Quincy Douby: From Coney Island to Piscataway to the Sacramento Kings

"With the 19th selection in the 2006 NBA Draft, the Sacramento Kings select Quincy Douby, guard, Rutgers University." 

Those words uttered by Rutgers graduate and NBA commissioner David Stern ended an era of Scarlet Knights basketball—and started a new life for one of the hardest-working basketball players in the country. 

Often times, you'll hear the story about some player from Europe who was a soccer goalie his entire life before picking up a basketball at age 15 and shooting 40 percent from behind the arc.

The story behind third-year Sacramento Kings guard Quincy Douby is similar—but it takes place in the basketball hotbed of Coney Island, not somewhere in the outskirts of Romania. 

In a neighborhood that produced Sebastian Telfair and Stephon Marbury, basketball was a culture.  You made your name on the playgrounds, exploded onto the high school scene before ever taking a class, and started your marketing campaign toward superstardom.  Such was not the case for the now-6'3", smooth-shooting Douby.

Douby attended William E. Grady High, one of the main rivals of Lincoln—where the aforementioned Telfair and Marbury laid their legacies.  In the spring of 2000, Douby was a sophomore who hadn't even tried out for the basketball team in his first two years in school.  Nevertheless, he'd put on a show every day in gym class, hitting NBA-length three pointers with ease.

One day that spring, Douby's sister thought that it might be beneficial to alert the school's basketball coach, Jack Ringel, that he had a gem in "Q" (as he is known) flying under the radar in his own school.  Ringel took Douby on as a project, and Quincy put up a sub-par nine points per game as a junior.

His senior year was magical—and that's an understatement.  He scored 35 points per game, won Grady a city championship, and exploded for 65 points in a single contest, connecting on 18-of-21 from three-point range in the game.  Colleges jumped on the opportunity to recruit a kid who hadn't played non-blacktop basketball before 2000. 

After a prep year at St. Thomas Moore in Connecticut, Douby enrolled at Rutgers to play for then head coach Gary Waters.  He played somewhat sporadically as a freshman, until he came onto the national scene in the 2004 NIT.  At Madison Square Garden in his home city, he scored 35 points in a semifinal game against Iowa St. and the nation was on notice.

Following a 15-point per game sophomore season, arguably the greatest individual season in RU history was set to follow.  The 2005-2006 campaign was all about Douby—he led the Big East with 25.4 points per game, broke the Carrier Dome (Syracuse) record for scoring with 41 points, and broke Bob Lloyd's single-season scoring record at RU with over 830 points.

"I Douby Lieve" was the slogan that Rutgers fans lived by during that year, and Q was more than willing to deliver the goods night-in and night-out.  He hired an agent, left school a year early, and was drafted by Sacramento.

You'll never meet a guy who works harder in the gym shooting, strives to improve himself as a basketball player, and remembers where he came from.  The morning following a 20-point performance by Douby in the Kings' first summer league game, I write this piece with a smile, knowing that he has started a successful chapter in his life.

He'll always be remembered for the memories he gave Scarlet Knights fans and for the confidence he brought to the court every winter night.  Q joined Adam Helfgott and me on WRSU in March from a Phoenix airport, and his loyalty to RU and drive to succeed were evident throughout the interview.

"Douby for three" from the RAC public address announcer, or the "DOOOOO" from the Rutgers student section will never be forgotten.  Here's to Quincy continuing a successful career, and making a living by playing the game he loves.