Prince’s High School Basketball Photo Is Just About Perfect (Yeah, That Prince)
Turns out Prince — all 5-foot-2 of him — was quite the baller in high school. A jock, even (along with basketball, he also played football and baseball). In a few recent Twitter posts, Minneapolis StarTribune reporter Libor Jany revealed a teenage Prince in full short-shorts-and-afro mode, sitting for his high school basketball team photo.
Jany apparently discovered the image as he was digging through the newspaper's archives. He also found an article stating that Prince was a solid ball handler (he better be at that height, or lack thereof) who was frustrated that he wasn't starting, according to his basketball coach, Richard Robinson:
Prince was an excellent player; he was like the sixth or seventh man ... He was an excellent ball handler, a good shooter and very short. Probably with a different group of people he would have been a starter. But, as they turned out, they were probably the best ball team that ever came along at Central. I knew he wanted to be starting and felt he should be starting. He was unhappy and he expressed that many, many times.
Just like everyone else, when we hear "Prince" and "basketball" in the same sentence, we can only think of "the shirts against the blouses." We think of Prince rocking full rock-star attire ("high heels, suited and booted") facing off against Charlie Murphy, and just straight killing him on the court.
Prince has confirmed much of that story, though he denies the wardrobe bit. "But the whupping's true," he said of how he and his squad demolished Murphy and friends.
Neither confirmed nor denied: whether Prince did in fact serve everyone pancakes after the game. It sounds just crazy enough to be true. We choose to believe.