Early Life and Career
Elie, who is of Haitian heritage, grew up in New York City. He was named "Mario" for opera singer Mario Lanza. His father died after Elie graduated from college. He had a brother named Clark, an amateur basketball player who died in a car accident in October 2009. He also has a sister named Nancy.
Elie attended Power Memorial Academy (same high school as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), where he was a teammate of Chris Mullin under coach Steve Donohue. Elie played street ball in Central Park and other locations in New York City during the 1980s, trying and failing several times to get into the NBA. His nickname on the New York playgrounds was "The Jedi".
He played college basketball at American International College in Springfield, MA. Though Elie led AIC to their conference's first NCAA Division II Tournament Quarter-Final, he was at first overlooked by NBA teams. Elie was selected with the 160th pick (out of 162 total) in the 1985 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks. However, he was waived by the Bucks less than two months later. He was also on the pre-season roster for the 1990-91 Los Angeles Lakers, but was waived before the season started.
Eventually he played in Europe, most notably in the Portuguese League with the Ovarense Aerosoles, then in the World Basketball League, and also spent two years in the Continental Basketball Association with the Albany Patroons. In 1987 he played for Dart Killester in Ireland. He also played in the Argentine League, for Unión de Santa Fe.
Read more about this topic: Mario Elie
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawns early my
country tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jing by gee by gosh by gum”
—E.E. (Edward Estlin)
“After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life.”
—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partners job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)