2019-20 Georgia Tech Everyday Champions Issue #3

James Jr. – Dad -- played football at North Carolina Central. He was 6-7, and he may have even played a little bit of ball in an obscure semi- pro league. Sonja played a little basketball at Towers High in DeKalb County. She was 6-feet before the accident on Feb. 25, 2015, that broke her back. “I only made the team because I was tall,” she says. James III eventually took off in basketball in part because he is also tall. He sure wasn’t good when he made the JV squad at Columbia High in Decatur as a freshman. He’d been 6-3 in middle school and kept growing. Then, his mother let him try out for a new sport. He did almost nothing. At the time, he figured he had a shot as a defensive end, or as an offensive lineman, maybe as a tight end, but basketball looked so cool. So, he swayed his mother into letting him play. “Moving bodies, that’s really what I thought my thing was going to be, and I just remember I wanted to play (basketball) so bad. I didn’t make the varsity, and just doing the three-man weave was so hard for me, so challenging,” he says. “They wouldn’t even let me touch a ball.” But the big boy got better fast. He transferred to St. Francis School, in Alpharetta, for his sophomore year and played off the bench for a state championship team that included Malik Beasley, who now plays in the NBA for the Timberwolves. Other teammates included Kaiser Gates, who went on to play for the University of Arizona, and the NBA’s Grizzlies, Cavs and Hornets. They were both one-and-done players in college. Another teammate, Kobi Simmons, was on the team as well. He played at Xavier for three years, and is working now in the NBA’s developmental G-League. Then, Banks played some AAU ball. “That summer I played for the first time with Stampede, made a little bit of noise and got my feet wet,” he says. “Playing at St. Francis with all those guys, we had college coaches all the time. It opened up a new lens on what basketball could be for me.” St. Francis head coach Cabral Huff took a job at Georgia Southern, and Banks soon transferred away to Mt. Vernon Presbyterian in Sandy Springs for his junior season. And he rocked more. In the middle of that season, his mother went skidding off of I-20 while driving to ministry duties outside of Anniston, Ala. Mostly, she lives on the Move of God Bible Way Tabernacle property outside of Anniston, tended to by church members. When in Atlanta, which is a few days a month – chiefly when James has a basketball game – she stays with her mother in

THAT SUMMER I PLAYED FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH STAMPEDE, MADE A LITTLE BIT OF NOISE AND GOT MY FEET WET. PLAYING AT ST. FRANCIS WITH ALL THOSE GUYS, WE HAD COLLEGE COACHES ALL THE TIME. IT OPENED UP A NEW LENS ON WHAT BASKETBALL COULD BE FOR ME.

—JAMES BANKS

ran five miles a day, and I was coming back, and I passed the park (where kids played). I thought I smelled marijuana. I was really strict on him. I kept him up under me, and sometimes when I look back, I wish I did things a little differently. I should have known by his size that basketball was his sport. “(By then) being a single mom, after something so tragic, I think things would have been different if his dad was around, and he would have been exposed to more sports.” A few years after the death of James, Jr., Mom relented one day when the family was at Stonecrest Mall, and youth league officials had a sign-up table there. “Because his dad had played football, I think he wanted to play football for the DC Trojans,” Sonja says.

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