Warney Files Episode 3: Jersey Retirement

What is up world (Fellow Warney’s files supporter and readers)

As I sit here with some of my teammates playing UFC 2 in my apartment on one of the very few off days we have, I thought it would be the perfect time to reconnect with you guys. One thing that people tend to get confused with is the idea of more downtime as a professional athlete than a collegiate athlete…. I can tell you that is a false statement! It is crazy to think about how busy I have been since December 1st between playing, traveling and doing other Legend duties. Before I get to all that and my life I would like to give a few shout outs:

Big shout out Pierre Jackson, Gary Neal, and Quincy Acy on being apart of this season’s call up list. From the time you guys put on a Texas Legends uniform you brought a level of skill, relentless work ethic and professionalism that I admired, as well as learned from and gained just being around you guys.

Another shout out to my guys over at Stony Brook. They just finished up conference play and they are shocking lots of people who follow the America East. It is playoff time and they are on the quest to become back to back America East tournament champions and to ultimately play in NCAA tournament. Good luck the rest of the way my guys!

And most importantly, I just want to say thank you to the Stony Brook community for coming out to support my Jersey Retirement ceremony. It was an amazing honor and a surreal moment that I will never forget. Thank you all for your support throughout the years.

Getting back to me, a lot has happened since December. Right now we are 12 and 12 but we are constantly improving. We can count on anyone to score because of our depth and offensive weapons. Also, it doesn’t hurt to have Manny Harris who can sleep walk his way to a 30 point night. (I mean that in a good way). In the last couple months I’ve been to Erie, Pennsylvania, Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Mississauga, Ontario, to name a few. Those places can get COLD. Surprisingly, it was also pretty chilly in Arizona when we played there.

Since we play a lot of games on the road, I bought a laptop and downloaded the Newest J. Cole, Post Malone, and Bruno Mars albums. Those albums are very good and I recommend them if you did not listen to them yet.

This is side note from basketball but I think I officially realized I was in the real world when my apartment flooded from a toilet incident (not what you guys think). When considering different events that can happen in your life, one that causes damage to the place you live along with all your belongings may not seem very funny at the time, but I can definitely laugh about it now. As the adults say these days, real world problems.

During the January stretch of games, I was inactive due to a strained hip flexor. When I was not playing, I learned a lot from just watching everything. I definitely missed practicing, and obviously playing in games so my main goal was to get healthy as quick as possible. Being injured makes you miss playing basketball more than you could imagine, so I really focused on rehab doing different types of exercises and pool workouts.

My trainer Anthony did an awesome job getting me better and can't thank him enough for dealing with me every day. On January 31st (my birthday ) I received great news: I was cleared to participate in full contact practices and I was going to play the next day against the LA D-Fenders. I was very excited to get back on the court and back in my rhythm and flow of the season now that I am cleared to play.

The best part about the February and early March schedule is that we do not have to travel outside of Texas. In the 15 games stretch, 13 of those games are home and the other two games are against Texas teams, the Austin Spurs and the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. You really appreciate your home court and all your fans when you're traveling all over the country. The Legends have an awesome fan base and it gives a family feel seeing the same crowd at every game.

My first game back was against the LA D-Fenders and boy was I rusty. You don't realize how much a few weeks off the court affects you and sets you back a few notches. Basketball is a game of repetition and not playing for three weeks really threw my game off. I shot 2-9 and had 3 rebounds in my first game back against one of the best teams in the D-League so I knew I needed to get in the gym extra prior to the next game. One of the greatest things about sports, especially basketball, is that it's a quick turn around. There are multiple opportunities to get back and better so I was only looking forward. I put in a lot of hard work to get back into game shape as well as improve my game.

Lets fast forward past a few weeks of rust. Since I returned from my injury we are 5 and 5. Last week we beat two of the top teams in our conference on our quest to make the playoffs. It feels good to say that I personally had my best games of the season over the last week, which were also some of our best team wins thus far this season. During this stretch, I am averaging 30 points and 10 rebounds per game. We like to call that the start of #Bullyszn.

Right now we are 17 and 19 but we are really meshing as a team and we should make the next few weeks Interesting as we get close to the end of the regular season.

Nothing’s better than turning the doubters into believers.