If basketball reflects life, then Ricky Torres knows what it takes to overcome the odds
Adversity is back in the life of Ricky Torres.
In his first season at Wichita State, the junior has made fewer than 36 percent of shots and just two of his 30 three-points attempts. Once a starter for nine straight games, Torres has only seen 32 minutes the past four entering Saturday’s road trip to Connecticut.
If it’s true the game of basketball reflects life, then Torres is experienced in this regard.
Imagine your biological father not being around for your childhood. Imagine seeing two of your brothers spend time in jail. Imagine your mother nearly dying and left permanently disabled because of a surgery gone wrong. Imagine dropping out of high school when you’re 14 because life is overwhelming, then becoming a father at 18.
So, yeah, Torres has lived through worse than a 2-for-30 shooting slump. And he plans on overcoming this bit of adversity just like he has so many times to become a Division I basketball player at Wichita State.
“I owe basketball everything because it was the thing that got me to become a better all-around person,” Torres said. “The way I look at the struggles I’m going through on the court right now is how I looked a things I went through off the court. I hit a wall and I can either adjust and adapt and find a way to get through this or I can quit.
“If I made it here from where I was, well then there’s no quitting now. Eventually, I’ll get through this. I’ve just got to adjust and adapt.”
‘I felt like I was trapped’
The lives of Ricky Torres and his family were forever altered on May 17, 2005.
His mother, Kym Samuels, was at a barbecue where an arm wrestling competition had broke out. In good fun, Kym decided to take part. But the fun and games ended when Samuels felt like her entire arm pop out of place.
She was rushed to the emergency room and a spiral fracture was diagnosed. She could either heal with a cast for at least nine months, or she could elect to have surgery that would allow her to use her arm in a week. Samuels had worked 18 years as an accountant at an insurance company, and with her five kids depending on her to provide, she opted for the surgery.
But an anesthesia mistake nearly turned her arm surgery fatal. Samuels was revived by doctors but was paralyzed from the neck down. In the days after, her right arm was nearly amputated because of a MRSA infection before it was saved by an emergency surgery.
It took nearly two months before she regained feeling below her neck. The feeling in her right arm never returned.
“I still remember that morning like it was yesterday,” Torres said. “I remember being woke up and I don’t know why, but I immediately knew something happened to my mom.”
“In the beginning, I remember being really angry and upset,” Samuels said. “I still hoped I would maybe get my arm back and everything would stop and things would go back to normal.”
Normal never returned.
Samuels frequented the gym before the injury, but she had to spend a year in a nursing home following the accident. She was known as the event organizer in her family. Barbecues, birthday parties, turkey on Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner, it was all hosted by Samuels. It’s been almost 14 years since the injury and Samuels feels like she’s just now adjusting to her new life.
“The first six of seven years after, I wasn’t even myself,” she said. “Most of the time I spent sleeping because they had me on so much medication. When I was awake, I was just in pain.”
Torres was 9 when his mother nearly died. It was around the same time his older brothers were caught up in the street life. While they were protective of him and made sure he didn’t follow their path, Torres was still exposed to that lifestyle.
By the time Torres reached his first year of high school at Pinellas Park High in Florida, he felt overwhelmed. His mother hadn’t recovered and two of his brothers were in jail. They and the rest of his siblings had dropped out of high school. Soon enough, Ricky’s grades plummeted and he too stopped going to school the second semester of his freshman year.
Torres rarely got in trouble, but he felt like there was nothing he could do to change his future.
“I remember feeling like I wasn’t meant to be anything big,” Torres said. “I would look around me and it was a bunch of people with average-at-best lives.
“Everybody would talk about the big things they were going to do, but nobody actually went out and got it. I felt like I was trapped.”
‘Basketball was my sanctuary’
If you would have asked Ricky Torres as a kid what sport he would want to play in college, he would have told you football. He was a standout safety and receiver around the Clearwater, Fla. area.
He didn’t pick up a basketball until he was 13, but it became an immediate love affair. After Torres dropped out, he worked as an assistant to collision technicians at a car dealership and part-time at Tropical Smoothie Cafe. But in his spare time, all he wanted to do was play pick-up basketball outside.
Torres never played for a high school team, but joined the AAU team of former NBA champion Marreese Speights, who is from the same area. The team was coached by Terrence Whitaker, whose son was the same age as Torres and knew him from Pinellas Park.
“Ricky was super raw, but you could see that he had potential,” Whitaker said. “My story was kind of like Ricky’s, so maybe that’s why I kind of gravitated toward him. He was never a knucklehead. He listened when I would tell him things. I’m a high school dropout and I own my house and my own business, so I wanted to show him there was hope.”
