Former Aggie thriving in new home across the sea
This season’s Utah State men`s basketball team recently completed a thrilling run that included a 30-4 record – the best in school history – along with an NCAA tournament appearance and a no. 17 national ranking in the most recent ESPN/USA Today coaches poll March 13.
Not a bad year, by anyone’s estimation.
Another not-too-distant season, however, rivals the wave we were just privileged to ride all the way through WAC championships in both the regular season and in the tournament in Las Vegas earlier this month.
Just two seasons ago, in the 2008-09 campaign, the Aggies finished 30-5, faced Marquette in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, and also won both the conference regular season and tournament titles. They likewise climbed as high as no. 17 in the national coaches’ poll in early February.
Much like the way this year’s seniors, such as Tai Wesley, Brian Green and Pooh Williams, led the team to great heights this season, no one was more pivotal to the success of Stew’s crew during that record-setting season than a certain senior.
Enter Gary Wilkinson, a 6-9, 240-pound redhead who shoots the 3-pointer with regular success, rebounds with the best of ‘em and won the WAC Player of the Year Award during that particular season, his second in Aggie blue. Today, he plays professionally for the New Zealand Breakers of the Australian National Basketball League (ANBL), averaging 16.1 points and 9.1 rebounds per game. In October, he received an ANBL Player of the Week Award. He has been married for nearly five years to a one-time Aggie volleyball star, the former Jessica Petersen. The couple are expecting their first child, a boy, in May.
By anyone’s estimation, that’s not too bad for a guy who didn`t even graduate from high school.
Wilkinson was a man with anything but a mission when he called SLCC head coach Norm Parrish in 2005 to ask about a tryout for a basketball scholarship. The request came with a less-than-impressive playing resume, with nothing further than AAU ball in the eighth grade. Wilkinson did not play basketball at Bingham High after the then-6-4 15-year-old was asked to play forward, rather than guard. He refused.
The demands continued to roll in for the high school senior. You know, demands like class and homework – such strains when offers like drinking and partying late with friends are also on the table.
But those tables in Wilkinson’s out-of-control life quickly turned. In 2000, a friend of Wilkinson’s committed suicide after the school year had ended.
“Those things happening, tragic experiences, make us question the path we’re on,” Wilkinson said. “That’s what it did for me. That made me question, ‘If I continue to do the things I do, will I end up in the same position?'”
“All of my friends and everything that was important was involved in drinking and drugs and that type of thing. I decided I wasn’t going to allow that to be part of my life,” he said.
A friend of Wilkinson’s then introduced him to the LDS Church, which Wilkinson decided to join.
“When the Church came into my life, it provided me with the structure to be successful,” he said.
The conversion later prompted missionary service in Calgary, Canada, in 2003. When he returned, school was, for the first time in his life, on his list of priorities. A quick flip of the phone book landed him a call and a tryout before Parrish – but not before the Bruin coach learned of Wilkinson’s size.
“I’d hate to say it, but if he were 6-2, I probably never would have invited him to go play,” Parrish said.
“If you’re disciplined enough to do (a mission) for two years, you’re disciplined to handle most anything,” Parrish said. “I didn’t think I was taking much of a risk as far as baggage. It kind of erased the dropout.”
At SLCC, Wilkinson was both an NJCAA honorable-mention All-America and a two-time academic All-America. He met Jessica there, as well; she was planning on attending Utah State on the volleyball scholarship.
Brian Green, who played at SLCC with Wilkinson as a freshman for one season before transferring to Logan himself, valued the brief time he got to be the big man’s teammate.
“I learned a lot from Gary just watching how hard he worked,” Green said.
He said Wilkinson personally called to encourage him to attend Utah State when he considered Morrill’s offer among many others.
“He hated losing and had a lot of passion and competitiveness, and was just a more mature kid coming off a mission.”
Green is planning on leaving on his own missionary service this summer. But before that time comes, Green said he thinks he will be able to play some pickup games with Wilkinson in May, after the ANBL season ends and the Wilkinson family returns to Logan for the summer.
When Utah State found Wilkinson, Aggie coaches didn’t worry about his troubled past.
“Norm (Parrish) probably had a few reservations,” Utah State assistant Tim Duryea said. “When we recruited him, we had absolutely zero.”
Since his stellar two-year career in Logan, Wilkinson said his life since graduating has been “nonstop.” The tour has involved stints with teams in South Korea and Greece.
Such a trip has involved some adjustments.
“Driving on the opposite side of the road has taken some getting used to,” he said. “They don’t always have the same food choices. The culture is a lot more laid back, which I love.”
Jessica said she has loved the overseas experience for a variety of reasons.
“I have loved being able to be immersed within the culture of these countries and live among the people rather than just visit in as a ‘tourist,'” Jessica said. “It lends itself to a totally different experience. The people we have met and the beauties of the world that we have had the opportunity to see never ceases to amaze me.”
It’s all a fairy-tale story so far for the soon-to-be-mother, she said.
“Sometimes I wake up and pinch myself thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I live in New Zealand,'” she said. “Even though being so far from home and the familiarity that goes with being back in Utah can be difficult sometimes, I am definitely grateful for the many places that basketball has taken our little family.”
His international playing career has been sandwiched by a number of summer NBA workouts, including looks from the Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors, as well as a summer league with the Utah Jazz.
The post player also hopes to play ball as long as possible, in accordance with what is best for his wife and new child.
“It is hard to anticipate how long I will play,” he said. “I just try to focus on what I am doing now and let the other things take care of themselves. I would like to play as long as it is what is best for our family.”
Not that the professional atmosphere has removed him from a period of time that Wilkinson considers choice.
“USU was one of the major highlights of our lives together thus far for Jessica and myself,” said Wilkinson.
Jessica said, “Enjoy every second of it and cherish even those bad days when you are late for class and trudging through the snow. That time in your life goes so fast. There
is so much to be enjoyed.”
And then there’s that whole atmosphere at a certain location on the north end of campus.
“The student section in the Spectrum will always stick out to me as one of the greatest sporting venues in the world,” Wilkinson said.
It’s one sweet stop on what has been a wild, globetrotting ride for this comeback kid.
–rhett.wilkinson@aggiemail.usu.edu