By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
In an interview with EuroLeague.net, Maccabi Tel Aviv guard talked about playing for the “Yellows”, his basketball beginnings while describing what was like growing up in Pittsburgh around gangs and gun violence.
Kane went through a harrowing experience as a teenager, when he witnessed one of his best friends getting shot to death. It could have been him, as he says.
Per EuroLeague:
As he reached his teen years, Kane did start to understand how important sports could be to his future. “Growing up in Pittsburgh can be kind of rough, especially where I’m from,” Kane explained. “It can be easy to get caught up in things and your sports career can be ended in less than hours of hanging with the wrong crew, hanging with the wrong crowd at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Just trying to fit in… Where I’m from, you can’t let that happen.”
And yet, it nearly did happen to Kane in high school. “We were leaving a party on the other side of town and my friend had a word with another guy over his girlfriend.
“They got into it as we leave. Shots rang out and we’re running, we’re running. And all of a sudden I see my friend fall. But I didn’t understand. I thought he was just falling to get low, so he won’t get shot. And as everybody got up when the gunshots stopped firing, I was looking for him.”
Once the gunshots stopped, Kane found his friend and his life was instantly changed. “He got shot in the head one time. We went to the hospital and that night he was dead. I have him tattooed on me. He was one of my best friends… It could have been me, for sure. I was running right next to him.”
Read the rest of the story at EuroLeague.net.