Brewster Academy’s ’12 Mitch McGary Journal Entry

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My name is Mitch McGary. I’m 18 years old; born and raised in Chesterton, Indiana. I grew up there and lived there my entire life until just recently when I moved to Brewster Academy by myself. My parents names are Valerie (48 yrs old) and Tim (53). Both married for 19 years. I have three siblings; 2 sisters and one brother. Ryan is 33, married with two kids, Molly is 31  and Lauren is 23. It’s all right being really young compared to my siblings, my parents were previously married and they are half siblings, it’s kind of like being the only child but not really. I played sports my entire life. I grew up around Indiana basketball. My dad brought me into that and when I was younger I played soccer and baseball. Baseball was my main sport, I was on a traveling team for 7 years and that was my favorite sport until I started to grow haha. I changed sports a lot; soccer to baseball, played football, even did bowling. Was in a bowling league for 4 to 5 years. And I can ride the unicycle.; I learned how to ride it when I was 12 years old. My brother bought it for my 12th birthday and one of my friends had one down the rode and I just found a knack for it. It didn’t take me too long to learn how to ride it, learned in 2 weeks; I’m a quick learner. I just liked it and everything.

My current list of schools are Purdue, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Marquette, Miami (Florida), University of Florida, UCONN, WVU, Pittsburgh, Kansas, Oregon State, Arizona, Ole Miss and some others. So far, I’ve visited Purdue, Indiana, Illinois and Marquette. I mainly liked that all of the schools were welcoming and they seemed interested in me. I will probably visit the other schools after the school year or maybe after the games. I will go with my coaches since I live on my own right now; don’t have the family to take me. My strengths I would say are that I’m a hustler, have high energy, but things I would like to improve… probably my post modes. I’m not really a post player. I’m more of a face up guy and not back to the basket. I like getting down open court and running instead of getting stuck on the block. Also, would like to improve my freethrows.

I haven’t really had any meetings or conversations with the coaches. The schools I’ve been to just sat down and I talked to them. Some of the schools; like Marquette told me I would be a big influential factor, Indiana pretty much said the same thing. Indiana said they want me and talked about how I would come in for 2012 and not 2011 since I’m reclassifying. Illinois said I could contribute to the team really well with my high energy, high motor and how I’m a hustler. But overall nothing will be given to me if I made the team. I think I already determined what class I will be in. I talked to my coach here at Brewster, I don’t think I can qualify for 2011. I’m retaking classes and next year will have to take those classes. I have to make up 1 or 2 classes; just depends on the classes I took this year. Since I’ve been at Brewster my grades have gone up. A lot more schools went away from me before when my grades were a factor but since I’ve been at Brewster; it’s another level of play with the players on my team and the colleges that are attracted by my teammates take a look at me and I also get exposure from that too. Academically for the colleges, I would like to major in forensics. Also, I like criminal justice. I’m not really sure which school has great programs for those majors but I know Oregon State has a good science/engineering program and so does Purdue. But, I kind of want to go into forensics and not engineering.

Since switching to Brewster, it has been different moving out here. It made me more responsible and I had to make more decisions. The overall structure and support from the school was what I needed to get academics up. They helped me with my grades and my grades are going really well, I have all A’s and B’s and made honor roll the first semester. Basketball wise the season is going well. We are #1 in the country with a record so far of 12-0. We have a game against New Hampton, our rivals. Good game at their place in their small gym overall from my standpoint. I come off the bench as a 6th man, average 9 pts, 6 rebounds and 20-25 minutes a game. More of a hustle guy, energizer bunny type. I keep the team going and get them pumped up. We play New Hampton tomorrow, they are pretty good; I guess they treat this game like the superbowl. Fans are always there, they are televising the game on the school website. But, I want to keep the winning streak game going and it is probably the biggest game so far. I don’t really know the teams we go up against because I’m new to the schedule but it probably is one of the biggest games.

At the end of the year with Brewster I want to win a National Championship and stay on honor roll the entire year. Hopefully, I will improve my GPA a lot and have more schools look at me and with my game, improve a lot more and overall be a player that helps out with the team next year. Mainly I want to keep my grades up, I’m on the track with that. This year, basketball wise, we are doing better than last year and I you know with everything going well I want to go to college and start my freshman year and average a double double and see where that takes me. It is just all up to me from where I stand, I just have to keep working.

With my teammates on Brewster, I haven’t really had any players who graduated last year try to convince me to check out their school or go play with them but my teammates now who are going to Pitt, Kansas, Nova and Saint Johns are always talking to me about going to their school in 2 years. But I don’t know right now, all of the schools are interested in me right now but I just have to wait and see. I’m not really sure where I stand with the recruiting process now; I still have 2 years and I’m not making a decision anytime soon. It is all a bit of a gray area right now. But, next summer should be my big break out summer for me. I had a pretty good summer and spring but this upcoming spring will be the really big point for me. Show colleges what I can do; hopefully schools like Texas, Duke and UNC. Texas is my favorite college; my dream school. They aren’t really recruiting me right now so I will have to wait and see. Maybe with this break they will think I’m good enough to play on their team. I will definitely go to summer camps, I have family who live in Texas so that’s also kind of why I want to go to the school there but I always loved Texas.

But, some schools that would fit my style would maybe be someone in Big 10 or Big East like Pitt or UCONN would be a good fit. Be a step outside big man, high ball screens, a lot of pick and rolls, outside rolls, grab rebounds and also keep the team energized and upbeat. With my college decision distance is a factor. My parents want me to stay close home so they could watch me so they would want me to go to Indiana. It think overall it’s the best school for me because I want to go to the NBA and get a 4 year experience at college  just in case something happens. Academics is important so I want a good academic school but I mean distance shouldn’t be an issue

Watching wise, I think my favorite conference is probably the Big East because they always play with a lot of energy and have a lot of highlights. My favorite team to watch is probably Duke when they play at home because the crowd is so into it. The Pitt and Marquette game is coming up and I’m not sure who will win. Pitt has a great team and they coach eally well but Marquette will give a good fight. They are probably the underdogs here but I think Pitt is more aggressive and scrappy; should be a good game. With March Madness and the rest of the season I’m not really sure who will win it all. I was hoping Duke. My teammate is really good friends with Kyrie Irving and said he is bummed that he is hurt but I think Duke will do well. I like Syracuse; they have CJ Fair, who graduated from Brewster and he is doing well. They are undefeated and ranked #4 in the nation so they have a good chance to win it all and Kansas has a real good shot too. If I could play up against any player I would want to play up against Blake Griffin but he is in the NBA. So, I would probably want to play up against form UNC because he is from Indiana. His brother committed to Indiana last month, Cody Zeller. He is an Indiana boy and it would be really cool to play up against him since he is a really good player who is really good for UNC.