STANFORD, Calif. — The arena in Frisco, Texas, is only a 30-minute drive from Ryan Agarwal’s hometown near Dallas. Agarwal was in his middle-school years and stepped inside felt like he had entered another world.
Agarwal, a sixth-grader obsessed with basketball in 2015 was obsessed. Satnam Singh was the first Indian-born player to be selected by the Dallas Mavericks. Agarwal realized he was in his draft to go see him compete. Two years later, he went on a trip with his father and cousin. to Singh watching in an N.B.A. Ryan Agarwal, a G League player, realized what he was looking for. to Play like Singh.
Agarwal’s parents had emigrated from IndiaHe is a Dallas native. According to him, he’d never seen anyone like him play basketball so he never took the sport seriously. He said that it was seeing Singh play basketball that convinced him he could compete at the highest level.
“It was just excitement for him to connect with someone he can see is like himself,” Ashok Agarwal, Ryan’s father, said.
Six years later, Ryan Agarwal is much farther from home — 1,700 miles away at Stanford He is currently a student shooting guard at University. to bolster the Cardinal’s faltering offense. He’s still chasing Singh, hoping to Representation is where Singh started. India The American basketball landscape, while still playing college basketball.
“I just have to keep in mind the fact that I help represent such a big community, and only so little people have the ability to do what I’m trying to do,” Agarwal spoke out recently about a sideline discussion on a Stanford practice.
Agarwal said he didn’t shy away from a certain amount of pressure that comes with people judging an entire culture based on his play. Rivals.com was a talent assessment site that rated Agarwal amongst the 150 best players his school class as a 4-star recruit. Agarwal was ready to go. to He chose the college where he will play. to Share the spotlight with his coaches, relatives and friends who supported him. India. You can see the dramatic music in the video. to A sequence of Agarwal walking on train tracks. This was his way to express his desire “to set an example for a whole heritage and prove that we can do it, too.”
“The commitment video that he did was his thought process, his message that he wanted to say,” Ranjini Agarwalla was his mother. “It was not anything that we even talked about. So we were shocked when he brought that up and said, ‘This is what I want to do.’”
It was noteworthy that Agarwal had been recruited from high school. In the 2021-22 school years, just 2 percent (2%) of Division I student-athletes were identified as Asian. to N.C.A.A. statistics. Agarwal’s parents said that as he was growing up, it wasn’t always clear how they should proceed through the rigorous world of recruiting and elite sports.
“For us, everything was a learning experience,” Ashok Agarwal spoke.
Now, families reach out to These are them to Ranjini Agarwalla, Ranjini’s wife, said it depends on what you want to do. to Encourage your children to play sports, and make sure they are noticed by college coaches.
“I’m blessed with the parents I have, because they put me in every sport possible to just try to see what I love, which honestly, not a lot of Indian parents do,” Ryan Agarwal said. “I think that’s the biggest thing for me. If it wasn’t for the support from my parents, who knows where I would be.”
Agarwal was the only player to be able to leave the bench so far in this season. Stanford In almost three-quarters of the games, Agarwal played an average of 8 minutes. Rivals.com had once listed Agarwal among the top-20 shooting guards, but he has since been dropped from that ranking. Stanford Jerod Haase, Coach of Agarwal said that Agarwal was a better player due to his 6-foot-6 stature and his ability to pass.
“He’s going to be really good,” Haase said.
It’s amazing how much good there is to remain to be seen. For now, Agarwal’s efforts are focused on helping Stanford (11-65) Find its feet in the Pac-12 Conference.
Indian-American is the only participant to Have logged N.B.A. minutes is the Canadian-born Sim Bhullar, who wasn’t drafted but played in three games for the Sacramento Kings during the 2014-15 season. Bhullar currently plays in Taiwan.
Singh is billed as an “astronaut”. “one in a billion” A Netflix actor was not able to perform in a Netflix documentary. to It in the N.B.A. He failed to Gaining traction in G League. He played only two seasons for the Texas Legends and has never been in an N.B.A. game.
The N.B.A. has been in existence since the beginning. Inauguration of an academy by the N.B.A. India Scholarships were earned by 20 graduate students in 2017. to Preparatory schools and junior colleges are located in the United States. to Mark Pozin, the league’s spokesperson.
Zach Reynolds is a spokesperson for StanfordWhen he was trying to do it, he said so. to figure out how many players of Indian descent played Division I men’s basketball, he and other sports information directors around the country were able to You can choose from three options: Agarwal (center), Amaan Sandhu of Monmouth (center), and Ishaan Jivasi, Penn State’s walk-on football player.
To Stanford’s first home game of the season, 1,500 students from Palo Alto, Calif., elementary and middle schools filed into the stands at Maples Pavilion. Haase stated that Agarwal was proud to set an example for children just beginning their education. to As Agarwal imagined his future after he had seen Singh in Frisco in 2017, he can now imagine it.
“There’s probably a lot of those kids who didn’t realize these goals are achievable,” Haase said. “Even if it’s just coming to a game and seeing someone like Ryan, I think he takes great pride in being that beacon of, ‘Hey, work hard, have fun while you’re doing it, and there’s some great things that can happen.’”
