US IMPORT: Zachary "ZacK" Atkinson. PHOTO/Warren Buckland
IT SOUNDS like some cockamammy concoction but Zachary Atkinson says it's the truth even if it baffles him, too.
The IMS Payroll Hawks American import struggles to define his innate love of basketball but, oddly enough, he has yearned for hoop heaven as long as he can recall.
"It just came natural. I didn't even watch it on TV," says Atkinson, who is also known in the Bartercard NBL and international circles as "Zack".
"We didn't know nothing about basketball but we built a hoop and used a flat ball to shoot in the backyard," says the 29-year-old power forward/centre before the Liam Flynn-coached Hawks tip off in round three against James Blond Supercity Rangers (Auckland) at the Pettigrew-Green Arena, in Napier, at 7pm today.
He and his cousins were around 5 years old in Bishopville, a farming community of 3670 inhabitants in Lee County, South Carolina.
As "weird" as it may sound, the little boy even told his mother, Janice Atkinson, he was going to play basketball overseas.
"I don't know where that comes from but she told me two years ago I did as a child. It's the craziest thing ever but I wish she was here to vouch for that," he says of Janice, who works as a hospital cleaner.
Atkinson has a sneaky suspicion he had heard of but not seen a guy in the neighbourhood, Tyrone McCoy, who played professionally in Germany and still coaches there today, that may have sparked his interest.
While Atkinson played in a social competitive age-group team at 14 he only came under a regimented training programme six years later when he attended University of California, Irvine, where he graduated with a degree in sociology.
It didn't take the small-town farm boy long to adjust to California's beach buzz and the allure of the bright-light lifestyle.
"The biggest adjustment was the basketball world because I didn't know how hard you had to work - you had to live in the gym if you wanted to make it."
He used to play for fun in Bishopville but in the big city everything was for keeps.
"They worked me to death. I thought people were trying to kill me but I appreciate it now," says the softly spoken leftie, who thought he was being put through a ragging ritual to earn his stripes.
"They were yelling and making us run all crazy and I thought it was some kind of punishment."
Later he realised everything seemed much easier "because you've been drilled so hard".
Atkinson signed up with the Hawke's Bay franchise for his debut season soon after finishing his campaign with Moncton Miracles, who lost in the first stage of the NBL Canada playoffs.
Basketball has also earned him a living in Taiwan, Spain, Japan, Colombia, Czech Republic, Iraq and China.
"This [Napier] is a city compared with where I come from," says Atkinson with a smile, revealing a main street runs through Bishopville and the Lee County Courthouse is the only double-storey building that springs to mind.
He suspects his father, Videal Smith, is a merchant marine in Virginia but there hasn't been much interaction.
Atkinson has two younger brothers, Terrence and Cherubin, and a sister, Janetta, but none of them plays basketball.
"I had the craziest kind of life in the farm. Everything we ate and everything we did came from the back yard.
"So the fondest memories are going out to pick cotton with the family, pick peas or kill a hog.
"Sometimes we wouldn't even cook on a stove. We would just mix it in a pot and do it over a fire."
However, Atkinson nowadays only spends two months each year there so he feels like a visitor when he returns.
He attributes his 206cm (6' 9") frame to his 10 maternal uncles and nine paternal ones who average 190.5cm (6' 3") although not one of them is a basketballer.
His affinity with his hometown and its people is unparalleled even after living in far-flung parts of the world.
"It's a family-oriented place where everybody is related to everybody," he says, describing the city as "southern country cotton fields".
"There's nothing there but you'll love it because of the way you feel with family so it makes you feel at home.
"People there just love you for doing something with yourself."
Atkinson intends travelling and playing for as long as his body allows him to.
He finds the NBL here the most competitive of any other country he has visited.
"They may not be the best players in the world, they may not be the worst but they actually go after each other."
He never harboured NBA dreams in his country but on reflection he has some regrets.
"Two years ago I watched the draft and it hit me.
"I looked at some of the players - I'm not saying that they were terrible - and they were like freshman when I was at college and they got a shot at NBA.
"I didn't think they were NBA material but now they are in there."
Not having an agent until a few years ago, he often picked countries that didn't have reputable leagues.
He puts that down to a lack of his marketing nous as well as perhaps subconsciously wanting to see more of the world.
"Sometimes you Google a country and say, 'Oh, I must try this place out'.
"But once you get there you say, 'Ooh, I should have gone to the other place'," he says with a grin.