He’s the best Belizean American basketball player that you’ve
probably never heard about. 33 year old Marlon Garnett has played internationally
for the past ten years, most notably spending a season with the Boston Celtics
as a sharp shooting guard. Since then, he’s gone on to stints in Spain,
Italy, Turkey and now he’s playing professionally in Croatia. But Garnett
whose mother is Belizean says he wants to represent for the place that has his
roots. He was supposed to represent Belize for the first time in Cuba ten years
ago – but mix-ups with his plane tickets prevented that and also partly
accounted for an embarrassing showing by Belize in the Centro Basket Tournament.
We spoke to him today in Croatia where told us that along with Milton Palacio
– who’s presently playing in Russia - he will play for Belize at
the COCABA Championships in July.
Marlon Garnett, Basketball Player
“When Kevin called me and told me that the organization of the Basketball
Federation is better now and they’ve made some changes and they are trying
to really put together a team to represent the country I was excited about the
opportunity and the invitation to play and one of the main concerns I had though
is that the organization was going to be put together well but also one of countrymen,
Milton Palacio, who is a good friend of mine, I wanted to make sure he would
be playing as well. So we will take this team very seriously because we don’t
want to waste our time and just go out there and not represent the country.
So I am excited to get home this summer and continue to train and get ready
for the tournament the end of July and meet with all the other guys because
this will be my first time actually playing with the team even though Belize
is my roots, that’s part of who I am, so all of my family is there and
I am just happy to be a part of representing the country that my family is from.
So I am in the same boat as Milt. We’re going over there to play for the
country and it is great. We can play for some sort of compensation but as long
as we’re accommodated and we’re taken care of, I think that is the
best thing for us.
So I am playing, I am playing for the love of the game and also just to
try to help what young players we do have to not let this thing be just about
this summer but this can be a start to a future and we put Belize on the map
as far as a great contender for basketball around the world.”
Garnett is finishing up his season in Croatia on Sunday. He played
college basketball at Santa Clara, on the same team with NBA great Steve Nash.
Email
Print