Mickle's Meddling Meniscus

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Ohio graduate student forward Kevin Mickle (#23) looks for an open teammate during Ohio's game against Bowling Green on January 30, 2018.




02.15.18

Kevin Mickle just wants to work on his game; Is that so much to ask?

Jimmy Watkins / For The Post

Kevin Mickle trained to become a basketball player his entire life. He just didn't always know it.

Starting at five years old, Mickle rose between 4:30 and 5 a.m. every day to run with his dad, Gary, a professional soccer player in Guyana.

The runs weren’t defined by mileage as much as they were by tolerance.

“I used to run ‘til I was wheezing,” Kevin said.

Kevin won the title of fastest runner for his age in the country two years in a row. He could keep up with his father on those early morning runs.

His father saw the endurance as a promising sign for his son’s future in soccer. There’s just one problem: Every time Gary kicked him the ball, Kevin either threw it back or dribbled it.

“We might have a goalkeeper here instead,” Gary said.

Kevin Mickle

Non-Conference (12 games):

19.1 min per game

9.6 points per game

3 rebounds per game

Conference (13 games):

18.9 min per game

6.3 points per game

3.6 rebounds per game

He’s got the build for it today. At 6-foot-7 inches tall, he’s one inch taller than goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois of English Premier League club Chelsea. Maybe Kevin tried his hands at it too early.

At 14-years-old, his father asked him to fill the hole in goal for the Master’s League his father played in. The regular goalie was out that day. Kevin didn’t worry much about going in; he was playing against a bunch of retired players approaching middle age.

But they had still played professional soccer.

“It was one of the most horrible experiences I ever had,” Kevin said. “It was grown men. I couldn't believe how fast and the power of how the ball came at me.”

Thus, Mickle ended his brief soccer career.

Around the same time, he realized he could dunk a basketball on a 10-foot rim.

At age nine, he learned the sport to make friends after moving to Brooklyn. And while his friends climbed the monkey bars at Grace Towers Park, he always found something to fake dunk into the circle in the middle of the structure.

But once he proved he could dunk on a real rim in seventh grade, the older players started choosing him for pickup games.

Kevin developed an aggressive streak from playing with older players. He wasn’t allowed to call fouls and over time became the alpha at the local parks. Basketball became his passion and his dad became his trainer.

They visited various parks to improve footwork and endurance. His dad never played basketball, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help.

Gary taught technique and fitness as the foundation of any successful athlete. He told his son the strategy would become easier to execute with those two attributes. Always remember it’s a team sport, he told his son; quality defense yields quality offense.

Again, he never played basketball.

“It’s still sports,” Mickle’s father said. “Whether you’re playing soccer or basketball.”

The student applied his father’s lessons and bounced around the basketball circuit after high school. He redshirted one season at Central Connecticut State after signing a letter of intent without consulting his parents or older brother, also named Gary.

Kevin played one year at Broward College in Florida to rehab his Division I status and spent two seasons at Florida Gulf Coast before transferring to Ohio this season.

He chose Ohio because of his pro aspirations; he needs to showcase more than FGCU allowed him. His brother and father believed FGCU held Kevin back, but he harbors no animosity toward his former school.

“I was limited, but I was still growing,” Mickle said.

Mickle — and many people around the Ohio program — says he was an efficient 3-point shooter during the preseason. He was working on reading the floor, starting fast breaks and handling the ball. He wasn’t allowed to do much besides pass, rebound, defend and dunk in Fort Myers.

He stayed late in The Convo early in the season exploring his skillset, following practice with experimentation from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. But as the season wore on, the torn meniscus in his right knee worsened.

His knee prevents him from doing anything outside of practice besides shooting and dribbling in a chair or trying stationary shooting drills from up close. The farther he steps away from the basket, the worse his status for the next game becomes.

The knee has slowed his production as well. Mickle is 4-of-14 from 3-point range on the season and has scored in double digits four times in 2018. His knee robs him of reps, athleticism and the ability to showcase his full array of talent. His coach notices.

“Fighting through the injury is tougher to do when you're adding to your arsenal,” coach Saul Phillips said. “It’s a new thing for him.”

Perhaps more frustrating is his inability to do anything about the knee other than periodically draining it. This shouldn’t be a big deal. He said this injury wouldn’t crack the top five on his list of painful injuries.

Back in Guyana, a gate fell on his head once — he's got the c-shaped scar on his head to prove it. He cut his right knee on a glass bottle to the point where he could see his bone. Doctors nearly amputated part of his leg.

And yet, it’s this annoying, lingering injury — the one ranked eighth on his list — that’s holding him back. Mickle will stay injured until doctors perform surgery.

Surgery is scheduled for after the season. Mickle won’t let his career end on any terms but his own. He trained for this entire life, after all.

But that decision carries a heavy mental burden.

“It’s really frustrating,” Mickle said. “It’s really tiring. A lot of anger. And a lot of prayers too.”

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Development by: Taylor Johnston / Digital Production Editor

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