How nervous was Reggie Strong when he made his debut for Moraine Valley’s men’s basketball team in October?
“To be honest, I was really, really, really, really nervous,” he said.
In April, 2023, Strong was in Memphis and was struck by a car.
The scorecard of injuries he suffered was brutal: two broken legs, a femur that popped through his skin, a humerus bone that popped through his skin, tendons and cartilage torn in both knees and 300 stitches along with scrapes, bruises and swelling.
And that doesn’t include a 14-hour surgery to repair his left hand, which is his shooting hand.
“Reggie was mangled and twisted,” his father, Clarence, said in a news release. “It was just a horrible sight before he went to the hospital. It really tore me apart.”
But Reggie was put back together and at age 24 is a freshman on the Cyclones’ men’s basketball team.
And that first game back was a major first step.
“I was nervous, but I tried not to show it because I wanted to try to be the person that everyone could look at for the courage to go on and on,” Reggie told Southwest Regional Publishing.
Through Moraine’s first 22 games, the 6-foot-2 Strong is averaging 15.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game for the Cyclones (14-8).
His nervousness went away quickly..
“At the end of the day, basketball is not new to me,” he said. “It’s actually a dream come true to play on the collegiate level.
“A lot of people want to play at the Division I level ,but just to hoop on the collegiate level — man, I’m really happy.”
His body is full of metal used to repair him. But he said he is feeling faster and stronger on the court.
“It feels like I’ve never been gone,” Strong said.
Strong, a Chicago native, played at Farragut and two years at St. Joseph under legendary coach Gene Pingatore.
He said that Pingatore was helping him pick a school to transfer for his senior season and the coach recommended Orr.
Strong said that on June 26, 2019, he made his transfer official on the same day Pingatore died.
He played at Orr, which was trying for its fourth straight Class 2A state championship. The team made it to the state semifinals in 2020 before the rest of the tournament was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.
He played in Armenia and came back home to play for a Chicago men’s league team that made a trip to Memphis and on April 14, 2023 he suffered the accident.
In January, 2024, he was able to stand and in the summer was training young players at a club in Naperville. That’s where he met Cyclones assistant coach Aaron Green and Green persuaded Strong to come to the Palos Hills campus.
Strong has the option of staying another year or trying to find a four-year school.
It’s been a long and hard process that has taken a toll on him mentally as well as physically. But he said he has always tried to remain positive.
“Of course there were times when I got down but anytime I got down, I tried to make sure I thought about something that was good and made me happy.” Strong said. “I know that if you’re happy and you’re grateful, your life is good. You are still blessed with certain things.
“I like to look at life as always having a half-full cup. A half-full cup is an opportunity to get to the full cup. That’s how I look at it.”
He has always been such an incredible beautiful person. Deserves greatness in his life. 🙏🏾 ❤️