Evan Turner was packing up late Wednesday night, getting ready to move to his new apartment.
The packing for Colorado and Serbia comes later. “How often do you get to represent your country and try to win a gold medal” Ohio State’s leading scorer and an All-Big Ten selection said by phone, the excitement about his in Belgrade, Serbia, in July obvious in his voice. With the invites limited to college players, the OSU junior knew this was something he would have missed if he had declared for the NBA Draft. “I just think life is short and you’ve got to take all the memories you can,” Turner said, “and this will be a great memory along with college and enjoying time with my teammates. This is a bonus memory to add to the collection.” A visit to campus last fall by former Buckeye Michael Redd, who won an Olympic gold medal in 2008, stuck with Turner and helped form his view on his first chance at international play. “He came to talk to us and he brought his gold medal and he said nothing means more than winning a gold medal for your country,” Turner said. “You just want to be part of that, and he talked about how proud he was.” This isn’t the Olympics. But it’s about the highest level a college player can hope for when it comes to representing his country. Turner first heard about other players earning invites for various summer opportunities and had to ask an OSU staff member at a charity event about his options, like a kid wondering if he’d been left out of a birthday party.
“I was thinking, cool, maybe I can get invited to something,” Turner said. “They said I was, and I had no clue. I just thought it was cool to travel to a different country. I can tell my kids I represented the USA overseas, you know.