Christina Delille was that girl, the one your coach warns you might become if you don’t work hard, if you don’t take care of your studies. Christina Delille was a basketball horror story, a how-to on what not to do when you’re talented in a sport.
Two years ago, Delille was working in Home Depot. She never graduated high school, instead getting her GED. She gained almost 60 pounds on a steady diet of Big Macs with honey mustard sauce and a side of fries.
That once promising basketball career – coaches who knew her growing up compared her to Epiphanny Prince – was so far in the rear-view mirror that she could barely remember it herself.
“I was just chilling, partying, staying home, watching TV and doing nothing,” Delille said.
Delille had fallen so far, yet she didn’t really start off too high to begin with. The Cambria Heights, Queens native didn’t take basketball or class seriously at St. Michael Academy or August Martin, falling in and out of academic eligibility. She played just one high-school season at Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass., as a reclassified sophomore.
Yet Delille leaves next week for Hampton University, a Division I program where she’ll compete this winter with a full scholarship in her back pocket.
“People are gonna say, ‘Christina Delille? Wow, that’s crazy,’” she said with a broad smile.
Their next question will probably be “How?” – and it’s a good one.
Something clicked in Delille’s head after a year and a half without basketball. It was a combination, she said, of her father Leslie drilling hoops into her head, her mother Janet pushing her to make something of her life and the example set by her older sister, Jolene, who has a master’s degree. Delille realized that her basketball potential had never been fulfilled.
“Back then we really thought she was going to be the best Epiphanny Prince,” said John McGraw, who coached her with the Exodus travel team and at Notre Dame Prep. “She was better than Epiphanny was in the sixth grade. At one point, I told her you haven’t gotten any better since sixth grade.”
Delille hooked on with TCI, but “they played me,” she said. Delille didn’t end up making the team or earning a scholarship there. With nowhere to turn, she texted and called a bunch of old friends in hopes of making a connection. Patrice Lewis, who was at August Martin at the same time as Delille, got back to her and told her about ASA, a new junior college program in Brooklyn.
Lewis brought Delille to ASA coach Adia Revell and Revell couldn’t believe what she saw. Delille, a 5-foot-5 point guard, was 183 pounds, almost 60 pounds off her typical playing weight in the 120s.
“I don’t know what you think this is,” Revell remembers telling Lewis, “but I don’t think this kid can play.”
But then she saw Delille on the court, doing things that girls much lighter couldn’t even imagine.
“I was like ‘whoa,’” Revell recalled. “‘I can work with this.’ She showed flashes of being a ball player. I said, ‘You know what, what the heck?’ I needed another point guard anyway.”
Delille just didn’t bring weight issues. She was lazy. She tried to cut corners whenever possible. Revell said she wanted Delille to quit more than a few times her first season at ASA. When Revell threw Lewis off the team, she feared Delille got worse, but it actually had the opposite effect.
Delille actually became a leader. She pushed her teammates. She found motivation.
“You’ve always quit something,” Revell said she told her. “You always ran away. You always left. When is the last time you ever finished something? I asked her that question and she couldn’t think of the answer.”
Even though it got better, Revell was almost at her wit’s end back in December. Delille was missing practice and, though she was never disrespectful, she was a disrupting force on the team. Revell left it up to the players. If they wanted Delille to stay, they had to run for an entire practice. And they did so willingly.
“That’s when I knew she had an effect on her team,” Revell said. “They liked her. They believed in her. They looked up to her.”
With that in her mind, Delille ended up completely turning things around. She ended up averaging 10.6 points and 4.1 rebounds per game. Delille dropped down to a svelte 128 pounds. She was a better person, too. Revell always told her she was selfish, but that person was gone by the time the spring came and Delille graduated with her associate’s degree.
“Adia is not even about basketball,” Delille said. “Adia didn’t even want me to work on my skills as much as she wanted me to work on my character. … It did help me, because I’m different now. I’m not selfish like I used to be. My mouth is not crazy like it used to be. I try to make everybody around me better. She always wanted to make me a leader. She thought that was my role.”
Her road wasn’t finished yet, though. Delille was stubborn when it came to colleges. She wanted to stay close to home and didn’t have much interest from local schools. But in July, she changed her mind after visiting Jolene in Virginia. On the bus back to New York, she texted her sister asking what colleges were nearby. Just 10 minutes later, Revell called Delille and told her Hampton was interested. Not only was it in Virginia; it was Division I.
“That was fate, man,” Delille said. “There’s not another word that I could say.”
Hampton coach David Six, a Brooklyn native, fell in love with Delille from a YouTube video and was in need of a point guard. Hampton went 25-7, won the MEAC tournament and almost upset Kentucky in the NCAA first round this past winter.
“She brings much needed offensive power and the ability to attack the basket,” Six said. “When looking to break into the New York area, we have searched for a certain type of player. Christina fits that description.”
Delille has her focus now. She’s talking about playing on television, winning national championships and one day playing in the WNBA. She’ll be a criminal justice major at Hampton and plans on getting into law enforcement after basketball.
It’s a long trip between Home Depot and Division I basketball.
“It hasn’t even hit me yet,” Delille said. “Everyone is so excited and hyped more than me. When I get on that court and I’m playing in that arena, it’s going to be like, ‘damn, you came real far.'”