For Jabari Parker, More Important than Instant NBA Stardom is His (Mormon) Faith
Mitt Romney might soon have a rival to the title of the most famous Mormon in the world. Sports Illustrated’s Jeff Benedict profiles Jabari Parker, the 6-foot, 9-inch, Chicagoland basketball phenom, whom many have dubbed the future face of the NBA. Yet according to Benedict, what makes Parker special is that he seems genuinely unaffected by, even uninterested in, all the hype surrounding his professional baskeball prospects: “Humble isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind when describing a star athlete,” writes Benedict, a Mormon himself. “[B]ut it’s the one most often used by people who have been around Jabari: the high school janitor, the hall monitors, the cheerleaders, even hard-bitten sports reporters and Chicago’s famously combative mayor.”