Basketball games at Washington, D.C.’s Barry Farms Goodman League are run in daily sequence during the evening hours of the summer. Since the outdoor blacktop, affectionately known as the B.F. Coliseum, sits openly alongside the exhaust-producing Suitland Parkway, it takes a well-conditioned athlete to endure the heat and hustle of back-to-back games. Thankfully, Memphis Grizzlies small forward and D.C. native Sam Young happens to fall in the well-conditioned athlete category.
Young appeared in both the 6 p.m. game and the traditional twilight game at 8 p.m., which typically features the highlight matchup of the night. Operating on 10 minutes of rest between games, Young saved his best performance for the latter, exploding for 32 points and leading his Shooters team to an 83-79 win over Team Trinidad. Running alongside Goodman League legend Andrew “Spongebob” Washington, Young took the lead role as Washington struggled for much of the night. A series of alley-oop finishes; one on one takes and blocked shots illustrated the evening for Young, a 2004 graduate from Friendly High School, Fort Washington, Md.
For those who know Young’s work ethic, his appearance in both games really wasn’t all that surprising. From a man who played pickup games regularly during his lunch hours at the University of Pittsburgh and chose to live for a month in the locker room at the school’s home arena so he could work on his game at his own convenience, it probably should’ve been expected for Young to pull a double.
The Grizzlies’ 2009 second round pick will be adding to his already busy weekend when he plays in the annual D.C. vs Baltimore basketball game scheduled for Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Baltimore native and Denver Nuggets superstar Carmelo Anthony is expected to be in attendance.
