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Jun
04

It's Groundhog Day For "Why Didn't Steph Go To VT?"

Every spring, when Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors make it to the finals and he hits all sorts of ridiculous shots, it becomes Groundhog Day for Virginia Tech fans.

As in the day when people ask “why didn’t Virginia Tech give Curry a scholarship when his Dad was a legend there?”

Over and over again.

If you don’t know the story, allow me to tell it one more time. Steph, while in high school, was a bit undersized versus how he is now. He grew up like the child of anyone whose Dad was a big Virginia Tech fan, and Dell Curry brought his family back to the campus often to see Virginia Tech football and basketball games. Not surprisingly, Steph grew up around a lot of orange and maroon. Also not surprising: he grew up with a basketball in his hands, and started to become quite good in high school.

As the recruiting process was starting his junior year, Steph came to Blacksburg for a workout. Legend has it that the Hokies’ two senior guards and two best defensive players on the team – Zabian Dowdell and Jamon Gordon – easily defended him to the point that Steph couldn’t even get his shot off. Head coach Seth Greenberg, the story goes, decided upon seeing this that he might not be an ACC-caliber player, which was the same opinion as all the other ACC schools because none offered Steph a scholarship.

But Steph was part of a family that was Hokie royalty. So again, as the story goes, Greenberg invited Steph to walk on, with the promise of a four-year scholarship after red-shirting that walk-on year. Greenberg has said at the time he had no available scholarships to give due to some early commitments that were made that season. Given that, it sounded like a very fair situation for a player many deemed an “iffy” prospect at the time.

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