From a great article about Eric Bledsoe on ESPN.com: “Tryouts were over. The team was already set. Ava Herndon was going to pass on the skinny little kid who came in to work out with her Birmingham Ala. Ice AAU basketball team that day. Yeah, Eric Bledsoe had some promise. He was quick, had a nice handle and seemed to be able to beat his man off the dribble and knock down outside shots. But every time he got to the rim, hed blow the layup. A nice player, but not somebody worth making an exception for.
The thing is, Bledsoe's mom wouldn't let Herndon say no.
Parents advocate for their kids all the time. But this was different. Bledsoes mom seemed to know there was something special about her son. About what was inside him and what he was capable of. She was watching the same thing everyone else was: a nervous seventh-grader fumbling through his first practice with the team. But she just kept saying: “Youre going to like my boy. Keep watching, youre going to like my boy.”
Eventually, Herndon relented.”
Walter Cornett, of Glendale, Kentucky, is the owner and operator of Walter's Wildcat World. He founded WildcatWorld.com in 1998 making it one of the oldest Kentucky basketball fan sites in operation today.