Stephen Curry stepped on the court during an AAU tournament in Nevada, determined to prove deserving of a scholarship to a major college. Maybe even Duke or University North Carolina, a couple hours’ drive northeast of his hometown of Charlotte.All the big-name coaches were in the building and Curry, a scrawny but earnest teenager, would provide them with a glimpse of all his greatness and glory.
He was awful.
And it was one of the best things to ever happen to him.
Asked on Sunday to recall a memorable brush with failure, Curry paused briefly before reliving the moment during a panel discussion at the University of San Francisco.
“I was in the recruiting kind of window of the time, and I was trying to find my way to the highest level of basketball that I could play,” he said. “And there was this one tournament in Las Vegas, an AAU tournament that I played in, and it was the first time that I knew that all these coaches were going to be around the court. The Who’s Who. I grew up in North Carolina, so the who’s who of ACC country, and I put so much pressure on myself.
“It’s...