FEATURE Mesa College alum finds hoop dreams in Jordan
Mission Valley News | Feb. 15 – March 14, 2019
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Noah Perkins Sam Daghles still remembers the weekend trips to Lindbergh Park, off Balboa Avenue, as a middle-schooler in the early 1990s: the concrete court, the anticipation, the knobby elbows and grown men playing for contact. Some things you don’t forget. “Friday, Saturday, Sunday — it was the best (basketball) run in San Diego,” Daghles, a Madison High School and San Diego Mesa College alum, said. “Older men would come from 8 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. I’d sit on the sidelines, hoping to get in — it only happened if they had nine and I made 10.” As a lanky high-schooler, Daghles took his pickup game on the road, going from gym to gym throughout the city in search of the perfect run. “We used to go from rec [center] to rec [center],” he said. “Whatever gym was known for having the best runs that day, we’d be there.” The “hoop jones” often led Daghles to Balboa Park and the famed Municipal Gymnasium, where local legend Kendrick Johnson — a high-flying Point Loma Nazarene guard, and later pro all over Europe — held court. “Playing with actual men made me develop so much faster,” Daghles said. “It was battle after battle. Nowadays, kids play so much controlled-environment basketball, it doesn’t allow them to have that competitive edge we had back then. We hated losing. It was bragging rights.” Those lessons learned on cracked concrete and beaten hardwood stayed with Daghles, 39, as he traveled the world as a professional ballplayer, then coach, and, now, basketball academy operator in his native Jordan. “We were so battle-tested. I carried that with me in high school, college and professionally,” Daghles said. Daghles first love as a kid in Amman, Jordan was soccer. “Every kid in Jordan plays soccer,” he remembered. “Soccer is a street sport. I hated basketball.” After immigrating with his family as a 9-year-old on Christmas Eve, 1988, to Michigan, and shortly after to Clairemont, Daghles found himself enamored with the
schoolyard hype surrounding Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers. “The Lake Show’ and Magic, I remember that,” Daghles said. “There was so much hype around basketball the day after games, my attention shifted from soccer to basketball.” Despite no organized background in the sport, Daghles showed enough aptitude to make the freshman team at Madison. Midway through the season, standing over 6-feet tall, and playing point guard, he was called up to the varsity — where he remained for the next three-and-a-half years. “To this day, I’m thankful to the coaches for giving me that shot,” Daghles said. “I’m a testament of player development and hard work. I’m coming in as this skinny little kid. ‘Who is he – this Middle Eastern kid?’ I loved being at Madison High School, we didn’t have big names but [then] coach John Anella kept us together as one unit.” The highlight of Daghles’s tenure at Madison came his junior year, when the overlooked Warhawks advanced all the way to the 1996, Division III, CIF championship game, before falling to the Walton brothers and University of San Diego High School. “Nobody expected us to go that far,” Daghles remembered. “We were underdogs and I was an underdog. We weren’t big, but we were smart. Playing in a conference where we had to go to Lincoln High School, and other tough places, it made us who we are. In the championship game, we faced a loaded team. We didn’t have a chance, but that experience, playing varsity taught me about life — communicating with different people and toughness.” Despite the deep playoff run, Daghles garnered little interest from Division 1 schools — with Holy Cross in Massachusetts being his only offer. “Nobody thought that I could play college ball,” Daghles said. “I think they thought I was too skinny to play at the next level.” Following graduation, a car accident further sidetracked Daghles’ basketball career. The accident resulted in a broken a hip for his father, limiting his ability to walk for a year. While Daghles rehabbed his own injuries, he had to take up work in a family-owned grocery store to help provide.
