2 subjects of feelgood story catch Curry’s eye
The Sporting Green’s pledge to you, dear reader, is that if we ever come across a story where Stephen Curry is doing something bad or unfavorable, we will report it.
In the meantime, you’ll have to endure the steady flow of Curry feelgood stories. The latest: His invitation to a Delaware state trooper and a 9yearold boy to be his guests Monday night at the Warriors game in Philadelphia.
Last week, Delaware state trooper Joshua Morris stopped at an ATM while on duty and was recognized by a group of youngsters as the trooper who stops at playgrounds and shoots around with kids.
“Why don’t you come over to the west side and play with us?” the kids said to Morris.
So when his shift was over, Trooper Morris cruised to their playground, in the inner city. Still wearing his uniform, gun belt and all, he hit the court and started raining jumpers.
“As I’m there playing,” Morris said Sunday in an interview with the Chronicle, “I see a small kid standing on the side. I say, ‘Hey, take my cell phone and video our game for us.’ I didn’t realize until I got home how the young kid was commentating the entire time, as he’s recording. So when I posted the video, as much as everyone gravitated to the shots, everyone was gravitating towards him.”
The young hypeman, Ra’kir “Rocky” Allen, stole the show.
“Every shot he made, I was hyping it up,” Allen said Sunday.
The video shows Morris nailing jumpers, and on one of them, the ball in midair, he spins away and looks at the camera. The kid had seen that move before.
“Oh, that’s Curry, that’s Curry, that’s Curry!” the young hypeman said on the video voiceover.
Nice moment, cool video, but Trooper Morris saw opportunity to take it further.
“I love doing followups,” Morris said. “When I deal with people in the community, I don’t like it to be the first time I meet ’em, I like to follow up and really build relationship with the community. So I thought the video would be clever way for me to reintroduce myself to this kid, so we can have a lifetime relationship, other than just him holding my cell phone for a park video.”
Morris got the young man’s name and address. The next day, Morris stopped after his shift and bought a pair of Stephen Curry sneakers, and dropped by Rocky’s home to give him the shoes and $50. Apparently state troopers are made of money.
When Curry saw the video of the trooper and the kid, he reached out with the invitation to both of them. It’s tough to say which of the two is more thrilled.
“I’m just super excited,” Morris said. “I feel like a kid waking up for Christmas, I can’t wait.”
Curry is also excited. “There’s not enough love and appreciation for others in our world right now,” Curry said via email Sunday, “so it was really inspiring and encouraging to see what Josh did for the young boy, someone he had no direct ties to or responsibility to assist. Anyone can be a hero. It does not have to be a professional athlete. It can be your local police officer or your teacher or one of your parents.
“I’m so proud of the officer and I’m looking forward to seeing him, and Ra’kir, on Monday night in Philadelphia. There is goodness out there if you look for it. We need to celebrate it when we see it.”
Morris will also bring his wife, Simone, who is seven months pregnant with their first son. They have a 1yearold daughter. Joshua and Simone are Curry fans. Not just Steph, but Ayesha, too.
“We watch Steph at home,” Morris said. “We love his wife, the family dynamic, that’s definitely something we look up to and try to mirror.”
Morris grew up in Wilmington, Del., and played college football, ending up at Delaware, where he was a safety. His basketball experience is limited to pickup ball, but he can shoot.
When I suggested to Morris he could get more lift if he took off his gun, he explained that he always trained for football wearing ankle weights and weight vests, so he doesn’t even notice the weight of his work belt.
Morris got a master’s degree in education and planned to be a high school math teacher, but administrative changes were causing a twoyear delay to that career path, so he switched and became a cop. He did so at a time when tensions were rising between police and innercity citizens.
“That’s one of the reasons I became a police officer,” Morris said, “is because of the tension that’s going on, and I’m the type of person that I don’t talk about it, I put myself in position to make change . ... I’m just being intentional and being a man of my word.”
Rocky, in a phone interview, gave me a video tour of his playground, and of course showed me the Curry shoes he was wearing. He said James Harden is his favorite player, and that he will become a police officer if his first career option, pro football quarterback, doesn’t work out.
In Rocky, the young hypeman, Morris sees a chance to do what he set out to do when he took the job.
“Sometimes these kids feel forgotten,” Morris said, “they don’t feel like they’re important because of their economic status. So me being an officer, giving the sneakers to him, was just to remind him that he’s someone who can be whatever he wants to be, and I got his back.”
And his feet.