The down low on SKCs big man

PABLO — There wasn’t too much to do for SKC center, Sonny Eppinette, growing up in Hominy, Okla.

So he played basketball. And when one game was done it was time for another. He first went on to play tournament ball in the Northwest and college ball in Oklahoma. Now, at the age of 25, playing his first year of college ball at SKC after a four-year hiatus, Sonny still has it.

Sonny averages 17 points and seven rebounds per game for the Bison, and is in the process of finishing his education in Native American Studies.

His persistence in life and sport started with his older brother, Nathan, Sonny said.

“Me and my brother always had a hoop and we always played,” Sonny said. “He taught me pretty much everything I know.”

And Nathan didn’t give Sonny anything. He made him earn the ball as he would have to earn everything in life.

“He never took it easy on me,” Sonny said of his older brother. “He never let me win at any time.”

By high school ball, Sonny had run a gauntlet of adversity.

Sonny grew up without a father, and felt the sting of racial discrimination on and off the court. Nathan said Sonny also had to fight through his size. Rather than a typical basketball build, Sonny had the body of a NFL linebacker.

Nathan said Sonny was sometimes overlooked by coaches early on. 

“Basically he was the one that was left out because of his size. They didn’t think he could play at the level and I kept pushing him,” Nathan said.

Nights the brothers spent balling until midnight when everyone else was sleeping tuned the boys into better ball players, and Nathan said he remembered the conversations.

One in particular stood out, Nathan said, a pivotal talk when Sonny was a freshman and Nathan a junior in high school. It was when Nathan told his little brother why life had been hard and what it was going to take to make it.

“I wanted to understand that the world’s not what it seems, that the world’s a lot harder than it seems. It’s harder for some than others and I told him to stay strong no matter what,” Nathan said. “He’s always been strong ever since I told him that,” Sonny said.

Sonny’s strength took him to Bacone College in Muskogee, Okla., where he played NAIA ball with his brother.

After two years at the school, Sonny took a break from school to raise his family. Four years he played only tournament ball and one day at a competition in he mean J.R. Camel, brother of current SKC men’s head coach Zach Camel.

“He told me if I was ever serious again about playing at the college level, I should come play with SKC,” Sonny said.

It was time to decide. Sonny had to figure out what was best for the family he was raising, and he looked to the person who had raised him.

“I have two kids and it seemed like I wasn’t really going anywhere and it was coming down to that I didn’t know what I was going to do that year.

I talked with my mom and we prayed a lot and it came down to one day,”

Sonny said.

On that day Sonny called SKC and arranged a tryout for his younger brother Jonathan Allen and himself. They both made the team and Sonny is back on the college scene.

Playing with the Bison has been a huge success, Sonny said, putting his life in his own hands in the way only time in a university can.

“It’s a good feeling,” Sonny said. “God blessed me to take this path and play and so far so good. I just need to keep taking care of business on the court and in the class room, get a good job and take care of my kids.”

His older brother is happy to see him where he’s at, still in regular touch by phone from his home in Tucson, Ariz., where the brothers had that fateful heart-to-heart in high school.

“I’ve been hearing a lot of good things and I’ve very happy that he’s doing that,” Nathan said. “He’s doing really good up there in basketball and he’s in my prayers all the time for that.”

Now Sonny will get his first taste of the AIHEC tournament with his new team, and on his new home court no less.

It starts today at the SKC gym in Pablo.