would run to Terrance's grandparents' house to wake him up, and they would practice before Terence went to school.
"You don't have to teach him 2 times, he learns very quickly," Bauer says, "a technical action he just takes a glance at, and immediately demonstrates every step, the rhythm is not bad." If you teach him how to read the game, he can quickly apply it to the game and the actual battle. He learns things so fast. ”
After attending a training camp at Syracuse University and rising to a sophomore year of high school, Terrance told Bauer that he had finally found his way around the field and that his hard work had finally paid off. "He said to me, 'Ball, the game is too easy these days.'" I'll never forget it. It was at that moment that I began to see him at a turning point. He began to have faith. ”
With such energy, Terrance participated in the 2018 NBPA Elite 100 Training Camp, averaging 10.4 points per game. Dex accompanied him and witnessed Terrance and the rest of the nation's top players passing.
"You'll often hear people say he had a chance to get into the NBA," Dex recalls, "but it wasn't until we went to this training camp and we exchanged ideas that we realized that it was possible for him to play in the NBA." ”
In July of that year, Terrance announced that he would transfer to Brewster College High School. Doing so means that he will leave those around him, leave his friends and his familiar city, and go to live in Wolfeboro, a remote new Hampshire. Terence has said that he made such sacrifices, not only for his own future, but also for his family.
Despite the difficult adjustments, Terrance persevered, averaging 15.9 points per game in his first season here. That summer, he also competed in the Expressions Elite event of the EYBL Tour, averaging 16.2 points per game, and was invited to participate in the Black ops Tour organized by renowned trainer Chris Brickley. Here, he was able to train with 10-time All-Star Cameron Anthony, along with NBA stars such as Donovan Mitchell and Trae Young.
"This opportunity made me realize that I could play against any player in the United States or anywhere in the world," Terrance said in a 2019 interview with SLAM. "No matter who the opponent is, I feel like I can fight with one." This greatly boosted my confidence. ”
In August of that year, he competed in the SLAM Summer Classics in New York, where he met a number of high school elites from all over the United States, such as Jaylen Green, Sharif Cooper, Jonathan Cumminga and Josh Christopher, all of whom joined the NBA in this year's draft.
After a summer of tempering, Terrance exploded the following season. He played in 37 games and averaged 18.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3 assists per game, and was ranked 4th in the Class of 2021 by ESPN.
Osmin loves to watch his son play. Whenever her son played at Brewster High School, she would always come to the scene with her handbag, playing basketball while playing her younger son Gavin. Her favorite memory of her son's basketball career also comes from that season. In November 2019, Brewster High School and The Pre-Christian College showed off. She vividly remembers the game in which her son effortlessly completed a crotch-changing dunk in a quick-break and kissed the camera as if it were a great achievement, and it was. Terence never missed any opportunity to perform.
As his basketball skills continued to improve, Terrance also gained thousands of fans on Instagram. "I think he finally realized that his hard work was working," Dex recalls, "and I remember when he first got permission from people, he was overjoyed." He called me and said, 'I made it.' I think he's starting to realize that everything is a little different. ”
Terence has said he wants to go to a school that "helps him get into the NBA." After considering basketball schools like Duke, Boston College, UCLA and Kentucky, in September 2019, he finally announced his decision on Wayne Street.
At that time, Osmin sat in front of the camera with his son, only to see Terrance stand up and unzip the green camouflage jacket, revealing the gray T-shirt he was wearing and printed with the words "KENTUCKY WILDCATS" on his chest. He jumped to the Class of 2020 so that he could come to Kentucky that fall.
Kentucky coach John Calipari has often said that just by looking at Terrance's only season in Kentucky, we can't really understand his full strength. After scoring 22 points against Georgia Tech and 14 against Notre Dame University, Terrance sprained his ankle against North Carolina on December 19. Coach Calipali regretted that after Terrance was injured, he should not have let him continue to play, although the doctors at the time thought that he was injured and the MRI test found that he was not seriously injured. But after Terrance said his legs were uncomfortable, the team again let him undergo an MRI test, but found that his legs had a "stress response".
"I thought his season was over, we were both in the office, he was crying, I was crying," Calipali said in an interview with SLAM. You have big ambitions, you have opportunities at your fingertips, and then you come to Kentucky as one of the top 10 high school students in the United States. Still, Terence remains optimistic. He told his teammates, 'I'm coming back next week.' ’”
But it wasn't until three months later, on March 11, that Coach Calipali allowed Terrance to return to the season finale against Mississippi. He played nine minutes and had just 2 points and three assists. "Even so, there was a moment when you looked at him and thought, 'He can still do what the average player can't do,'" Calipari said.
In April of that year, after the end of the radiant freshman season, Terence signed with Klucth Sports, and Calipali saw Terrance as stronger and better. "They all said he was extraordinary, talking about the way he played, what he did, what he trained, and his athleticism. His legs were stronger and stronger, he regained his form, and the road spread out before his eyes. ”
Terrance's life ended prematurely, before he could put to fruition the dreams he often hung on his lips. He was still selected at the NBA Draft on July 29, but only with an honorary pick. His family, Osmin, Tatyana and Gavin, witnessed the moment in person at the Barclays Center's draft.
This fall, at the initiative of the City of Boston and Mayor Kim Janey, the Celtics joined hands with New Balance to renovate a stadium on Wayne Street and honor him by naming it Terence.
Terrence's memory will stop here and stop at his family, especially Gavin. The brothers are too similar, both in attractive character and height: Gavin, who is only 4 years old, has grown to 1.22 meters. And Gavin also gradually fell in love with basketball, and can even dribble 2 balls at the same time. Osmin also began to take Gavin to the arena every Saturday to stay with Brandon Ball.
Bauer found Gavin as vibrant as Terence. He claps when he's happy and loves to be in the limelight. "He'll watch other people train, and when they hit a shot, he's going crazy," Ball said, "and like Terrance, he's full of power." ”
According to Osmin and Dex, in the last moments of his life, Terrance was still happy, really happy, and the light projected on him was even more dazzling. On the day he died in April, he was talking and laughing outside the gym with Osmin and Dex. He also imagined the competition he planned to participate in the next day, and was ready to show his fists.
They all remembered that after training that day, Terrance happily completed a dunk for the first time in a month. His self-confidence is as high as the sky.
"He was like saying, 'Mom, I'm too strong,'" Osmin recalled, "if Terrance had been alive, I would never have said that, but I'd say it now: I believe God let us go through that moment, just to remember him here and see the last smile on his face." (Supine Braces/Hairy)