(Illustration: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Jeffrey Brown / Icon Sportswire; courtesy of Julia Edey via Purdue)
TORONTO – Head north out of downtown on Bayview Avenue and past the shops and bars in Leaside, plus four Tim Hortons. Cross a bridge and climb a hill and there’s Crescent School, a private all-boys institution opened in 1913. It’s closed for winter break, but a courtyard plaque points to reception. A groundskeeping vehicle is parked in front and a delivery guy walks out. Somewhere inside lies another story about how the impossibility of Zach Edey came to be. Another tall tale.
So it’s worth a knock on the door.
After an introduction to Sal the maintenance guy and an explanation for the visit, it’s a stroll down some stairs and into the Lower School. Pencil sketches and old team pictures hang in the hallway. Straight ahead? A basketball gym. Where an anomaly came into view.
Edey is, of course, currently the 7-foot-4, 300-pound All-American anchor for second-ranked Purdue. But he’s also the kid who dreamed of being a hockey defenseman. The preteen who stumbled into a stellar youth baseball career. The high school sophomore who learned basketball shooting form by balancing a water bottle on a clipboard. The quiet Toronto boy who left home for an academy in Florida, who ranked 436th in his recruiting class and who now likely will repeat as national player of the year. The star who should not be.
Here, in a space with green bleachers and the words RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY and HONESTY ringing the floor, is where the last part started.
Edey’s local club team was practicing at Crescent School, right before a tryout for the high-profile Northern Kings AAU program. Vidal Massiah, the Kings’ director, had been tipped off by his sister about a giant roaming area courts, and Massiah came to see for himself. After Edey’s two ensuing workouts with the Kings, his mother asked for a verdict. Massiah was blunt.
He’s an NBA player. Get ready for this movie.
“His story is a Canadian story,” Massiah says, driving away from the school on a sunny but wind-whipped winter morning. “It only happens here.”
GO FURTHER
Toronto tall tales of Zach Edey: On the ice, the diamond … and ‘What’s a Purdue?’