By BRENT STUBBS
Senior Sports Reporter
bstubbs@tribunmedia.net
HIS coming out party in the New Providence Basketball Association ended with an early exit in the playoffs after he put in a most valuable player performance during the regular season. But while William Rigby was disappointed that his Real Deal Shockers were not able to contend for the title, he’s excited about moving on to play at the collegiate level in August.
The 21-year-old Rigby has been awarded a full athletic scholarship to attend Northeast Community College in Nebraska and he said he’s just looking forward to going to school and continuing to perform for the Hawks, coached by Dan Anderson, just as he did in the NPBA.
“First of all, I want to thank the Lord for affording me the full athletic scholarship,” Rigby said. “I also want to thank the Lord for affording me the opportunity to play with a team like the Real Deal Shockers and coach James Price.”It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to get this opportunity to go off to school.
“In 2014, I got a chance to go to a programme in the United States. Things didn’t work out for me so I decided to stay home in Nassau and be a part of the Shockers team and show my talent to people who didn’t know about me and what I am capable of doing.”
While he felt the Shockers had a good chance to advance to the championship, Rigby said he’s not going to let that get him down.
“I’m proud of our Shockers team,” he said. “They helped me to stay in shape and stay focus. A lot of the teams were competitive and hard to beat, but we played our best every night. So I want to thank the Lord for blessing me with talent and for the ability for me to move on.”
Real Deal coach James Price said Rigby made a big difference in the Shockers’ performance this year.
“He was a diamond in the rough. He came to my practice and I didn’t know anything about him,” Price said. “As I got to know him and we started playing, he rose above everybody else. He was an exceptional player and I was just proud that I had the pleasure to coach him.”
Price said anytime he sees a young man like Rigby get a chance to further his education, he feels very proud.
“One of the other reasons was he was a Shocker. I gave him the opportunity to be a Shocker, so I feel proud,” he said. “With him getting the scholarship, he feel like the Shockers are getting a scholarship. He has made us proud and we want to wish him all of the best as he goes.
“He’s a young man who has the potential to be a leader. I’ve already told him that whenever he goes, he needs to be the leader and not the follower. I had a chance to coach him for one year and he proved to be the leader on our team. So I’m looking forward to him leading his team when he goes to school.”
Rigby, undecided in his studies, said he hopes that when he gets to the United States, he will be mentally and physically prepared to take his game to the next level.
“The NPBA has helped me to dribble the ball and shoot the ball much better than I did before I started playing this year,” Rigby said. “So when I go to the United States, I hope that I will only get better than I was when I played here.”
For those players who aspire to follow in his footsteps, Rigby advised them to continue to improve on their game so that they can be ready whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Rigby credited a lot of success to the grooming he got when he played under coach Kevin ‘KJ’ Johnson for the CI Gibson Rattlers.
“He taught me a lot of things like how to be competitive, how to be mentally prepared and he taught me some simple things that helped me to be a better player,” he said. “His programme has helped to make me the person that I am today and that was one of the reasons why I was able to come into the night league and become the MVP.”
NPBA president Keith ‘Belzee’ Smith said it was a pleasure to have Rigby as a part of the league this year and based on his performance, averaging 25 points per game, he’s confident that Northeast Community College will have an excellent player to add to their Hawks team in August.
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID