Kareem Jamar is not your typical college athlete trying to make it to the pros. He has been through more in his young life than any of us will have to go through our entire life. Most people would have given up many times along the way, but every single thing problem that Jamar faced made him stronger and stronger.
His single mother raised Jamar because his father passed away when he was just a boy. Deloris raised her eight children alone in a rough neighborhood, but that didn’t stop her from giving her youngest son every opportunity to succeed. “Tough neighborhood – a lot of challenges every day,” said Jamar. “School wasn’t really my biggest thing. I’m from a single-parent household and my mom’s main thing was making sure a roof was over me and my brother’s head.”
When things got tough for Jamar he picked up a basketball and would shoot at the local park for hours. It was a sanctuary for him. “When I was out there shooting around I felt like nothing could touch me,” Jamar said. Jamar really struggled not having a father in his life, but he knew basketball would always be there.
Jamar started his competitive basketball career in high school at Westchester High in Venice, California. His mother wanted him to play to keep him off the streets and in the gym. He starting playing not knowing how good he would be compared to the other kids, but he and his mother quickly realized that he had some serious talent.
“Once we got to high school, she said, ‘I raised you this far. You know what’s right from wrong. Now it’s your decision.’ There’s gangs, there’s drugs, but luckily I had basketball and I had good people around me, my support system. They kept me on the right track.”
Jamar was a role-player on a star-filled high school basketball squad that won back-to-back state titles. Jamar was not a highly recruited player out of Westchester High, despite averaging 12 points, 5 assists, and about 5 rebounds per game as a senior.
That’s when the Montana Grizzlies came into the picture. Montana Head Coach Wayne Tinkle saw the potential in Jamar.
“We did know he was special,” Tinkle said. “We thought we’d gotten a hidden gem. Because he had so much talent on his team in high school, he was kinda the 5th or 6th option. We knew we had something.”
Jamar gave a verbal commitment to Tinkle the day after the fall signing period ended prior to his senior season. Other college scouts had his entire senior season to lure him away from Montana. “We said we’ll keep doing our job and keep talking to him when we can talk to him and hope that nobody else comes in,” Tinkle said. There were even more reasons for scouts to attend Weschester games after a couple of his teammates took back “verbals” they gave other teams. “We thought, ‘Oh, boy. Now everybody’s going to be going to their games and say, “Look at this kid.” ’ So we thought there was no chance,” Tinkle said. “When spring rolled around, the first day of signing period he signed with us. He stayed loyal to us.
“I was sold on Montana the whole time,” Jamar said. “Other people I was talking with thought I could have a great senior season and didn’t want me to jump the gun. But I’m a pretty stubborn person and I’m loyal, so I said, ‘At least let me verbal.’ When I verballed, I always knew I was going to come here.”
Having Will Cherry already on the Grizzly roster helped Jamar’s decision as well. One of Jamar’s California state championships came at the expense of Cherry’s McClymonds High School team from Oakland. “I came and played with Will in open gym and we were killing it. We were fast-breaking … it was fun. I felt like I could have played right then and there in college. Then I saw how the team was so close together and I came from a close-knit group in high school, so that’s what I wanted – the family atmosphere.”
Family was so important to Jamar that this felt like the perfect fit.
Tinkle said although they knew Jamar would develop into a great player, he and his staff were surprised at how early Jamar made his presence felt as a true freshman.
Jamar began to show his best stuff on the biggest of stages. In the 2010 Big Sky Championship game against Northern Colorado, Jamar added 13 points and one key steal that put the game into reach late. Montana would go on to lose 65-60, but that is when Tinkle was convinced he had something special in Jamar.
Montana would soon after participate in the College Basketball Invitational. They played Duquesne and Jamar had a breakout performance in his last game as a freshman with 22 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals. Montana again lost 87-76.
After a breakout season, Tinkle said bigger schools were trying to lure Jamar away from Missoula.
“I think people are wasting their time trying to fish guys out of here,” Tinkle said. “Kareem’s not about that. He loved it here and he knew it was the perfect place for him. He stayed true and loyal to us so it meant a lot.”
“They stuck with me so (I) felt my obligation,” Jamar said. “That’s how my mom raised me.”
Then something happened that Jamar never expected. Jamar’s mother had a stroke and subsequent heart attack that summer.
This devastated the young athlete and made him question every thing. He didn’t confide in everyone the pressure he was feeling going into his sophomore season, but he did talk to his close friend and teammate Will Cherry.
“Me and Kareem are really close,” Cherry said. “He’s like my little brother, so he told me about that the summer after his freshman year before he came back. We talked about that a little bit. As a man, it’s kind of a touchy subject because we don’t do much explaining of our feelings, but you knew what he was going through.” Cherry claimed that Jamar even considered leaving Montana. Jamar thought about transferring to a school where he could be close to his mom and take care of the family needs. Cherry’s goal was to be there for whom he considered his younger brother. “He kept most of it bottled in. If he needed to talk, I was right there for him.”
Jamar’s mother is now paralyzed on one side. “I had to grow up real quick. It motivated me to new heights. I think that’s one of the reasons I was the player I was that next year. I always planned to be a good basketball player, but now I started playing for her. That’s why I have ‘super woman’ on my shoe, because she survived a stroke and a heart attack. She’s the strongest woman ever. When I go out there I try to play for her.”
This is when Jamar’s career really took off. He became Montana’s star player along with Will Cherry. Tinkle said Jamar gained a reputation of a do-it-all unselfish playmaker for the Griz. Jamar improved in every statistical category in his sophomore campaign and helped lead Montana to a Big Sky Championship in an 85-66 rout of Weber State. Jamar scored 23 points in that game while adding 7 assists. Out of 121 career games in a Grizzly uniform, Tinkle said that was Jamar’s best individual performance.
“Kareem hit four or five 3’s,” Tinkle said. “Two of them, I’m yelling, ‘What are you doing?’ then I’m like, ‘Oh great shot!’ but he just put us on his shoulders and that’s a performance I’ll probably remember for awhile.”
Jamar and the Griz went on to repeat as Big Sky Conference champions in his junior season and continued to grow as a player. Jamar again came up big in the clutch in a much tighter game against Weber State. Jamar led the team in scoring with 20 points and assisted a Will Cherry 3-pointer that put the Griz up for good. Jamar was named Big Sky Player of the Year his junior season. However, His senior year did not finish how he hoped.
He played his last game for the Griz in a disappointing loss to the Portland State Vikings in the first round of the 2014 Big Sky Tournament. Though his team struggled, Jamar still scored 20 points. Jamar said he tried to put the team on his back and had 8 rebounds with 4 assists, but did not shoot as well as he would have liked, going 8-18 from the field and 0-5 from the 3-point range. “It sucks when you know you’re supposed to play better when it’s win or go home,” Jamar said. “That’s what hurts the most, that I couldn’t play better for my team.”
Jamar’s number one goal going into his last season was to three-peat as Big Sky Conference champions. The Griz struggled early in the 2013-2014 season, but were led by Jamar’s 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists per game. Montana was able to finish the season strong and make it into the tournament, but they lost their momentum when they needed it most.
“This is why you play. This is why I play, for championships,” Jamar said. “This is what the Montana Grizzly program is about. To not even make it to the championship was pretty disappointing.”
The Grizzlies will have to start their 2014-2015 season without Jamar. “Just what he meant overall on and off the court. His presence will be missed for sure,” Tinkle said.
Jamar said it was his goal to be one of the best Grizzlies to ever play, but he admits it’s still humbling to be mentioned with the names of other Grizzly greats.
Tinkle said Jamar meant a lot more to the Griz than just scoring points and winning games, but his character and presence off the court will also be missed.
“He’s one of the first guys wanting to go to a school or to the YMCA to work with kids,” Tinkle said. “That tells you that you’ve done your job trying to bring him along as a person not just a basketball player.”
“My life has changed so much being here,” Jamar said. “I think if I was anywhere else I couldn’t have done as well as I did.”
Tinkle said he was very pleased with Jamar’s progression as a player in his four years at Montana.
“He’s one of the most well rounded players to put on a Grizzly uniform,” Tinkle said. “It’s no surprise they won a ton of games while he was there.”
Jamar said he is ready to focus on what his future brings which he hopes is a shot to be a professional athlete. It has been Jamar’s life-long dream to play in the NBA and support his mom. Jamar is likely to be overlooked by many NBA executives in favor of bigger collegiate programs.
Jamar is used to the feeling. “We gotta work for everything down here at the mid major level,” Jamar said. “Nothing is given to us.”
Tinkle said as great as Jamar has played, he still has a long way to go in order to achieve his goal of being a pro athlete.
“I think he has the potential,” Tinkle said. “He works his tale off, on his body, on his athleticism, on his game, but he’s gotta make it a day-to-day deal. What he does daily is either gonna get him there or keep him from getting there. He shows up when the lights come on and the popcorn pops.”
Griz play-by-play announcer Mick Holien has called every game Jamar ever played in a Montana uniform. Holien says he thinks Kareem has what it takes to make it at the next level.
“He can be unstoppable against insurmountable odds,” Holien said. “He’s the most versatile player that I can ever remember and one of the most successful.”
Like Tinkle, Holien also sees parts of Kareem’s game that could use improvement.
“I worry about Kareem’s size.” Holien said. “I think you can never be too strong in order to sustain the rigors of an NBA season (and) I think a midrange jumper would really help his game. He’s developed into a pretty darn good shooter, but he’ll have to shoot better than that.”
“He’s getting it,” Tinkle said. “He’s putting plans in place. I think it hit him in the face that if I’m gonna make a living, I better start doing these things coaches have been telling me.”
Although Jamar is ready to embrace the challenge of being a pro, he said he will miss playing for coach Tinkle.
“He’s meant everything to my career,” Jamar said, “He’s kept me to the utmost standard. Sometimes I hated it, but now looking back on my four years I can’t really complain. If he would have never done that, I could’ve definitely gone down some other paths.”
Jamar will have to move away from Montana to make it in the pros, but he said Missoula would always be special to him. “This will definitely be a place in my heart,” Jamar said.
Some of Jamar’s former teammates are having successful post college careers. Brian Qvale and Derrick Selvig have both enjoyed success playing in Germany as part of a European basketball league. Jamar said the success of his former teammates made him feel like that might be an option going forward.
“I saw how hard Qvale worked and that opened my eyes,” Jamar said. “I saw how he handled himself on and off the court. If I can model that I can pretty much do whatever I want.”
Will Cherry took a different route and played for the Canton Charge of the NBA developmental league before being signed by the Cleveland Cavaliers this fall. Jamar considered both of these as viable options if an NBA team didn’t sign him right away. “Those guys show you that if you stay humble and work hard that anything is possible,” Jamar said.
Moving forward, the thing that makes Jamar the most excited and nervous is change.
“I am starting from scratch again,” Jamar said. “I’m gonna be that young rookie. It’s kinda irritating just because the business part is really half of it, and I just really want to play basketball.”
Jamar looks forward to the possibility of getting to make a living out of basketball.
“It’s not work when you actually love what you are doing, and I love the game,” Jamar said. “To be able to do that for hopefully ten plus years, that’s all you can ask for.”
Jamar’s first step after college was to prepare for the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament. The PIT invites 64 of the best seniors in college basketball from across the nation to participate in a four-day, twelve game tournament. About 200 representatives from NBA teams use the PIT as a scouting tool.
Some NBA teams reached out to Jamar, but no one signed him. Jamar eventually decided that playing overseas would be his best option for the immediate future. He made the choice to play for the Kolossos Rodou of the Greek A1 Basketball League. Jamar is playing an average of 20 minutes a game.
He still has his eyes set on an NBA career, but realizes that playing overseas is just the first step of many when it comes to achieving his goal. After everything Jamar has been through he simply sees this as just a new challenge for him to overcome.
Jamar is not the typical athlete. Most people would have lived life on a different path after growing up the youngest of eight raised by a single mom in a bad neighborhood. Jamar wasn’t going to let that slow him down from achieving his dreams. Even after his mother’s medical issues he used that life experience to fuel his fire in achieving greatness. He is beyond thankful for the game of basketball. “Without it I have no idea where I would be today,” Jamar said. “Not a lot of kids make it out of my hood and succeed. The way I see it, basketball saved me.”
There is no ceiling for a guy like Jamar. The words quit and give up do not exist in his vocabulary. It is safe to say that people can expect great things from him in the near future.