'Manchild: The Schea Cotton Story': Tale of a high school prodigy touted to be the 'LeBron before LeBron'
Basketball documentaries have been doing the rounds for the last few months of 2020, a year that most sports fans want to forget. In an attempt to make it a year of unforgettable sports content, networks and streaming platforms have dished out some scintillating basketball docu-series to rid fans of their boredom. TNT started it with 'Shaq Life', ESPN followed it up with 'The Last Dance' followed by Showtimes' 'Basketball County: In the Water' and now 'Manchild: The Schea Cotton Story' set to release on VoD.
'Manchild: The Schea Cotton Story' follows the story of a man famously dubbed by NBA legend Kevin Garnett as the "LeBron before LeBron". Now, LeBron James is one of the greatest of the game, but Cotton, unfortunately, isn't. According to a Los Angeles Times 1991 story on Cotton, he was dubbed as a "muscular 6 feet and 180 pounds, looks as if he is chiseled in granite". It continued: "His well-defined body and neatly shaven head give him a Jordan-like look that a child could mistake for the real thing." Cotton was 12 at the time this article was written.
In the '90s, Cotton was well on his way to becoming one of the finest players NBA would have seen. Then came a story on Sports Illustrated about Cotton. Mashable called him a superstar who received free gear from Nike. His fanbase grew by the game and news of his on-court exploits and dominance spread like wildfire. Except, the greatness and the rise to be the best never happened. After that SI profile, fans hoped he's be fast-tracked to the NBA.
However, Cotton decided he would play for a college at his home school, UCLA. Then the NCAA declared Cotton academically ineligible only for him to move base to North Carolina where he was deemed ineligible again. This was followed by a shift to an East Coast prep school and then Long Beach City College. In 1999, Cotton finally settled down, kickstarting his college run at Alabama. With his eyes set on the NBA Draft 2020, he withdrew from school after the season but wasn't picked.
At Long Beach, Cotton averaged 25.8 and at Alabama, in 27 games for the Crimson Tide, Cotton, a shooting guard, slammed an average 15.5 points with a highest of 34 against Mississippi State, and 4.5 rebounds per game. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Cotton said he was a forgotten person. "You know, I was the guy before everybody else. They forgot about me. I just want to tell my story to the world. I did everything I was supposed to do, and it just wasn't in the cards for me, and when you accept that, you move forward and grow."
According to the Mashable piece, Cotton played overseas with stints in France, China, and the Dominican Republican and eventually called time on his career. Cotton, 36, is currently serving as a coach and mentor in Los Angeles for Millikan High School and Belmont Shore in AAU. "What I am doing today is more special than what I did when I played and I think I did a lot in a short time when I played," Cotton told the Boston Globe. "My career was cut short because of stuff out of my control and obviously having an injury and going from being super hot to cold and trying to warm back up again. It just seemed like I was before my time. It’s not for everybody, and God wanted me to take a different route. I had a good ride but what I’m doing is paying it forward and helping everybody else."
You can watch the trailer of 'Manchild: The Schea Cotton Story' here.
'Manchild: The Schea Cotton Story' releases June 23 on VoD.