Gopher Perseveres Against All Odds

Larry Mike, 19, said the hardship he’s endured only makes him more grateful for the things he’s been able to achieve.

A native of New Orleans, Mike and his family evacuated during Hurricane Katrina and moved to Glen Burnie in December 2006. He missed a year of school in the aftermath of the hurricane and enrolled as an eighth grader at in January 2007.

“I believe God has his purpose with everything. I really do. Because he brought me out of that situation and brought me here for a reason and I feel like if I don’t do anything or just let myself down then I would not be accomplishing [his will],” Mike said.

Mike started playing football when he was 5 years old. Being in a family of athletes—his mother played volleyball, ran track and was an all-star basketball player—Mike always knew he would follow suit. He just thought he would play football.

“I moved up here [from Louisiana] thinking I would be playing football, but the football program isn’t that good [at ] so I decided to try basketball,” he said.

Four years ago, few could have predicted the 5-foot-10-inch Mike would lead the Glen Burnie boys basketball team to the of the state championships and be recognized by Capital-Gazette as the Boys Basketball Player of the Year.

“I never played basketball before [high school]," said the 19-year-old Glen Burnie senior. "You can Google it.”

Before trying out for the boys’ basketball team as a freshman, Mike said he never played the sport since he was focusing on football.

“It’s rare for a guy to just all of a sudden to decide in high school to play basketball and also be ‘player of the year’ four years later,” he said.

Glen Burnie head basketball coach Mike Rudd agreed.

“It’s amazing that he didn’t play at all,” Rudd said. “So many kids start playing when they’re 5 and 6 nowadays.”

Hard Life Back Home
Mike and his family lived in the Pebble Walk subdivision of Harvey, LA—a neighborhood he said wasn’t a healthy environment for a child. Or an adult. A close friend and neighbor, who Mike said was like a brother, was shot and killed at 21 years old in February of this year. Another friend and neighbor is serving 10 years in prison.

“That just shows you what it was like where I lived,” he said. “Half the people that I used to be around, honestly, are either dead or in jail now...in New Orleans.”

His mother, Phyllis Mike, who is deaf, registered him for football when he was 5 years old.

“I wanted to keep him off of the streets and keep him from getting in trouble,” she said through Larry Mike, who translated as she signed. “He was a good boy [as a young child]. I would keep him busy in sports and [nurtured] his love for sports. And keep him from running around with his friends.”

Even football wasn’t able to keep him from the harsh realities of his environment. When he was about 9 years old, his football coach was shot and killed during a practice, he said. The traumatic experience kept him away from football for a while, but his love for the sport made him begin to play again when he was about 13—the same year Hurricane Katrina hit.

“It was scary. As far as hurricanes go, we get hit a lot. We weren’t even planning on evacuating,” he said.

Once they realized how bad the storm was going to be, about 15 family members left their homes and went to Beaumont, TX, where they stayed in a shelter.

“Then [Hurricane] Rita came and we had to evacuate from there,” he said.

Eventually, they returned to Louisiana that October to find their home in ruins. After about a year back in Louisiana, Phyllis Mike moved with Larry and his younger sister Laricia to Glen Burnie, where they’d planned to move before the hurricane hit. She wanted a fresh start for her family and knew someone who grew up Glen Burnie.

“I didn’t want to move at first. But after the hurricane—it changed my life. Seeing reality at a young age, it helped me mature faster,” he said.

Living in Glen Burnie was a big change for Larry Mike, he said, since he was used to living in bad areas and the embodying lifestyle that went with it.

“It was tough,” he said. “But moving out here was actually good for me. Now, I don't get in trouble.”

Playing With a Purpose
Rudd said he recognized early on that Larry Mike was talented, moving him up to the varsity team after playing on the junior varsity squad for one year.

“You could see his athleticism was real raw, but you could see how hard he played,” Rudd said.

Larry Mike’s intensity as a player is something his teammates admired and earned him respect as a team captain.

“Playing with [Larry Mike] was fun and, at times, he was demanding,” said junior Brandon Spain, 16. “If you were doing something wrong, he would tell you about it and how to fix it.”

Spain said he plans to take what he learned from Larry Mike and implement it when he steps into a leadership role on the team next season.

“He always tried to be positive all the time on the court and off the court, and in the classroom,” Spain said.

Rudd added that Larry Mike always worked hard in practice and took that intensity with him into games.

“Larry always wanted the ball at crunch time. Some players who score a lot of points shy away from the ball at crunch time,” Rudd said. “That’s not something you coach that’s something a kid has in him or he doesn’t.”

And that’s because basketball is more than a sport to him, Larry Mike said—it’s a form of expression.

“I could be having a bad day and everything could be going wrong. But when I’m out here on the court or with my teammates or with my coach, all of that just goes away,” he said, adding that it was the support of his teammates and Rudd that helped get him through the death of his friend.

The Future
Life after graduation isn’t necessarily clear for Larry Mike yet. Rudd said there are several junior colleges in Maryland looking to recruit Larry Mike, but he is keeping his options open.

He does know that wherever he ends up he wants to study sign language since his mother is deaf, he said.

“I picked it up [sign language]. I don’t know how. People ask me all the time, ‘How did you learn how to do that?’ But I really don’t know,” he said. “That’s something I really would like to [pursue].”

The idea of going to college is something he said he only recently thought he would be able to do.

“I started thinking about it once I realized that I could actually do something positive,” he said. “I feel like I owe it to myself and to my mother and to people around me who have supported me since I’ve been here.”

And Phyllis Mike said she couldn’t be more proud.

“I like watching him play. He’s a good player,” she said through her son, who translated. “I think he can make it and go far.”