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FREDERICTON – A St. Thomas University basketball player is proving that everybody deserves a second shot.

Quentin Sock had to overcome incredible odds to make the varsity team, and now he’s inspiring other young aboriginal players to never give up on their dreams.

Sock and his St. Thomas Tommies teammates are practising for the playoffs, but he said he already feels like he’s won at the game of life.

He grew up in Elsipogtog dreaming of playing varsity basketball. He got his first shot to play for the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds in 2005, but things didn’t go as he had planned. One day he “heard a snap”, which turned out to be a torn ligament.

After he blew out his ankles, his life began to spiral out of control.

“I would get up and have a drink with my friends and it would roll into the night,” he said. It led to five years living under the dark cloud of alcoholism.

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“I was always sick and hungover, and keeping up with basketball was very difficult.

“It took me away from my passion, so it had to end. I said, ‘No more. I am done.'” Tweet This

Sock enrolled at St. Thomas in Aboriginal studies and took another shot at playing varsity ball. At 27 years old, however, he was out of shape and about a decade older than the rest of the team.

His coach Dwight Dickinson said he saw something special in Sock that went beyond his basketball skills.

“Those tough times, you know, they are not a bad thing when you get through them. The adversity and challenge that he has gone though has made him a great young man,” he said.

He said Sock, now 29, has become a role model for his team and his First Nations community. Teammate Jeremy Speller from Gesgapegiag Quebec First Nation said he would never have considered trying out for varsity basketball if not for Sock.

When he’s not on the university court, Sock coaches young aboriginal players back home in Elsipogtog, where he encourages kids to stay in school, to not drink and to dream big.

“One of my goals is to play professionally in the [National Basketball League] for Canada,” he said. “I hope I can get it done… before I am 40, anyway.”

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