City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Major Canady grabbed the rebound, turned around and dribbled upcourt.

As he got down the other end, he spotted his teammate and close friend Rodney Williams cutting towards the lane, and fed the big man for an easy layup.

That was the easy part, how it was supposed to be when Canady and Williams arrived on campus as freshmen together in the fall of 2013. Both started about half of their rookie seasons, setting up what was supposed to be a solid guard/forward combination for four years in West Philly.

Then, for Canady, it all unraveled.

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His sophomore year ended before it even began, a broken ankle late in October keeping him on the sidelines as his Dragons fought through an 11-19 season. The rehab for that was done by the spring, and he looked primed to retake the starting point guard job in 2015-16, or at least compete for major minutes.

Then, over the summer, he partially tore his ACL playing pick-up. He was able to play through it -- until he aggravated the injury in practice, in the days leading up to the season.

“I’d been healthy my whole entire life, I’d never been injured before,” he said. “Maybe the worst thing was a twisted ankle that put me out two days. For it to happen a second time was challenging. It was heartbreaking.

“I’m religious, but I even took a few days away from God,” added the son of a pastor.

Canady couldn’t even bring himself to tell his parents when the injury occurred. It wasn’t until they were ready to make the trip up from Wilson, N.C. to see the Dragons play Saint Joseph’s in the season opener that he let them know.

“They had no idea...I had [assistant coach] Matt Collier call and tell them about it,” he said. “I shut myself away in my room for a few days and just kind of gathered my thoughts and just kind of let reality sink in.”

A few days after the season had started, Drexel announced that the knee injury would keep Canady out for yet another year.

~~~

Canady gave credit to two individuals for helping him through that time: Williams, who formed an instant bond with Canady their freshmen year, as well as Elgin Ford, a Drexel student who had become Canady’s friend as a freshman and then a team manager as a sophomore.

“Those guys were with me when I couldn’t walk or move, they would get me food, drinks, and they just kind of kept me encouraged,” Canady said. “Rodney would always try to force me to go out with our friends and go hang out, go to the movies and stuff like that and so they kind of helped me break out my shell with depression, I would call it.”

He got particular hooked on a franchise he’d previously dismissed -- the Marvel comics movies.

“I wasn’t a big fan of them until recently,” he said. “All the Captain Americas, Avengers, Iron Man, I used to think those movies were silly, but something in me clicked when I started watching it when I was by myself.”

Ford, a political science major who’s now a walk-on for the Dragons, stuck with Canady through the whole recovery, whatever it took. That ranged from getting him groceries just after the injury occurred to helping Canady to physical therapy, then eventually towards working with him as a rebounder and passer once Canady was ready to return to the practice court.

“I think the biggest part was helping him physically and just being there to talk to him and making sure his head and heart were still in the right place in terms of his basketball outlook,” the Lithonia, Ga. native said. “There’s always times where you’re both just sitting in the room and it’s just like he questions if he should be playing basketball at all anymore, and if it’s the end for him and I always told him, I’m more than 100 percent sure that he could do what he wanted -- and if getting back to playing basketball was what he wanted to do, then that was the only option for him.”

~~~

Between the final game of Canady’s freshman season -- a March 8, 2014 loss to Northeastern in the CAA playoffs -- and a game against Division III Kean University on Dec. 18, Canady had to wait a grand total of 1,016 days.

And it was even almost much, much longer than that.

“I had a setback...back in October, the first day of practice, which not many people know about,” he said. “It was a huge setback...there was a possibility that I wasn’t going to be able to play this year.

“I would say out of the three past situations, I would say this one by far was the hardest and this one definitely brought me to rock bottom and my breaking point. There was a possibility that it was all over, and I would say that was the point in time where I was like ‘alright, I may have to consider moving on.”

When Canady finally took to the court against Kean, and for the remainder of the 2016-17 season, it was with a heavy gray brace on his right knee.

A 3-pointer from straightaway four minutes into the second half against Northeastern on Jan. 2 was his first made field goal since that last game of his freshman season.

“It feels really good, honestly it’s a blessing,” he said. “It was a really long time, like two-and-a-half years, almost three. It feels really good to be back out there, man.”

Over 20 games this season, he’s averaging 1.3 points and 1.4 assists in 9.1 minutes per contest, playing as many as 23 minutes in a trip to Delaware last month.

First-year Drexel head coach Zach Spiker wasn’t around for Canady’s recovery process, but he’s well aware of what it means to have the senior back out on the court.

“When you look at Major, the sacrifices he’s made and the struggles he’s gone through, you can’t help but respect and admire him,” he said.

The rest of his teammates are thrilled to finally have him back and playing.

Junior guard Sammy Mojica had to wait five semesters of his college career to share the backcourt with someone who he’s shared an apartment with since arriving in University City.

“For the first time [in a game]...he delivered a pass to me and I knocked it down,” Mojica said. “And we’ve done that every summer for the last three years and he’s never been able to be out there with me and it just sunk in after that. Very happy for him, very proud of the way he’s progressing and playing through with us.”

~~~

The future is uncertain for Canady, at least from a basketball standpoint.

In Drexel’s Senior Day last week, he walked with Williams and fellow four-year senior Mohamed Bah, as well as Ford and John Moran, who joined the team this year as a graduate transfer from Richmond.

Canady still has at least one year of eligibility to play out, and is a strong candidate to be one of the few players who have received a sixth year

“Those are decisions that Major and I have spoken about during the season and we just said ‘hey, let’s just get through this year and we can talk about it after the fact,’” Spiker said after the game. “But I wanted him to have this experience no matter what.”

The Dragons (9-22, 3-15 CAA) take on James Madison on Friday in a CAA first-round playoff game. If they win, they won’t get much further than Saturday’s quarterfinals.

No matter where Canady winds up after this season, whether or where he’s playing, he sees basketball in his future.

“I definitely want to be a college coach one day,” he said. “That’s a dream of mine.”

First, though, he wants to put his degree to use. A business major, Canady wants to start a non-profit organization targeting underprivileged youth, something he saw quite a bit of growing up in Wilson, North Carolina.

He’s certainly had plenty of time to think about his business plan.

“I have a lot of younger friends and family that don’t have fathers in their lives, and I was lucky to grow up with a father and a mother in my life,” he said. “I just see how they struggle with that, how many look for a big brother, father figures, big sisters or whatever it may be, how they look for that in their life.

“I think that’s really where my passion lies, once I’m done playing basketball, is just helping out the youth.”