Isaiah Lamb Headed Home—Because Now He Has a Home

  • 5 months ago
Six years out, our writer reconnects with an SI cover man who lent his face to the plight of the homeless athlete. We're happy to report: His story is a light in the darkness. And it starts halfway around the globe.

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Transcript
00:00Isaiah Lam went from homeless to finding a home away from home playing professional basketball
00:09in Armenia before play was stopped.
00:12For more on his story, I'm joined by our senior writer, Jon Wertheim, for today's Daily Cover.
00:17Jon, why is his story so uplifting and positive to you?
00:22Well, six years ago in October of 2014, Isaiah Lam was on the cover of Sports Illustrated
00:27for a long investigative piece we did on homeless athletes, on athletes, most of them in high
00:32school and college, who didn't have a fixed residence at night.
00:37And we hear a lot of times after the fact about professional athletes.
00:39Kevin Durant is one example among many talking about their homelessness as a kid.
00:43But what's it like when you actually go through it?
00:45And so we met with Isaiah, who spent a lot of his senior year of high school in Maryland
00:50living out of a car.
00:52And he overcame that.
00:54He got a college scholarship.
00:56He played basketball at Marist University.
00:58And we caught up with him where he's been playing basketball overseas.
01:01He's a wonderful guy.
01:04It was great to reconnect with him.
01:06And this is a story that has a happy ending.
01:08Yeah, you know, it's interesting that the phrase, this puts everything in perspective
01:12has been used a lot.
01:14But with the pandemic and his attitude, it really does put some things in perspective.
01:20I think I wrote in the piece that what Steph Curry is to outside shooting, Isaiah Lam is
01:24to optimism.
01:25Apart from homelessness, he's had some injury issues.
01:28And this was a highly touted recruit who had a knee injury his senior year.
01:32And a lot of schools that had been recruiting him, D1 schools, backed away.
01:36Credit to Marist for sticking with him.
01:39But he's got a great head on his shoulders again.
01:41Now he has graduated from college.
01:44He's playing professionally.
01:45He has a business he started called Low Lamb.
01:47He said, when I was a kid, I didn't have money to go to a health club, but I had to stay
01:51in shape.
01:52And I learned a lot of exercises using my body weight.
01:54So his company is based on that.
01:57And again, for all the stories you cover that don't always take happy turns, this is one
02:02that I've probably never had more pleasure in doing a catching up with.
02:06And the kid's only in his mid-20s.
02:07I'm really eager to see what comes after this.