Raised in Louisiana, Sinclair Pride guard Patrick Green said he has experienced everything New Orleans has to offer: Mardi Gras, great food and Hurricane Katrina.<\/p>\n
\u201cI evacuated New Orleans at 2 a.m. with my sister, right before Katrina hit. The traffic was so bad we almost went back, but my mom said we had to get out of there,\u201d Green said. \u201cWe\u2019re lucky we did leave because our house got destroyed and we lost everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green said his family went to his grandparent\u2019s house in Lake Charles, La. to escape Katrina\u2019s wrath, but quickly had to evacuate again when Hurricane Rita struck Lake Charles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Hurricane Rita hit, my whole family evacuated to my uncle\u2019s house in Pensacola, Fla. That evacuation was even harder because we evacuated with 15 people and had 18 family members living in one house,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Green said he stayed in Florida for two months before returning to New Orleans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quiet silence. We were the only people in our neighborhood. We stood in the middle of the street looking at our house and you couldn\u2019t hear nothing, not even a bird,\u201d he said. \u201cThe year Katrina hit was probably the hardest times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green said he lived in a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailer for a couple of months and then enrolled into a private all boys\u2019 prep school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI stayed out of trouble because I never left school. I stayed in the basketball gym all day,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a documentary on VH1 where Mannie Fresh said living in New Orleans is like living in a war zone and it really is. You got to watch everywhere you go, you got to watch who you be with and everything.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t\u2026 you may get caught in the wrong situation and you\u2019ll be running for your life. My friend got shot with a .45 (caliber) this summer for no reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green said the prep school\u2019s high tuition became hard on his mom and forced him to make a tough decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told my mom maybe I needed to get away and go live up north a year with my father because I couldn\u2019t stand New Orleans anymore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
So Green moved to Dayton with his father – whom he had never lived with before – and played basketball at Dunbar High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy experience at Dunbar was great, I miss it already,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had packed gyms, it was always sold out. They taught me how to have heart. You have to play hard every second you\u2019re on that court and you have to put in the work if you want to be good.\u201d<\/p>\n
After graduating from Dunbar, Green set his sights on earning a spot on Sinclair\u2019s basketball team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came to the open gyms over the summer and worked my butt off to see if they would give me a chance,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt blessed when coach (Jeff) Price told me I made the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, after \u201cgetting into it\u201d with his father, Green moved back to New Orleans to be with his mom who recently underwent two surgeries; one was to remove a tumor from her back.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom is going through it all right now,\u201d he said. \u201cBut she kept hearing me talk about basketball for Dunbar and making the Sinclair basketball team so she thought it was the best idea for me to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green won\u2019t get to play in any games this year after being red-shirted, but he has no problems with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good thing about red shirting is that it gives me a whole extra year of getting better,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I have no excuses for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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