During the most turbulent times of his life, the basketball court became a safe haven for Torres.
“Basketball was my sanctuary,” Torres said. “If there was anything that I wanted to get my mind off of or things I didn’t want to be thinking about, I would head to the basketball court.”
In the meantime, Torres’ stepfather, Scott Samuels, who had been married to his mother for nearly two decades, saw too much promise in the youngest Torres to watch him fall into a rut. He pushed Torres to return to school. After enrolling in a variety of alternative schools that didn’t work out, Torres eventually earned his GED.
There were some colleges who were interested in Torres after watching him play AAU in the summer, but that interest vanished as soon as they found out he graduated with a GED.
Without an option and on Whitaker’s advice, Torres enrolled in a nearby prep school. After that, Torres spent a semester at Eastern Florida State College, sometimes practicing with the basketball team but not playing so he could focus on school.
It was at Eastern Florida where Torres was discovered by Reggie Freeman, an assistant coach. Freeman was hired by Chris Popp at Missouri-Western Plains after the season and Freeman tipped Popp off about an under-the-radar point guard prospect.
“When you hear that he didn’t play in high school, most of the time you think of an elite athlete who just gets by on athleticism,” Popp said. “But with Ricky, the most amazing part was his feel for the game. Usually that’s something that is developed over years, but with Ricky, he already had it.”
Torres was an immediate success. He had the best grades of his life in school and he was playing the best basketball of his life. He averaged 11.2 points his freshman season, then his recruiting exploded after he averaged 17.2 points and 8.1 assists and earned junior college All-American honors.
Popp has seen Torres conquer adversity before and that’s why his former coach is so confident Torres will once again at Wichita State.
“As coaches, we constantly preach that all of the lessons you learn on a basketball court will reflect what you go through in life,” Popp said. “The ability to overcome adversity is something Ricky has. He’s had no choice. He’s had to overcome a lot of things in life, things some people can’t even imagine going through. That’s what has and will make him a success.”
‘And Ricky has it in him’
So what finally flipped a switch and gave Torres the drive to be better in school and strive for his best on the basketball court?
That can be pinpointed at the birth of his son, Adriel, in March 2014.
“When I first found out I was going to be a dad, I was scared as hell,” Torres recalled. “I didn’t know how it was going to go. But then, it was like, ‘I have to be here for my son. I’ve got to make this work now.’”
Torres made the hard decision to leave his son to pursue his basketball career, first in West Plains, Mo. and now in Wichita. He had a picture of Adriel’s face tattooed on his right forearm to keep his motivation on his mind. Adriel lives with his mother in Texas, but the two regularly travel to attend Torres’ games. Arrive early enough to Koch Arena and sometimes Adriel is there going through stretches with his father on the court, memories that Torres said he’ll never forget.
“Oh man, the people love him,” Torres said. “I’ve had model agencies message me about him and everything.
“Now I know I’ll be able to support him and I’m here for him. I think he’s old enough now to understand even though I’m not there, I’m there and I’m doing all of this for him. I don’t know if I can really explain that feeling or put it into words, but all I know is that I love that feeling.”
Even though he’s a junior, Torres, at 23, is the oldest player on WSU’s roster. He’s also been through more things in life than his teammates, which has given Torres a maturity that WSU coach Gregg Marshall likes.
“Generally junior-college players come in with a year or two more of physical and mental maturity,” Marshall said. “But Ricky is a mature guy. He’s seen and done a lot in his life, so he’s not one of these wet-behind-the-ears freshmen.”
Torres is the youngest sibling, but is the family’s “superstar.” He is the first person from his family to attend college and has inspired the rest of his siblings. His two brothers are out of jail and are living better lives. The recent road trip to South Florida brought out Torres’ own fan club, headlined by his brothers, T.J., Marcus and Andrew, sister, Myriah, and step-sister, Brittany.
“Ricky is amazing and I’m so proud of him because he’s never let anything stop him,” said Samuels, Torres’ mother. “I believe that anyone can do anything they want to, no matter who they are or where they’re from. If they have it in them, they can do it. And Ricky has it in him.”
But Torres doesn’t consider himself a complete success story yet. That’s still in progress.
If basketball truly does reflect life, then Torres will conquer this batch of adversity just like he’s done so many times in life.
“My goals are still so high for myself and I feel like I’m so far away from where I want to be,” Torres said. “But at the same time, when I think of how far I’ve come, I know I’ve accomplished some things… but not nearly as much as I want to.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2019 at 2:27 PM.
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