Shane Battier grew up in Birmingham, Michigan, the only child of a Black father and a white mother. By seventh grade at Detroit Country Day School, he was already 6-foot-4. A year later, 6-foot-7. He was also the only biracial kid at Country Day, a prestigious private school in the Detroit suburbs. Michael Lewis, who profiled Battier in a landmark 2009 New York Times Magazine piece, captured the tension: the inner-city AAU kids treated Battier as a suburban kid with a white game, while his suburban teammates treated him like a visitor from another planet.
Battier turned that in-between status into fuel. He led Country Day to three consecutive Class B state championships from 1995 to 1997, earned Michigan Mr. Basketball as a senior, and graduated with a 3.96 GPA while being named the school’s outstanding student. He was the Naismith Prep Player of the Year in 1997 — the first signal of the award he’d bookend four years later.
Dean Smith recruited him for North Carolina. Battier chose Duke instead, beginning one of the most decorated four-year careers in the program’s history.