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Texas A&M Basketball

Aggie Flashback with former basketball player Marlon Pompey

February 17, 2015
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Key quotes from Marlon Pompey interview

“When I got the visit, I thought I was going to visit UT. When I came to Aggieland, just the atmosphere reminded me of being back home with a close-knit family, while still having the morals and values. I did not take another visit after that I committed right away.”

“It was very fun loving. We didn’t have a lot of money or stuff; it was a household with my grandfather and grandmother. A lot of people didn’t have the opportunity to spread out. You leave university, you buy a house, unfortunately, in a third world country, you’re still fighting for that at age 30. We didn’t have a lot but we had a lot of love, which is something I cherished and found at A&M as well.”

“Soccer was the first love. Every male in my family played soccer at a high level. It was something that I was following in their footsteps. I didn’t know anything about basketball; the closest I got was net ball, that my aunt coached. I was in the change room in gym class and heard this guy say something about basketball. “What’s basketball?” They were doing it together, so I was like, I want to do that too.”

“I remember it like it was yesterday, I had a breakaway and I hit nothing but backboard. I didn’t understand the concept of putting a ball in a basket from that distance. It made no sense to me."

“Before I had the exposure and showed who I really was, A&M saw that. They were sending me letters before prep school, so when I had the opportunity, they wanted to give me a chance before any other school. When people realized my skills, I thought, “I owe them the first hit.”

“It was painful, being a freshman and being so young, you just want to win. I’m not saying the seniors didn’t have it in them anymore, we just took it more personal than anyone else. It was so painful to keep ticking in the losing column, we needed change.”

“We weren’t used to Gillespie when he came around. What made Acie and I stay, Coach Billy reached out to our parents and informed them of what he was trying to do and that he wanted us to be part of it, part of the change. I don’t think there was anyone who didn’t want to quit, but the hard work definitely paid off. Halfway through the season, it was easy for us to tell the new guys that this is working.”

“He (Gerry McNamara) should have looked up Dominique Kirk. It was just amazing. To have a win in the NCAA tournament, it was beautiful. They didn’t know about us, at that time, Coach G had shock the world and that’s what we did. We beat Syracuse and nobody expected us to, that gave us confidence going forward.”
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Aggie Flashback: Marlon Pompey

4,347 Views | 2 Replies | Last: 9 yr ago by ryanhnc10
Gabe Bock
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Aggie Flashback: Marlon Pompey
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ryanhnc10
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Really enjoyed watching Marlon during my time at A&M. Those teams were really fun to watch and extremely intense on the defensive end.
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