College coach meets prospective player for campus visit. Coach is confused, believing player is another recruit. After mistaken identity clarified, coach decides to offer player role on team.
Turns out, this was no mistake. Guard Tory Wooley has forged quite an identity with the Atlanta Christian College basketball team.
"As soon as he came through the door, I knew he was different," coach Alan Wilson said of his leading scorer. "He handles himself so well.
"He was wearing a tie and a sweater that day. You don't see guys his age dressed like that."
Then again, you don't see guys his age scouting out schools.
That the appointment two summers ago with Wooley, who just turned 25, slipped the coach's mind was understandable. Wooley had fallen off the basketball grid since graduating in 2003 from Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. Even there, he was lightly noticed, what with attention diverted to younger teammates Dwight Howard (NBA megastar) and Javaris Crittenton (NBA player-in-limbo).
Wooley spent three semesters, sans basketball, at an Alabama college, returned home and joined the workforce.
A two-day gig found him as a non-speaking extra in the Tyler Perry film "Madea Family Reunion," in which he portrayed ... a basketball player. Wooley remembers Perry as physically fit but no LeBron James in high-tops: "He couldn't hit a shot."
All along, Wooley aspired to become a real-life player. But the calendar's pages were flipping fast, threatening to age him out.
"I didn't know which way life was going for me," he said.
Then Wooley discovered Atlanta Christian in East Point, with a religious curriculum and spiritual environment that suited him.
In his second game last season, Wooley filled in for an ailing starter and scored 28 points. Next outing, he was back on the bench.
"I was a freshman," he said. "I knew my time was going to come."
It came soon enough for Wooley to be named the south region's rookie of the year in Division II of the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association. This season, his 17.3 points per game have the Chargers (14-9) in line for a NCCAA tournament berth.
Wooley works hard at it. Each day, he walks a few dozen steps from the dorm to the gym and renews acquaintances with Dr. Dish, the machine that spits out basketballs for shooting practice. He typically launches several hundred; once, he counted to 3,500.
"I wish everybody had his work ethic," Wilson said.
Against Emmanuel College, a member of the loftier NAIA, halftime arrived with Wooley scoreless and clueless. He asked Wilson for advice.
"Just hit a shot," the coach told him. "It'll get you going."
During the second half and overtime, Wooley got into a just-me-and-Dr.-Dish mode. He torched the Emmanuel defense for 34 points.
Wild-and-Wooley basketball has carried over to the Lady Chargers. Kid sister Phylissa starts at guard, having given up a partial scholarship after one season at Tennessee Temple. Big brother's recruiting efforts affirms his appreciation for Atlanta Christian, which provides no athletic grants-in-aid.
If another school dangled a scholarship, Wooley would consider it but said, "It would be extremely hard for me to leave. I love it here."
Here is barely three miles from Southwest Atlanta Christian, the jumping-off point of Wooley's post-high school wanderings. The course of his journey wouldn't be recommended by MapQuest, but sometimes a round-about way can be the most satisfying.
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