Shooting Specialist
Set to teach a basketball clinic to Club youngsters, Member Spencer Jennings discusses the highs and lows of forging a career in the game.
Pointing to the three-point line in the Club Gymnasium, Spencer Jennings explains the mechanics of his basketball feat that was something of an Internet hit back in 2008.
As a guard on his Michigan high school varsity team, he spent countless hours shooting baskets at a local basketball center. An accomplished shooter (he averaged 22 points his senior year), he set himself a challenge. With his dad rebounding for him and his mom filming, he shot 10 balls from five different places on the three-point line. He made 47.
“It blew up and became kind of a viral thing. It got 200,000 [YouTube] views within a couple of weeks,” says Jennings. “That’s the moment I thought, ‘Wow, I’m actually getting pretty good at this shooting thing.’”
That diligently honed skill helped him see off competition from 70 other budding players to secure a walk-on spot at North Carolina’s Wake Forest, an NCAA Division I college in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
“It’s a lot of emotions,” Jennings, 27, says of the call he received after his tryout. “First, you feel elated and ecstatic and then you’re, like, ‘Man, am I ready for this?’ Because the ACC is probably the best basketball conference in the US, and you have to be able to play and perform every day.”
During a practice game in his sophomore year, his college career very nearly came to an abrupt, excruciating end. “I went to do a spin move, planted [my foot] and ripped my knee,” he says. “I heard the pop and it really hurt.”
Jennings had torn his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), an injury that has prematurely wrecked many professional sports careers. Jennings says his natural resolve saw him through the months of rehabilitation to return to action the following year.
“I always kind of had a chip on my shoulder from being smaller,” says the 1.85-meter Jennings. “Being smaller and less athletic than my teammates always meant I felt I had something to prove on the court.”
That’s the message he will deliver to youngsters when he hosts a clinic at the Club this month with his teammates from Crayon, one of 36 teams in Japan’s professional three-on-three league (the sport will make its debut at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics).
“I always tell kids, ‘Just show up and put your best foot forward because you’ll gain a lot of experience from trying. Even if you fail, you’ll know what to do better next time,’” he says.
After missing out on the NBA’s development league draft in 2015, Jennings played his first three-on-three season last year. “I’m having a blast,” he says.
But could he repeat that three-point performance from high school? “If I caught fire, I could get 47 again, but I could be here for two weeks and not get that number.”
3-on-3 Clinic & Tournament
Aug 26 | 1:30–2:30pm & 2:45–4:30pm
Words: Nick Jones
Image: Enrique Balducci