Daghles on the court for the Jordan national team. (Photos courtesy Noah Perkins)
The following year, Daghles enrolled at San Diego Mesa College. Over the next two seasons, playing under the constraints of junior college basketball — limited resources and roster shortages by way of academic ineligibility and injury — Daghles thrived as a 6-foot-6-inch point guard who scored, passed, rebounded and defended. “He was a true leader,” Ed Helscher, Daghles’s coach at San Diego Mesa College, remembered. “His attitude was great; he worked hard on his game. He held the team together sophomore year.” “I had the freedom and the greenlight to be me,” Daghles added. “I could make mistakes and learn.” According to Daghles, San Diego State expressed interest in him as a redshirt walk on, but instead chose to spend his final two years of college at Division 2 Midwestern State. “I went from the third best player on my high school team to the only player from that team to play college ball and then the only player to play pro ball,” Daghles said. The dream for Daghles was always the NBA. Playing pickup games with overseas pros at San Diego State and University of San Diego in the summer after graduating from Midwestern State, widened the scope of that dream. But going back to Jordan? “I had no ties and no intention of playing professionally in Jordan,” Daghles said. “I didn’t think they had pro basketball, all I knew is they play soccer.” Daghles hadn’t been to Jordan since coming to San Diego, some 15 years earlier. As it turned out, at least one person back home had been following his basketball career — the president of a newly formed team, Fastlink, which was sponsored by a telecom company and played in the first division of Jordanian pro ball. “The president shows up in San Diego and takes me out for coffee,” Daghles remembered. “I left that meeting and told my agent ‘Forget about it, I’m not interested.’ He kept calling my agent day-in-day-out, until he convinced him to convince me.” In Amman, Daghles found a league characterized by low salaries, a heavy reliance on foreign import players, and every team sharing the same gym in front of sparse crowds. “Amateurish” is how Daghles described his first impressions. In his first season, Daghles won the Most Valuable Player award and led Fastlink to an undefeated season and a championship. “When Sam came to Jordan, he showed us the real meaning of working hard and being professional,” Zaid Abbas, a longtime Jordanian pro basketball player and member of the national team, said. “I saw the difference in the level between him and other players in Jordan — he pushed me and other young players to be better.” “I think I helped make the league more professional,” added Daghles. “Players weren’t
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making a lot of money. I came in wanting a certain salary. I backed it up and created a buzz, other players started wanting more. I helped raise the bar and raise player salaries.” From 2003 through 2015, Daghles bounced between the top leagues of Jordan, China, Iran, Sam Daghles takes a shot for Mesa College. and the Philippines with brief stints in the NBA inside track to qualify for the D-League and NBA Summer World Cup, Daghles resigned League. from his coaching position. “Back then [2006], the “Unfortunately, coaching in D-League was brutal,” Daghles this country is very difficult,” said. “The flights, the bus rides, Daghles said. “There are three bad hotels — it just wasn’t com- different federations, each one fortable, especially coming from was an obstacle. They didn’t overseas where you were taken want me coaching. They didn’t care of.” want to follow my guidelines. It Daghles also spent sevwas a fight — one step forward, eral years competing for the 10 backwards. It was draining.” Jordanian national team, leadDaghles’ current focus is ing the country to its only ever working in player development, appearance in the World Cup, with Jordanians as young as 4, in 2010. and up to the professional levAfter concluding his playel, at a basketball academy he ing career in 2015, Daghles founded 18 months ago. was named the head coach of “On this side of the world, the national team — a team dreaming is sometimes scary,” beset by declining play and Daghles said. “Basketball-wise, complaints from previous head they doubt themselves a lot. coach Rajko Toroman about a What I try to impart is to put lack of money and sponsorship. in the hard work. There is no “We were on such a low, cheating the process.” there was only one way to go Looking back at the past 25 and it’s up,” Daghles said. “I years in basketball, Daghles know the culture, I know evsaid it’s his own hard work that erybody in this region, I know he’s most proud of. the players in Jordan and what “I was lucky enough to buttons to hit. I thought if we compete against former NBA do this the right way, I can help guys. I played against Stephon bring Jordan back to its peak.” Marbury and Tracy McGrady In 2019 World Cup qualand these big names,” Daghles ifying matches, Daghles led said. “A kid that grew up in Jordan to a 5-3 record. San Diego, that not too ma“As a coach, he fought for ny people thought could play players’ rights and worked hard college ball that played proto teach fundamentals and fessionally, that traveled the make us better as individuals world and made a living — it’s and as a team,” Abbas said. “As beyond me.” a leader he was unselfish, trying to help players outside the —Noah Perkins is a staff court as a big brother.” writer for a Japanese magazine In October, after two-and-aHoop Japan and freelances for half years, with Jordan on the several American newspapers.■