In most arenas, the disembodied voices of the game’s announcers merely echo the action on the court, but when Jaron Blossomgame steps onto the floor, in-stadium announcements take on heightened importance. Ronald Blossomgame Sr. has never seen his son dunk. Hell, he’s never seen him at all. But, as Jaron says, “he gets up cheering every time he hears my name.”
On June 22, the world’s best basketball prospects will descend on New York City for the 2017 NBA draft, anxiously waiting for league commissioner Adam Silver to swear them into the most exclusive club in American sports. For some, draft night is a formality — a mile marker on the road to guaranteed riches. But unlike the many “one and done” college superstars and foreign unicorns set to enter the association, Blossomgame, and his future, is up for grabs. From unheralded recruit to major college All-American, the oldest top-50 prospect in the draft is dead set on completing his unlikely rise. Blossomgame, 23, is far from the draft’s most talented prospect, but the members of Team Blossomgame swear he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Jaron is determined to prove people wrong,” says Kacey Martin, Blossomgame’s high school coach at Chattahoochee High School outside Atlanta, Georgia. “Anyone who doubts him only adds fuel to the fire.”
Blossomgame moved from Atlanta to the nearby suburb of Alpharetta at age 9, and he and his older brother, Ronald Jr., got into hoops through daily driveway battles. But it was Kobe Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers that changed everything. “I didn’t like basketball much, but then we started watching the Lakers,” says Blossomgame. “That’s what really got me into the game.” Still, a unique family dynamic meant the boys were largely self-taught. Blossomgame’s pastor father, Ronald Sr., is blind. “He lost his eyesight when he was 21,” says Jaron. “As a kid, you don’t quite understand, but he still handled his business and did everything he could to support us.”
By high school, a reed-thin 6-foot-5 Blossomgame showed enough promise to join the prestigious Georgia Stars Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) club. He began with the lowest-level Stars team, but, with the right guidance, a future in basketball started to take shape. Playing for William Steele — Blossomgame’s Stars coach and mentor — meant being constantly challenged, even on the predawn drive to practice. “I used to make him run for a few blocks before he could get in the car,” Steele tells OZY. “That lasted for months, and he never missed a practice. It showed how badly he wanted to improve.”
Within a year, alongside current NBA rookies Malik Beasley and Malcolm Brogdon, Blossomgame was headlining a deep roster of Stars talent. “He could have transferred to any high school in Georgia,” says Martin. “But he was loyal to his friends and led our program.” Ultimately, that deep sense of loyalty brought the Atlanta native to Clemson. “I really appreciated how they recruited me,” says Blossomgame, who committed to the Tigers four hours after being offered a scholarship. “They’ve always believed in me, not just when I was playing well.”
