Odd Journey To EMU
Posted: January 23, 2013
HARRISONBURG – When asked what his future holds, Ryan Yates wasn’t sure. He doesn’t even like to speculate.
“I tried planning a lot of my life,” Yates, an Eastern Mennonite University sophomore basketball player, said recently with a chuckle, “which has landed me here [at EMU].”
At one time, Yates was on track for a Division I scholarship. But his college stock fell twice: first because of a scandal on his high school basketball team and then because of an odd medical issue that sapped most of the vision from his left eye.
The result: a drop from D-I to D-III.
Not that the 6-foot-7, 195-pound Yates is upset with being at EMU, where he’s averaging 7.5 points per game this season as a small forward. He just thought he’d end up on a bigger stage.
Yates started for T.C. Williams High School as a sophomore in 2007-08, helping the Titans win the Group AAA state championship, and was the best player on the 2009-10 T.C. team that began the season as a title contender. D-I colleges were interested in Yates – he was, after all, a 6-7 wing who could dribble and shoot – but he also was skinny. Schools wanted to see more.
Instead, T.C. was nailed for a rules violation.
In February 2010, it was discovered that two of the Titans’ players – Yates wasn’t one of them – were actually in their fifth year of high school after transferring, and therefore ineligible. Both players had to leave the team, and T.C. forfeited its first 15 games after starting the season 12-3.
Yates had to switch positions to center, and the Titans lost in the first round of their district tournament.
“It hurt him tremendously,” said T.C. coach Julian King of how the scandal affected Yates’ recruiting. “That was a situation where we had one of the top teams in the state, and we potentially – probably – could have gone to the championship game of the state tournament with him leading the way.
“…Had we gone the usual route that we go in the postseason, there’s no doubt in my mind that somebody would have been willing to offer him a full Division I ride.”
Yates still had some D-II scholarship offers, but his sights were set firmly on D-I, so he went to Massanutten Military Academy, figuring he could climb back onto the radar – despite some warnings from King.
“I said, ‘Hey, the prep school route is a gamble, and it’s not good for everyone,’” King said.
He wasn’t imagining that Yates would end up in the hospital.
In the fall of 2010, Yates suffered a blockage in the blood vessels of his left eye, an extremely rare condition for someone his age. He spent a month-and-a-half to two months in the hospital, he said. He lost 20 pounds, and lost all the central vision in his left eye.
“By that time, I had missed most of the live period for basketball, so the coaches that recruited me for Division I weren’t sure what was wrong,” Yates said. “And then when I did eventually come back, I wasn’t the same player, because I had lost some things, lost weight, and I was weaker.”
When he came back, his rust from not playing and his weight loss were accentuated by his poor depth perception.
“You know how your mind tells you to do one thing, but your body tells you you can’t do that? What I thought I could do, I couldn’t do,” he said. “So I was struggling with confidence, and confidence was a big part of my game. So when I struggled with that, my game took a toll.”
In the spring, EMU coach Kirby Dean – who wasn’t even aware of Yates when the player was at T.C. Williams – pounced on exactly the type of recruit he seeks: a D-I talent who slips through the cracks.
But, Yates said, even as a freshman with the Royals, he still wasn’t completely back to his old self. Dean said he noticed that Yates was having trouble just catching passes because of his poor vision. And, while averaging just 4.2 points per game as a freshman, Yates said he was struggling with the lifestyle at quiet EMU.
It didn’t help that he sometimes considered his career a disappointment.
“I remember going home and telling [people] what school I was going to, and I remember a couple guys saying, ‘Dang, I remember you were going to so-and-so D-I, and now you’re going here,’” Yates said. “So that took a toll on me, too. It’s easy to say I shouldn’t worry about that, but it’s hard not to.”
But Yates said he’s learning to accept the “everything happens for a reason” motto, and that he’s finally feeling like his old self again.
He’s still not consistent – Yates hasn’t scored double-digit points in his last five games, for instance – but he shows the potential of a higher-division player. Yates’ biggest problem, Dean said, is that he constantly pressures himself to be that player.
“He puts a lot of pressure on himself to put up numbers,” Dean said. “I think he if he would just not put that pressure on himself, not focus on putting up the numbers, just focus on playing, focus on the game itself, I think that he would then find that he would begin to produce those numbers.”
Yates admits having that problem. He also acknowledges thinking still about how his life changed so dramatically the last couple years.
“There’s a big difference between paying for school and going to school for free and playing on TV,” he said.
