Imagine being the best player on your high school basketball team. Now imagine that team wins the state championship.
This is something that Longwood junior guard Tristan Carey got to experience in real life and something that changed his life forever. “It didn’t seem real at first, but once we won it, it all set in. I’ll never forget that,” said Carey about winning a state championship in 2009 for Colonial Beach High School over Eastern Montgomery, 77-75.
Not many people have had as much success with sports as Carey has had during his life. “From a young age, I have always loved sports. It has always been in my family, so I figured why not try them,” he said.
To say his family has a knack for success in sports would be an understatement.
His cousin Torrey Smith plays football for the Baltimore Ravens, his cousin Joe Posey played basketball at James Madison University, his cousin Chris Johnson played basketball at LSU and another of his cousins, Jermon Bushrod, plays football for the New Orleans Saints.
Besides winning the state championship in high school basketball, Carey has also had success in other sports. While playing junior league baseball, his team won a state championship. Then, when he reached high school, he was a three-sport athlete, playing baseball and football.
But basketball has always been his true passion.
He is the all-time leading scorer at Colonial Beach High with 2,481 points and was named the 2009 Virginia Group A and Virginia High School Coaches Association (VHSCA) Division I Player of the Year as a senior.
But with all the success he has had, Tristan has also tasted adversity. When Carey came out of high school he first went to La Salle University in Philadelphia to pursue a college basketball career. After not being given much playing time, and the coach that recruited him deciding to leave, Carey decided it was time to come closer to home.
“I wanted to think about my family being able to come to my games, and Longwood was one of the closest schools looking [at me],” Carey said.
But the adversity didn’t end there. Players that transfer from one Division I school to another
have to sit out for a year before they can play, and a year without basketball for any player is a very tough thing to endure. After sitting out 2010-11 on a team that went 12-19, he came back last season to a team that went 10-21.
But all the ups and downs have made him a better basketball player and, overall, a better person.
“Tristan’s own experiences have helped him understand what it really takes to fill his potential,” said 10th-year head coach Mike Gillian. “But even with that being said, he is nowhere close to reaching his full potential.”
After all of his experiences over the years, Gillian made Carey a captain for the 2012-13 season. Gillian saw leadership qualities in Carey and chose him, as well as teammate David Robinson, to lead the team. Carey embraces the role, and while he is getting poured into by Gillian, he is, in turn, pouring into his younger teammates. “It’s an honor,” Carey said. ”I’m being coached, and then in turn, I’m coaching [the younger players].”
He has had a huge influence on the development of some of the younger players on the team already this season. “He has taken me under his wing and showed me the ropes. Being a point guard, he relies on metodoalot,butIalsorelyonhimtohelp me out [and] let me know what I’m doing wrong,” said freshman guard Nik Brown.
Pundits everywhere are saying that Carey has the potential to be an All-Big South performer this upcoming season, but Carey plans to let his actions during the game do the talking. ”People speak, and they are going to say what they want,” he said. “But allIhavetodoisprovewhatIcandoonthe court, and I will let people judge off of what they see,” said Carey
With the Lancers recent ascension to the Big South Conference, the first Division I conference membership ever for the university, they will definitely need a lot of leadership.
“[They need] somebody who has been there, who understands how difficult it is to compete and succeed at this level of competition,” said Gillian, who believes that Tristan Carey has the ability to be that player.
“He is a high character person, and when you combine that with his basketball ability and the opportunity to succeed, then you have a chance for something special,” said Gillian.