Memphis Tigers: Basketball became escape from homelessness for Mike Parks Jr.
Memphis forward Mike Parks Jr. found a home with the Tigers. But to get here, he overcame a bout with homelessness in high school.
Mike Parks Jr. looked toward the ceiling at the Laurie-Walton Family Basketball Center last week and began counting the different homes he lived in with his fingers.
"One, two, three," he said under his breath, and quickly went silent.
Ten seconds passed before his next words.
And then Parks smiled and laughed, because that's how his mother taught him to stay upbeat even in the worst of times.
Parks' emergence is one of the key developments during the recent resurgence of the Memphis men's basketball team heading into Saturday's game at Tulsa. But what he went through before arriving here is still hard for him to even say out loud.
He can talk about all the different moves, from the west side of Cleveland, Ohio, to the east side of town, from the heart of the city to Garfield Heights and then out to Painesville, Ohio, and back again.
He can discuss growing up as the only male in a household of women, and how that forced him to take on more responsibility at a young age. He can embrace being a scholarship basketball player at Memphis because it's one less mouth for his family to feed.
His mother is less vague, particularly now that her 6-foot-8 son is becoming the college basketball star she always envisioned, even when life seemed to be falling apart three years ago.
The details surrounding Parks's final year of high school are both grim and gratifying.
Gambrell had moved her son to Richmond Heights High School as a junior, in search of a more suburban setting away from the violent crime and poverty of East Cleveland.
But then Gambrell left her job because of the stress it caused. She wanted to get back into teaching. Around the same time, her car got wrecked in an accident. Ultimately, she couldn't afford the repairs or the rent to remain in Richmond Heights.
A chaotic transition ensued right as Parks began his senior year.
Initially, Gambrell, Parks and his three sisters found family to help out, until those arrangements fell through. They lived in "an abandoned place for a month or two," according to Gambrell. They moved about 25 miles northeast of Cleveland only to move 35 miles in the opposite direction after that.
Where they slept never seemed certain. They took the bus everywhere. Parks and his sisters woke up at 5 a.m. each morning for an hour-long commute to school on public transit.
It got to the point where one day Gambrell asked her son, "Do you want to live with your father?"
"And he refused," Gambrell said, her voice swelling with pride over the phone.
This is where basketball season comes in.
Richmond Heights coach Jason Priah never pried into the situation, but knew of the financial issues Parks and his family were enduring. He provided rides home and advice when asked.
Priah lost one of his assistant coaches, and Gambrell approached about taking over the job. She played basketball at Independence Community College (Kan.) and wanted a hands-on role in Parks' on-court development. She knew he was capable of more.
Priah, meanwhile, had always been impressed with Gambrell's knowledge of the game and hired her, perhaps not realizing at the time just how much that meant to a family struggling to stay afloat.
Gambrell had a front-row seat as Parks averaged 22 points per game and earned first team all-state honors from the Associated Press.
"Basketball was the only escape," Gambrell said. "Basketball was our escape from all the madness that was going on because it seemed like everybody and everything was just against us."
Parks' path to Division-I basketball was almost as nomadic as his senior year.
Out of high school, he didn't have the necessary test scores to qualify academically, according to Priah. Akron offered him a scholarship under the NCAA's Proposition 48, which would have entailed a redshirt year. But Parks envisioned more.
"He knew he could play at a higher level," Priah said.
Instead, Parks went to junior college at Missouri State-West Plains as a freshman. That's where he first met Tubby Smith, who was in town to visit with another recruit as the coach at Texas Tech. By his sophomore year, Parks transferred to Southwest Mississippi Community College.
He never averaged more than 8.9 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, but schools were nonetheless intrigued by his size and soft touch. He signed with New Mexico last November.
When New Mexico coach Craig Neal was fired in April, Smith and the Tigers pounced.
Parks arrived on campus in June weighing 276 pounds, and Memphis quickly went to work improving his diet. By the end of the summer, he was down to 260 pounds.
He earned a spot in the starting lineup immediately, but his contributions were limited early on. Parks averaged just 3.4 points and 3 rebounds through the opening nine games this season, often sat on the bench in crunch time and dealt with the effects of tendinitis in his knees.
He had also never had a coach yell at him the way Smith did in practice.
"I told myself if a coach is not on your head like he was, then they really don't care about you," Parks said. "They see what you can bring out of yourself."
The problems culminated in a Dec. 12 win over Albany, when Parks was held scoreless and played a season-low four minutes. Over the phone, Gambrell told her son to stay positive and keep smiling.
They discussed cutting his hair and shaving his bushy beard, as the coaches had suggested. Maybe, Gambrell added, you should talk with Smith and find out what he wants.
So the two met, and then Parks started listening. The junior began going to treatment for his tendinitis more regularly and worked harder in practice. He began relying on footwork and physicality rather than athleticism.
"I had to lose my attitude," Parks said. "I had to lose it and buy in to what coach was saying."
The changes worked. Parks has scored in double figures in five of the past six games, and he's averaging 16.3 points and 7 rebounds over the last four contests.
These days, Priah marvels at how Parks "transformed" his body. Teammates started to notice "that killer instinct in him," guard Kareem Brewton, Jr. said. Smith still calls Parks "a big ol' Teddy Bear," but knows there's more substance to that sunny disposition.
Gambrell is also on more stable footing. She works at a STEM lab in the Cleveland area, lives in East Cleveland again and relishes watching her son fulfill the potential she saw in him all along.
Some at Memphis, however, don't yet know the full extent of what they overcame together. That beneath Parks's ever-present smile is a tale of homelessness that taught him to keep life in perspective.