That’s why, when he thinks about the future now, Yates said he’ll just “let the pieces fall.”
“I tried planning a lot of my life,” Yates, an Eastern Mennonite University sophomore basketball player, said recently with a chuckle, “which has landed me here [at EMU].”
At one time, Yates was on track for a Division I scholarship. But his college stock fell twice: first because of a scandal on his high school basketball team and then because of an odd medical issue that sapped most of the vision from his left eye.
The result: a drop from D-I to D-III.
Not that the 6-foot-7, 195-pound Yates is upset with being at EMU, where he’s averaging 7.5 points per game this season as a small forward. He just thought he’d end up on a bigger stage.
Yates started for T.C. Williams High School as a sophomore in 2007-08, helping the Titans win the Group AAA state championship, and was the best player on the 2009-10 T.C. team that began the season as a title contender. D-I colleges were interested in Yates – he was, after all, a 6-7 wing who could dribble and shoot – but he also was skinny. Schools wanted to see more.
Instead, T.C. was nailed for a rules violation.
In February 2010, it was discovered that two of the Titans’ players – Yates wasn’t one of them – were actually in their fifth year of high school after transferring, and therefore ineligible. Both players had to leave the team, and T.C. forfeited its first 15 games after starting the season 12-3.
Yates had to switch positions to center, and the Titans lost in the first round of their district tournament.
“It hurt him tremendously,” said T.C. coach Julian King of how the scandal affected Yates’ recruiting. “That was a situation where we had one of the top teams in the state, and we potentially – probably – could have gone to the championship game of the state tournament with him leading the way.
“…Had we gone the usual route that we go in the postseason, there’s no doubt in my mind that somebody would have been willing to offer him a full Division I ride.”
Yates still had some D-II scholarship offers, but his sights were set firmly on D-I, so he went to Massanutten Military Academy, figuring he could climb back onto the radar – despite some warnings from King.
“I said, ‘Hey, the prep school route is a gamble, and it’s not good for everyone,’” King said.
He wasn’t imagining that Yates would end up in the hospital.
In the fall of 2010, Yates suffered a blockage in the blood vessels of his left eye, an extremely rare condition for someone his age. He spent a month-and-a-half to two months in the hospital, he said. He lost 20 pounds, and lost all the central vision in his left eye.
“By that time, I had missed most of the live period for basketball, so the coaches that recruited me for Division I weren’t sure what was wrong,” Yates said. “And then when I did eventually come back, I wasn’t the same player, because I had lost some things, lost weight, and I was weaker.”
When he came back, his rust from not playing and his weight loss were accentuated by his poor depth perception.
“You know how your mind tells you to do one thing, but your body tells you you can’t do that? What I thought I could do, I couldn’t do,” he said. “So I was struggling with confidence, and confidence was a big part of my game. So when I struggled with that, my game took a toll.”
In the spring, EMU coach Kirby Dean – who wasn’t even aware of Yates when the player was at T.C. Williams – pounced on exactly the type of recruit he seeks: a D-I talent who slips through the cracks.
But, Yates said, even as a freshman with the Royals, he still wasn’t completely back to his old self. Dean said he noticed that Yates was having trouble just catching passes because of his poor vision. And, while averaging just 4.2 points per game as a freshman, Yates said he was struggling with the lifestyle at quiet EMU.
It didn’t help that he sometimes considered his career a disappointment.
“I remember going home and telling [people] what school I was going to, and I remember a couple guys saying, ‘Dang, I remember you were going to so-and-so D-I, and now you’re going here,’” Yates said. “So that took a toll on me, too. It’s easy to say I shouldn’t worry about that, but it’s hard not to.”
But Yates said he’s learning to accept the “everything happens for a reason” motto, and that he’s finally feeling like his old self again.
He’s still not consistent – Yates hasn’t scored double-digit points in his last five games, for instance – but he shows the potential of a higher-division player. Yates’ biggest problem, Dean said, is that he constantly pressures himself to be that player.
“He puts a lot of pressure on himself to put up numbers,” Dean said. “I think he if he would just not put that pressure on himself, not focus on putting up the numbers, just focus on playing, focus on the game itself, I think that he would then find that he would begin to produce those numbers.”
Yates admits having that problem. He also acknowledges thinking still about how his life changed so dramatically the last couple years.
“There’s a big difference between paying for school and going to school for free and playing on TV,” he said.
That’s why, when he thinks about the future now, Yates said he’ll just “let the pieces fall.”