ATLANTA — The bullet entered his neck and exploded out of the hairline on the back of his head. Sundiata Gaines, age 4, fell to the ground in front of a New York copy store.
He did not cry. It was his father, Ronnie Gaines, who named him after an African warrior. And starting with that horrifying moment for his family, Gaines made his unique first name very fitting and appropriate.
A stray bullet from that New York cop’s dropped briefcase could not kill Gaines. The 14-day stay in the hospital did not break him. He grew up playing basketball at Rucker Park and on the playgrounds, where a foul call better be accompanied by some blood. He endured four years under Dennis Felton’s reign at Georgia, where the 6-foot-1 Gaines leads the team in rebounding and often guards bigger athletes.
Toughness and relentlessness becomes ingrained in you when life gives you a second chance. Gaines survived Queens and then Felton’s boot camp when many teammates could not.
Gaines will not be stopped by 6-foot-8 forwards or by life, taking 20 hours this semester to earn a sociology degree and fulfill his father’s dream. He is winning the battle against time, leaving the house at 6:30 a.m. and sometimes returning after 10 p.m.
“I’ve always told him, ‘For some reason, the Creator gave you another chance,’” Ronnie Gaines said Tuesday. “As he grew older, I watched him play basketball and saw that this young man could play the game.”
And not just in an athletic sense. Sundiata Gaines knows the game, sees plays occur before they develop and reads defenses like a quarterback. He used to watch his older brother play basketball and ask his father why certain players moved in a particular direction. He can project where a missed shot will bounce off the rim.
There’s just an added toughness about these inner-city guards, like Kentucky’s Ramel Bradley (Brooklyn) or Tre’ Kelley, South Carolina’s point guard last year who hailed from Washington, D.C.
“In New York, pretty much all your games are on the playgrounds, so everything is more physical and you pretty much have to play tough,” Gaines said. “The referees don’t give you the benefit on the fouls. There’s no tap foul. So you just got to play through tough times. That’s what makes us all tough.”
He needed it this year. Finally blessed with a talented supporting cast after three years of losing and no NCAA tournament bids, Gaines watched his final chance at the Big Dance evaporate when Felton dismissed Mike Mercer and Takais Brown. The Bulldogs (13-16, 4-12 SEC) enter tonight’s SEC first-round matchup against Ole Miss with 11 losses in their last 13 games.
The losses don’t crack Gaines, but they never get easier to endure.
“(The dismissals) brought me a little down as an individual because I knew exactly what we had and what this year could have brought to us,” Gaines said. “In life, you’re not always going to be dealt the best cards, the best situation. You want to take advantage of what you have. I have to work with what I have. Right now it’s a little struggle, but guys are getting better and pretty much trying to make the best out of the situation.
“You can’t let yourself get discouraged, because if my teammates see me down and not into it, it’ll feed off to them and the losses get worse.”
But Gaines doesn’t rattle. Anyone who watched the end of the Tennessee-Georgia game in Athens saw Gaines attempt to pull the upset by himself, nearly finishing the game in the first row after one last hustle play. Even in defeat, the crowd applauded. No wonder South Carolina coach Dave Odom calls Gaines the SEC’s best guard.
“One of the all-time greats at Georgia,” Felton said.
Ronnie Gaines estimates that more than 100 Georgia fans approached him last week in Athens wanting to talk about his son.
“They wanted to thank me for being able to see him perform,” Ronnie Gaines said. “Talking with those people, they look at Sundiata and say, ‘That’s the heart of our team.’ Some guys on Georgia’s 1965 team said they’ve watched Georgia basketball since they graduated and they’ve never seen a guard penetrate and finish like Sundiata. They appreciate him down there and they love him down there.”
Sundiata Gaines appreciates his time as well. Like his father says, Gaines knew Georgia wouldn’t be very good for at least his first two years. But he got minutes and developed as a player and gave Georgia basketball players a blueprint for succeeding in Felton’s program.
“I gave it all for my program,” Gaines said. “I tried to do everything I could do in the classroom and off the court to stay out of trouble. I played hard and left everything out there for the fans. The fans love it when someone is truly genuine, and they’re genuine back to me.”
Life gave Gaines a chance to be special, gave him a destiny. Gaines just had to be this kind of selfless player, a point guard who worked hard to make a team devoid of talent win games. You know what he was doing when that cop dropped his briefcase with the gun?
Little Gaines was holding the door open for him.
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