AURORA | Eduardo Delgado had Jamal Murray in his top five among his favorite players to watch in the NBA.
The senior on the Aurora West College Prep Academy boys basketball team watched Murray star with the hometown Denver Nuggets and bring home a coveted NBA championship two seasons ago.
So it was a surreal moment Jan. 6 when Delgado watched Murray stroll casually into the school’s gym during what he and his teammates believed was just a practice to boost fitness with winter break coming to an end.
“We were thinking it was just another practice and then to see a big, championship-winning player walk in was awesome,” Delgado said. “It was real eye-opening, like that’s somebody I want to be like. He’s one of my top five players and he was here, talking with us about the game we love.
“The excitement is going crazy for everybody right now.”
UCHealth approached Aurora Public Schools Athletic Director Casey Powell about having a visit from Murray (who appeared at North Middle School last year during a Unified basketball game) somewhere in the district.
Powell strongly believed Aurora West College Prep Academy — which has an enrollment of a little more than 1,000 students in grades 6-12 and only has a combined total of seven boys and girls varsity prep sports — was the perfect place for this type of event to happen.
When Murray emerged from a side door while the players stood together for a team photo and the realization of his presence swept through the gym like wildfire, it confirmed his instincts.
“I knew this was a school that gets overlooked a lot, so I thought this would be a great opportunity for them to see something that could be life-changing,” Powell said.
“When he walked in, it was a great reaction, it was just what I’d hoped. …For them to be able to watch Jamal on TV and say I played basketball with that guy is huge.”
In about an hour in the gym, Murray (the second-leading scorer behind superstar Nikola Jokic on a Nuggets team that is 20-14 and considered a contender to make another title run) ran through drills with girls and boys teams — all with a smile on his face and good humor — posed for selfies with every player that had their phones and also with coaches.
Murray handed out UCHealth sweatshirts to each player before he departed.
“It was really cool (seeing the players’ reactions),” Murray told reporters. “That feeling never gets old. It inspires me to keep doing what I’m doing and hopefully having more events like this. …Today it was all about fun.”
The players certainly had fun conversing with Murray as he stood in their layup line.
A few of them even put out a joking challenge on behalf of their head coach, Tony Temple.
“Some of my boys told him I would dunk on him for 20 bucks,” Temple said with a smile. “It was great to see those interactions and they all said he was a really cool guy. …You can just tell these kids are going to go home and do nothing but brag about this.”
Though Murray’s visit was relatively short, the impact of it will linger a long time according to athletic director Ricardo King.
“We are the smallest high school in APS, along with William Smith, so sometimes we get overlooked, but we’re a small school trying to make some noise,” King said. “This was great for us. This is something these kids will take with them forever.”
From a basketball perspective, Murray’s visit will hopefully provide a spark for Redonia “Coach Red” Clark’s girls team and Temple’s boys team.
Neither team has won a game so far this year — the girls team is 0-6 and the boys team (which has a large number of players new to the sport) sit 0-7 — but the next time they hit the floor, it could be different.
“It was a really cool surprise, and we’ve got games coming up, so we’re thankful that he came and inspired us,” Clark said.
Added Temple: “We’re not having the best of seasons, so seeing somebody like that up close should help the boys play a little harder.”
That certainly will be the case with Delgado, who has worked himself up from a bench player on junior varsity as a freshman to a starting spot on the varsity.
Delgado definitely took what he heard from Murray to heart.
“He was telling us when he was growing up in Canada, he was enjoying the game and not taking it to serious and then it just clicked one day,” Delgado said. “It made me think, maybe in the future I could be up there and lead my team to a championship game.”
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
