As kids, Reggie Miller and his sister Cheryl had their ways of hustling for the extra buck and they celebrated those earnings in style. And they did all that with some smarts and some basketball skills.
Before the Indiana Pacers star made more than $100 million in the NBA, he and his sister played two-on-two games, tricked their opponents, and later celebrated with $10 happy meals at McDonald’s.
“Back in the fifth and sixth grades, we would go to the courts at John Adams Elementary or Hunt Park and hustle two-on-two games,” Miller said in his book, ‘I Love Being the Enemy’ (H/T NBC Sports). “We had it down to a science. It was the best hustle scam in Riverside, California.”
He added that he would head to the court for a game and explain that he was alone apart from Cheryl, who pretended that she knew nothing about the game. However, the story would unfold differently when they found opponents and began playing.
“We’d play for ten dollars; the first team to 10 by ones would win the money. Then we’d get down, 5-0, double the bet, and then take care of business. I’d look at Cheryl, she’d look at me, we’d wink, and then … 10-5 us, and on our way to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal.”
The hustle in the formative years helped as Miller made a name for himself at UCLA for being a dependent player. He was selected as the 11th overall pick in the 1987 NBA Draft by the Indiana Pacers and spent 18 seasons with them averaging 18.2 points and becoming one of the greatest clutch players of that era.
It’s unfortunate that a precocious talent like Miller doesn’t have an NBA title to his name, but his phenomenal performances for Indiana rightfully saw him inducted into the NBA’s Hall of Fame in 2012, and in what comes as splendid news for the family, Cheryl is a Hall of Famer as well.
Reggie Miller Explained How His Signature Trash Talking Came To Light
In his early years, Reggie Miller’s sister Cheryl would beat him on 1v1 in games, and that had the kids laughing at that future Pacers’ superstar.
“When you’re getting beat down by your sister, who’s the greatest women’s basketball player of all time, you learn to talk because I was getting beat down by her, and all my boys were laughing because I was getting beat down by her, but she was beating down them,” Miller said on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
“So I learned to talk there, and it kinda went to UCLA, and then it happened – I started talking as soon as I got into the League.”
And for all the trash talk he learned, we’re sure Miller and Cheryl would have enjoyed their share of happy meals in the past.
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