MILL RATS: PART ONE
It all began in September 1985 at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. — the prestigious Jesuit prep school where a newspaper article about the nation’s #1 basketball team first lit the fire. From driveway pickup games in Chevy Chase to summers on Nantucket, from Georgetown basketball camp sneaking out for burgers past the Exorcist stairs, to the University of Maryland and eventually Cape Cod — this is the origin story.
Part One spans 20 chapters and 405 pages of the journey that led a kid with no formal sports background — whose careers were in accounting and landscaping — to the front office of professional basketball. A true story showing how having the purest love for the game led to achieving the impossible, even when he hadn’t intended to.
Buy on Amazon →It all began in September 1985 at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. This was the start of my sophomore year, and I was heading into Forte Hall for a meeting with my guidance counselor.
Gonzaga students were called the “Eye Street Boys” since the campus is adjacent to I Street and North Capitol Street. You can see Gonzaga’s church steeple on some $100 bills, as it’s that close to the United States Capitol building.
As I wandered down the halls seeking out my guidance counselor, I noticed an enlarged newspaper article reprinted as a lithograph hanging on the wall. It had a photo of a basketball player dribbling a ball through his legs. I paused to check it out.
The Washington Post article was entitled “Tillmon’s Hot Summer Points to Torrid Winter.” It called Mark Tillmon “the best high school basketball player in the metropolitan area.” ...
PART TWO — COMING SOON
The saga continues. Stay tuned for the next chapter of the Mill Rats story.