Stephen Curry Has Said He "Didn't Get a Scholarship Offer" from Virginia Tech, Seth Greenberg Says Otherwise

On the day Stephen Curry was named the 2014-2015 NBA MVP, an obvious discussion is happening all over the country: How did so many schools miss on him out of high school! No high-majors recruited him!

It’s not a new discussion – it’s been happening since Curry caught fire at Davidson and took the Wildcats to the Elite 8. Plenty of prospects fall through the cracks in the recruiting process, and some players improve later in their careers, but watching Curry the last few years, it’s still unfathomable that the only schools offering him a scholarship were low-majors.

Making matters more painful: Curry’s father and mother were both athletes at Virginia Tech, which is somewhat close to Charlotte, where Stephen Curry grew up. When Curry was previously asked about not being recruited by the school where his parents went, he said, “Things didn’t work out with their plan with how many scholarships [they had] … they offered me a walk-on position, and that wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“It sucked a little bit, for sure … it was a sore spot, for sure.”

ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg was the coach at Virginia Tech at the time, so through ESPN PR, we asked him for a comment about what went down with the recruitment of Curry, and here’s the statement we received:

"Congrats to Steph Curry on his much deserved MVP award – an amazing player… to clarify some confusion on his recruitment at VT. We scouted him in high school and recognized his potential, but were didn’t have an available scholarship for him to play his freshman season due to several early commitments. We did offer him a 4 year scholarship with plans for him to red shirt his first year at school and laid the groundwork for him to play on scholarship the next four years with the team. His decision to attend Davidson and be coached by Bob McKillop turned out to be a great choice for his career."

Curry’s recruitment went down a decade ago, so perhaps one or both sides don’t remember exactly what happened. Or maybe a “walk-on position” with the opportunity to lay “the groundwork” for a scholarship is just that – not a scholarship offer, but something in-between.

Show up, work your butt off, and when a scholarship opens up, we’ll give you one.

[Ed. Via Bill Voth, here are the three players that got scholarship offers from Virginia Tech instead of Curry.]

We should all be thankful Curry went to Davidson instead. He averaged 21.5 ppg as a freshman – the year he would have redshirted at Virginia Tech – and after two more incredible season, he was selected in the NBA draft lottery by the Warriors.

If Curry’s career continues to ascend, and the Warriors win the Title, this could end up being akin to the story of Michael Jordan getting cut from his high school basketball team. He wasn’t actually cut; he was just put on the JV team as a sophomore.