Photo by Manuel Mata-Flores’19| Basketball player Alec Owen’19 lines up to take a shot in the Dutch on Friday Dec. 15, 2017.

Joey Bottini ’19

THE ROUNDUP

Two years after being cut from the Brophy Freshman Basketball Team, Alec Owen ’19 played his first varsity game as a junior Dec. 1 against Skyline High School.

Owen said this was a moment he has dreamed about ever since he was about five years old.

His two older brothers attracted him to basketball at a young age.

“I grew up watching my brothers playing basketball in NYS Leagues, and I just really wanted to follow in their footsteps,” Owen said.

As Owen grew older, he said he started to think about playing basketball at Brophy.

“Freshman year, I expected to make the team,” Owen said. “My brothers made it when they were freshmen.”

Owen said he was very disappointed when he didn’t make the team, but he found other ways to stay connected to the team.

“I thought the opportunity to be a manager would be cool because I could be apart of the team, while also being an alternate in case anyone got injured,” said Owen.

He said his decision to be a manager led him to being able to play in five of the 19 games that season.

After the freshman season ended, Owen said he did not stop working to strengthen his game in the weight room and on the court.

Owen said he would try to go to the gym everyday. He said that the seven month period between the end of season to JV tryouts served as a benchmark for him.

“Coach Hooten and coach Denk preached getting stronger in the weight room, so I kind of took that to heart,” Owen said.

When the junior varsity season came around, Owen said his hard work paid off as the coaches saw his improvement, and gave him a spot on the junior varsity team.

He said it did not stop there though because he was constantly thinking of ways to get better for the varsity season the next year.

Owen said he built a relationship with coach Denk when he decided to take weights class during his sophomore year.

“Alec is somebody that was a leader in the locker room for the JV team, and also in the weight room last year as a sophomore,” Mr. Hooten said.

Owen said he used his sophomore season, similar to his freshman season, as an opportunity to improve through hard work.

“There were times when I was left wondering: is this all going to pay off, or is it all going to waste,” Owen said.

Owen earned his way on the varsity roster during his junior season.

“Alec got a lot stronger from his freshman to sophomore year, which gave him a lot of versatility position wise, and when you’re trying to round out a roster, a guy with flexibility like that is really valuable,” said Mr. Hooten.

Owen said he feels accomplished after all the work he put in to achieve his goal of making the varsity team ended successfully.

“It feels really good because all the early mornings and late nights, all the times I didn’t want to keep going and I was tired have all paid off, and it feels amazing,” Owen said.