High School and College Career
Payton was born in Oakland, California. He played high school basketball at Skyline High School in Oakland, California, along with former NBA player Greg Foster, before attending Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. In his sophomore year, his grades plummeted and was declared academically ineligible. His dad encouraged him to focus on school, and he was allowed to play again. Throughout his four-year career at OSU, he became one of the most decorated basketball players in OSU history. During his senior year, Payton was featured on the March 5, 1990 cover of Sports Illustrated magazine as the nation's best college basketball player. He was a consensus All-American in 1990; three-time All-Pac-10 selection, and named the Pac-10 conference's 1987 Freshman of the Year. He was the MVP of the Far West Classic tournament three times and was the Pac-10 Player of the Week nine times. He also was named to the Pac-10's All-Decade Team. At the time of his graduation, he held the school record for points, field goals, three-point field goals, assists, and steals — the only record which he still holds today. During his career at OSU, the Beavers made three NCAA Tournament appearances and one NIT appearance. He was elected into OSU's Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.
Read more about this topic: Gary Payton
Famous quotes containing the words high, school, college and/or career:
“The high plains, the beginning of the desert West, often act as a crucible for those who inhabit them. Like Jacob’s angel, the region requires that you wrestle with it before it bestows a blessing.”
—Kathleen Norris (b. 1947)
“Green, green is El Aghir. It has a railway station,
And the wealth of its soil has borne many another fruit:
A mairie, a school and an elegant Salle de Fetes.
Such blessings, as I remarked, in effect, to the waiter,
Are added unto them that have plenty of water.”
—Norman Cameron (b. 1905)
“Thirty-five years ago, when I was a college student, people wrote letters. The businessman who read, the lawyer who traveled; the dressmaker in evening school, my unhappy mother, our expectant neighbor: all conducted an often large and varied correspondence. It was the accustomed way of ordinarily educated people to occupy the world beyond their own small and immediate lives.”
—Vivian Gornick (b. 1935)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)