William Gates Jr. is emerging from his famous dad’s shadow and carving his own path

It’s no surprise the younger Gates wasn’t at his dad’s level when he began high school. Whereas Gates’ father displayed NBA potential before a knee injury during his junior year at St. Joseph robbed him of much of his explosiveness, the younger Gates only began playing organized basketball when he was in eighth grade.

(William Gates Jr. and Sr.)

Though Gates played with his friends at the park as a kid and attended camps at St. Joseph every summer, he never asked to join a local youth team and his parents never pushed him to do so. Looking back, he now admits he wasn’t sure he was good enough to pursue the same sport his father used as a way out of the Chicago projects.

What changed Gates’ mind was the success he enjoyed at a camp at St. Joseph the summer before he began eighth grade. He beat out dozens of his peers to win the camp’s free throw shooting contest and one-on-one competition, prompting him to come home that night and announce to his parents that he wanted to play organized basketball in school for the first time the following year.

“That was a defining moment that really launched his career,” the elder Gates recalled. “Dad had to go into overdrive teaching him how to play the game and understand the game. ‘Son this is a two-three zone. This is man-to-man. This is your position. We had to go through all those things in one summer that you’re supposed to learn gradually growing up.”

Once it became time for the Gates to choose a high school, neither he nor his father had any doubt which to pick.

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