The highest level of credibility someone can achieve when attempting to tell a story is having lived the experience themselves.
As a junior on the Shawnee High School basketball team, Tyson Hartnett’s basketball career took off, and 10 years later, he is here to share every minute detail of that journey through his recently written book, “Hoop Dreams Fulfilled.”
“I tell people I played pro basketball and they want to hear all about it,” Hartnett said. “I’ve experienced all of these things that aren’t normal, and I figured a book would be the best way to express these experiences with people.”
Hartnett grew up in Medford and he played a lot of sports.
“Around seventh grade is when I realized I had to choose something,” Hartnett said. “Do I want to play a lot of sports for fun and be average or take one seriously?”
Hartnett had always enjoyed training for basketball and taking countless shots in the gym. At that point in his life, he shared a common goal of many of his peers — to play professionally in the NBA.
“I thought if I put the work in, it would end up happening in the end, but that’s not always the case,” Hartnett said.
He referred multiple times to Jason Thompson, a former AAU teammate of his that is now the longest-tenured player on the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.
During their AAU days, there was not a whole lot that separated him from the team.
However, after factoring in elements that were out of his control such as size and politics that surround sports, hard work was not the end all, be all.
Early in Hartnett’s career, he participated in All-American camps such as the Adidas Superstar Camp, Pangos All-American camp and was even on an AAU team coached by former professional Rick Barrett.
He received a full scholarship offer during his junior year at Shawnee to play with a Division-I basketball team at the University of Maine.
“I had accomplished my high school goal,” Hartnett said.
However, his experience at the University of Maine was not quite what he expected it to be, and after two years of only getting on the court three times, he decided it was time for something else.
“I believe there were some politics that kept me from playing, but I knew I had two years of eligibility left and I knew I wanted to spend it somewhere making highlights as opposed to sitting on the bench,” Hartnett said.
He received a call from the head coach of the Rowan college basketball team, Joe Cassidy.
“I visited, met the team and loved everything about it,” Hartnett said. “It’s a generally local school based on where I grew up, so I knew some of the guys already and I viewed it as the perfect place to finish my career.”
Hartnett finished his college stint at Rowan as an all-conference player and acknowledged coach Cassidy for being the one who helped him find his confidence again.
Going from Division III basketball to the NBA is nearly unheard of, so with the help of his former AAU coach Barrett, he was able to land on a professional team in Sweden.
He played professionally in Sweden, Argentina and Chile all for one year each.
“The idea of playing professionally has a glamorous worldly feel to it,” Hartnett said. “When people think of pro sports, they think of the NBA, private jets, Bentleys and MTV cribs.”
The reality of it was described much differently by Hartnett.
“.1 percent of us ever actually make it that high. Most just end up playing two to three times a day, making a decent amount of money,” Hartnett said.
Many basketball fans also don’t recognize that foreign teams are typically only allowed one to two Americans, so it can be very hard for those players to fit in with the rest of the team, especially if they don’t speak the native language.
After his career overseas, Hartnett returned to the States and drifted with the wind for a while, doing a few jobs here and there.
Eventually he came to terms with the NBA being out of reach, so he decided to try to help athletes with their careers through teaching them different skills that were passed down to him.
Hartnett created a website called BasketballTrainingClub.com, an online tutorial for hopeful young athletes. Founded in 2013, it contains a collection of more than 440 videos, e-books and a support community to help athletes.
He also got heavily into writing as an outlet to voice his opinions and experiences to the things he felt so strongly about.
Hartnett viewed writing as the next chapter of his life. He received positive feedback on his writing and was encouraged by numerous people to write a book.
“After about three or four drafts of writing the book, I revised it down to what I think best told my story,” Hartnett said.
The real behind-the-scenes story adds perspective about a career that is not all successes as it is portrayed in the public eye.
Hartnett’s goal is to provide the “real view” of what the common dream of playing professional basketball consists of.
“There’s a lot that goes on inside the minds of athletes and their families during a career. I want to bring light to these things that people are scared to talk about, or they just don’t know enough about, “ Hartnett said.
You can purchase a paper copy of Hartnett’s book or the Kindle version at www.amazon.com/Hoop-Dreams-Fulfilled-Redemption-Professional/dp/1507855788.
