By Chris Whitaker, Sports Editor
Americus Times-Recorder
AMERICUS — Four years ago, Anthony Sargent was celebrating
a state 4A high school basketball championship with NBA rookies
Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. at Lawrence North in
Indianapolis.
And even just last year, he was a preseason JUCO-All American at
Rend Lake Community College(Ill.).
But today, on Thanksgiving, Sargent has a lot more to be thankful
for than just basketball success.
The Georgia Southwestern guard thought in May that his basketball
career was over.
"I just felt like (basketball) was being taken away from me," said
Sargent, 22.
Sargent was born with a heart murmur and for years, it didn't
affect his play on the hardwood. He had checkups every year to
check the condition, and it finally came time when something needed
to be done. He had open heart surgery in May.
"(Doctors) have always suggested he have the surgery done, but it
just didn't come up until this year," said Sargent's mother, Tonya
Johnson. "They said if it was done at an early age that it could
possibly come back, so we prolonged it as long as we could. But the
leakage in his heart was more than ever before."
Johnson said if the surgery was not done then that other parts of
his heart would not work properly, causing other complications.
"The day we told him, he was very emotional, and so was I," she
said. "Basketball was his life. All his free times goes to
basketball. It was a lot of anxiety for me as well being clueless
with what's going to take place after surgery. The unknown."
Sargent said he tried hard to avoid hearing the word surgery.
"I was just like, 'nah, not for me,' " he said. But it was either
get surgery or not play anymore, so my mother talked me into
getting it. My biggest fear was not coming out of it. With heart
surgeries, there's always that chance something could go wrong. And
being me, I look at the worst-case scenario."
Sargent woke up with severe pain after doctors cut through the
bones in his chest, which now houses a metal wire to help the bones
grow back together. And for the next three months, his world was
turned upside down.
"When I woke up, my chest bone was broken in half, and on a scale
of one to 10, the pain was over 10," he said. "I was stuck in the
house for 60 days. I could get up and walk around, but I had to
make my walks two to three minutes. It was just tough getting up
and down. Even a walk from the house to the mailbox was terrible.
The smallest things you could think of could take my energy
away."
And while there was a battle on the inside to heal, there was also
one on the outside with his future.
Division I basketball programs like Mercer, Eastern Illinois,
Valparaiso and Texas Pan-American were hot on the trail to recruit
Sargent to their university. But the phone fell almost silent after
the surgery.
"The hardest thing was seeing and speaking to coaches who were
recruiting him and then stopped or would lie," said Johnson. "He
went on several visits and told him they would give him a chance,
but then we wouldn't hear from them. They'd call and say they were
comfortable with it, and that was the hard part for me."
Sargent then started to regret having the surgery done.
"Coming out of high school I figured I would play for four years
and then I was thinking about the real life aspects through June
and July thinking, 'Oh man, real life is hitting me right now.' I
started to get so many calls from different coaches, and after I
made it out of the hospital, all the calls were over. It was like a
disease and nobody wanted to catch it. For a while I was thinking
nobody wanted to give me a chance."
But there was one coach who didn't, Georgia Southwestern's Mike
Leeder. And even before that, Sargent said he received some
motivation when he watched Oden and Conley walk across the stage as
top-five picks in June's NBA Draft.
His first chance to return to the basketball court came at the end
of July, and he made his way to Americus to visit the university
and attend a couple of workouts.
"I liked it a lot, but the hardest thing, I went through a
five-minute workout and couldn't go anymore," said Sargent. "I was
so out of shape and was still going through some pains from
surgery. I was really hoping to make it through the workout. I
thought, 'Man, (Leeder) may be thinking what he's getting himself
into, but he stuck with me."
Leeder, who guided the Hurricanes to a 16-13 overall and 7-9
conference record in their first year in Division II and the Peach
Belt Conference, said despite not making it completely through the
workout, he never had any doubts.
"Anthony's really hard on himself and is doing a better job of
that now," he said. "When he started conditioning, I think he
anticipated being back to the way it was all his life. I still
think his best basketball is down the road. He still has a long way
to go, but he's getting in better shape for it now."
Sargent hasn't been a disappointment at all. He's scored 27 and 35
points in GSW's first two games, and Leeder said the investment
will pay off.
"He has a nice feel for how to play the game, he's creative and
very good offensively," he said.
This will be the first Thanksgiving Sargent won't be at home.
Instead, he and the rest of the team will spend it at Leeder's
house.
Johnson said it will be very different without him around as about
30 family members pack into his grandmother's house.
"There's going to be sure lots of food left because he does have a
hearty appetite," she said. "I'm wondering how this is going to go
over. It's very sad actually. It's the first time he's been this
far away."
Sargent said when he thinks about what he's thankful for today, it
will be a lot more than just family and macaroni and cheese.
"I just realized there will be high highs and low lows," he said.
"I just have to fight through things no matter if everything is
going great or going bad. I had open-heart surgery at 21, and not
every day you hear someone doing that.
"I'm really thankful for being back healthy, and being able to see
Thanksgiving and family at Christmas, I appreciate that alone."
Baseball
About the PBC
