Rex Chapman shares great college story about Steph Curry
Jun 13, 2022; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) gestures after defeating the Boston Celtics in game five of the 2022 NBA Finals at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Former NBA player Rex Chapman is promoting his new book, and he shared a great college story about Steph Curry to draw some attention.
It’s hard to remember, but long before he became known as a political figure on social media, Chapman was a darn good basketball player. Chapman was a star in college at Kentucky and then had a solid 12-year career in the NBA. He was a first-round pick by the Charlotte Hornets in 1988 and became fast friends with Dell Curry, who was a young shooting guard for the team, just like Chapman.
Chapman’s friendship with Dell resulted in him knowing about Steph long before the rest of the basketball world realized the future Golden State Warriors star’s greatness. And that’s where the great anecdote came about.
Steph Curry played his college basketball at Davidson, a small school in North Carolina. Curry was overlooked by several bigger schools, and he proved them all wrong in college. Curry averaged 21.5 points per game as a freshman; 25.9 points per game as a sophomore; and 28.6 points per game as a junior. The crazy thing, especially considering the player movement this day and age, is that Curry did it all while remaining at Davidson.
According to Chapman, Rex began receiving inquiries from numerous college coaches after Steph’s freshman year. Chapman’s contacts from the basketball world wanted to see if Rex could talk to Dell to see if Steph had any interest in transferring to their schools. Chapman says there were several top-15 schools that were wondering if Steph had interest in transferring to their teams. Additionally, Chapman says a year earlier, Steph was begging to walk-on at a school like Duke. And here it was a year later, with several top teams hoping to get him.
Chapman says Steph requested 24 hours to respond with an answer regarding the transfer questions. When Steph did share his decision, he declined the interest from the top schools. Steph apparently shared a legendary quote to his father Dell upon making his decision.
“Rex, you know Stephen doesn’t cuss much but this morning he said, ‘Dad – eff them. They didn’t want me then and I don’t want them now,'” Steph told Dell, according to Chapman.
That’s awesome. You get the feeling like the doubt from those school helped fuel Curry to his greatness.
Not in the book:
Stephen Curry had just finished his freshman year at Davidson and every coach I knew was calling to ask me if I would talk to my bestie Dell Curry — and see if Stephen would consider transferring to their school.
When I say everyone I mean everyone. Including… pic.twitter.com/4O9mgTbol4
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) April 9, 2024
Of course, it was during his sophomore season when Curry really blew up. Not only did he win his conference’s player of the year award, but he also led Davidson on a great run to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament. Curry was then overlooked another time when he entered the NBA Draft in 2009 and was taken No. 7 overall. And the rest, as they say, is history.