Tim Parham on the court in attendance to an NBA game
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7500 Magazine: How did you discover basketball? What sparked/generated your love for the sport?
Tim Parham: My whole family played it, we got a bunch of giants in my family so everybody in my family played it. I fell in love with the game, not early on, I was into video games and other stuff. I knew I wanted to be in tech overall, but just basketball in general. We have a huge rich basketball family in Chicago, the Parhams. So, following suit with my family and I gained a lot of love for the game at an early age, not super early on, like I said, but I love to play basketball all the time.
7500 Magazine: Was there anyone in particular who encouraged you to pursue this seriously that made you say, okay, I want to do this as a full time career, a family member or coach anyone?
Tim Parham: Everybody used to kick my butt. I wasn't the best in the family and I was just motivated. These guys were really playing ball and they were getting picked up, I wasn't getting picked up. So it was a situation where I was motivated by other people doing great things with basketball. All the dudes in high school had all the girls that was playing on the team and I'm like “bro going on? It’s like that.” So I went in, I was kind of motivated, also playing with my cousins Steve, Tree, Little Dre, Corey, Reggie, all those guys. They were way better than me so I just wanted to be half the basketball player that they were. So that's when I just took it upon myself to put my best foot forward and then try to pursue that.
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7500 Magazine: Thinking back to your time in Canada, you ended up gaining Center of the Year, you were the all time leading rebounder. How did that feel? How was that year for you?
Tim Parham: That was awesome, honestly because I wasn’t even supposed to be in Canada. I actually was waiting on this other like I was supposed to go play for this team in Iran but for some reason, the work visa stuff was taking too long because they had some issues over there with just the government and stuff, especially bringing an American over there. I'm just waiting so my agents like, “yeah, you want to go over here? while you wait and play in Canada, just stay in shape and get a little bread.” Cool, why not? So I get over there and I'm just killing it. Then the Iranian team was ready for me to go and I'm like, okay, I told the team that, “my team ready for me to go, I got to bounce,” and they're like “no dude, what’re you talking about? You’re here for the year, you signed a contract." It was crazy, they were like if you try to leave you could be banned for a couple of years from FIBA. So I'm like, what? I had to just stay in Canada. That situation kind of happens a lot, like it kind of happened to me in Mexico too. I’ll get into that later but as far as Canada, just hearing my name and being the all star and, saying I’m an all star, I broke the all star record in rebounds. I had like 17 rebounds, all star starter, center of the year, led the league in rebounds and all time leading rebounder.
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Tim Parham flying down the court with teammate on Canadian team, the Windsor Express
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