EVERETT – His introduction to basketball was when his mother brought one home and he used it to play dodgeball.
That was back in his native country of India.
“We had a basketball court in our school, but we didn’t play,” Inderbir Gill said. “I didn’t know anything about the game”
He wouldn’t see his first game – and then it was on TV – until the family moved to the United States in 1998. One of his early memories: watching Michael Jordan hit the game-winning shot to give the Chicago Bulls their sixth NBA title in eight years, an 87-86 victory over the Utah Jazz in Game 6 of the ‘98 Championship Series.
He was hooked.
That summer he played soccer and basketball with friends from India living in Union City, Calif., where his family had settled, not far from Oakland. Only this time, he didn’t throw the basketball to try and hit someone. He shot it – but not very well.
“All I could do was play defense,” he recalled. “I had no offensive skills whatsoever.”
But he wasn’t completely devoid of athletic necessities. From soccer, he had developed quickness and footwork. From the guys he hung out with, he developed an important intangible.
“A lot of my competitive spirit came from my friends,” he said. “They wanted to win.”
That desire to come out on top is still locked solidly inside him as he wears the uniform of the Everett Community College Trojans men’s basketball team, wears it proudly, wears it with distinction.
“He’s pretty intense,” said Larry Walker, who shares the Trojans’ head coaching duties with his son, Darrell. “And he’s a little bit of a perfectionist. He does everything a college athlete should do. He’s in the weight room, he’s one of our hardest workers in practice, and in games he never lets up.”
Nor is Gill any longer just a one dimensional player. He can shoot the ball. And he can make it go in the basket.
What can’t he do? Well, he has a hard time dunking it. But then, as the team’s primary ball handler, he isn’t called upon to do that.
He can score, he can rebound, he can get the ball to teammates for baskets, and he can be a pest to opponents He averages 15.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, 6.9 assists and 4 steals per game.
All this from a kid who didn’t take up basketball until he was 12 years old. But, as he points out, neither did one of his heroes, NBA star Gilbert Arenas, and he turned out all right. “He would go out at midnight and 1 o’clock in the morning and shoot,” Gill noted.
When you’re playing catch-up, you have to work harder, and work is not an ugly word to Gill. “He’s a gym rat,” said his former coach at University High School in Spokane, Marty Jessett. “He was the first guy in the gym and the last to leave. He worked hard at his craft.”
He had to. He didn’t make the cut the first time he tried out for a team. “Third day of practice,” he said, the memory indelibly etched in his mind. When reminded that Jordan also once got cut, Gill said, “Yes, but he got cut from the varsity and was still on the JVs.”
The next year, when Gill was in the seventh grade, he made the team. Not only made it, but was a starter
His game still needed lots of refinement, but he had one thing coaches love. “I was always a hustle player,” he said.
It wasn’t until his junior year in high school that he made the varsity. By that time, his family was living in Spokane, where it had moved three years after coming to the U.S. Playing for Jessett at University High, Gill earned honorable mention recognition in the Greater Spokane League that year, averaging about 11 points a game.
Something that happened that season still haunts him. “We were one game short of going to state,” he said, his head sagging, his voice filled with disappointment. “Oh my God, that game still hurts.”
And everytime he hears the name of the school that ousted University High, he becomes angry. “I hate Gonzaga Prep,” he said.
Gill had a solid senior season, again earning honorable mention in the GSL, but didn’t have one college offer him a scholarship, which surprised his coach. “He improved so much,” Jessett said. “He was one of the best players in our league.”
Gill had decided to walk on at Spokane Community College when a former prep player from Spokane then playing for EvCC, Will Hardy, recommended him to the Trojan coaching staff. And Larry Walker, who had seen Gill perform during a visit to campus, promptly got on the phone and offered him a scholarship.
Walker was glad to have him. Gill was happy to have an opportunity to play college basketball. But there was one principal person involved in the decision who was sad. Gill’s mother, who owns and operates a mini-mart in Spokane, hated to see her son leave home. She pleaded with Walker to “please take care of my boy.” The coach promised he would.
“I told her, ‘Please don’t cry,’” Gill said.
Sital Gill couldn’t help herself. She cried.
Gill, a 6-foot guard, didn’t start for the Trojans last year, but he did play in all 28 games, averaging almost eight points. It was the first time since the seventh grade that he wasn’t a starter on a team. This season, he’s started all 17 games and is serving as a team captain.
Gill takes the game seriously. In a recent loss, he missed all eight shots he attempted from 3-point range and with each miss his face took on a pained expression. “I felt horrible,” he said. “I felt I let my team down.”
Hardly. He still had a decent line: 16 points, 7 rebounds, 9 assists and 3 steals.
“I worked on my (3-point) shot so much last summer,” he said, recalling how he put up 300-400 shots a day before working a four-hour shift at his mother’s store. “That’s what makes it (a bad night) so frustrating.”
Though he didn’t attract much interest among college coaches coming out of high school, there was one prominent fellow in Spokane who apparently liked what he had seen of the kid from U High. This man owns a warehouse that he has turned into a basketball facility, but to play there it’s by invitation only.
Gill was invited his junior year in high school. By John Stockton, the former NBA great who grew up and still resides in Spokane.
One day Gill was there when the legend walked by.
“What’s your name?” Stockton asked.
“Gill,” Inderbir responded.
“What’s your real name?” Stockton persisted.
Inderbir told him. Then he told all his friends.
The thrill of thrills was the day he got to guard Stockton in a pickup game.
“I almost stole the ball from him one time,” Gill said, flashing a big grin. “He looked back and I went for the ball but at the last moment, he dribbled behind his back.”
As if, Gill said, he had eyes in the back of his head.
He does, Inderbir, he really does.
John Stockton would make a heckuva dodgeball player.
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