Even though Georgetown is a school that is historically known for its great legacy of “Big Men” (Patrick, Alonzo and Dikembe), it’s kind of hard to forget the mid-nineties when there were two guards who were the most prominent Georgetown players. Those guards were Allen Iverson and his “backcourt mate” Victor Page. Allen Iverson, as we all know, ended up with a Hall of Fame career and was someone that helped change the basketball culture.
Victor Page was on his way to becoming a star NBA player but some bad decisions held him back. Photo chatsports.com.
Victor Page was just someone who could never seem to get it together after he left school early to pursue a career in the NBA. The story of Victor Page is really complicated and it’s one that many people cant relate to just because of the complicated and tough circumstances that he found himself in during his life. Page came to Georgetown from a deprived background. He lived with his grandmother in a high-crime, low-income neighborhood of Southeast Washington. Both of his parents died when he was a youngster which is probably where you can start to trace some of his early troubles (his dad died from complications of Pneumonia and his mom died from HIV). He was convicted of stealing a car as a juvenile, he attended two Washington-area public high schools in a four-year period but did not graduate, in his words he says “I just left, stopped going to school”. He was named the “All Met Boys Basketball Player of the Year” by the Washington Post during in 1994. He eventually had to attend two out of state High Schools in order to gain NCAA eligibility for him to accept a scholarship and play at Georgetown.
Victor Page teamed up with Allen Iverson to form the best backcourt in the country in 1995-96. Photo every month March.wordpress.com
Victor Page attended Georgetown for two years and in those two years he was pretty spectacular to say the least. He started for a team that went to the Elite 8 as a freshman when he teamed with Allen Iverson who left after that season to enter the NBA Draft (they loss to a Marcus Camby lead Umass team). The next season Victor Page was the focal point of the offense and he responded by averaging 22.7 points a game, earning a First Team All Big East Honors while leading a team that would prove to be Coach John Thompson’s final NCAA tournament team. Page declared for the NBA Draft after the season but as a 6 foot 3 shooting guard he was considered a “tweener” by NBA standards and he was left not drafted, he was invited to training camp with the Minnesota Timberwolves but he never made the team and that was as close as he would ever get to the NBA.
Page played 157 games for the Continental Basketball Association’s Sioux Falls Skyforce through 2002 and, once, chased an opponent around the court with a broom. Photo WashingtonTimes.com
The professional career of Victor Page did not go as planned and the super-stardom that he sought was never achieved. He played in the now shuttered CBA for four years with the Sioux Falls Sky where he was their all time leading scorer when he left the team in 2001 and they also retired his number to honor his accomplishments. His most memorable moment came when he tried to attack an opposing player with a broom during a game. He last played professional basketball during the 2001-2002.
In 2003, Page was back in his old neighborhood when he got into a scuffle with a childhood acquaintance. Page was shot in the right eye and ended up losing his eye entirely. Photo bigeastcoastbias.com.
Life after Basketball has been very unkind to Page. In 2003, he was shot in the right eye by a childhood acquaintance and ended up losing his eye entirely. It is my hope that at that point he has found peace within himself and is able to live out the rest of his days trouble free. He seemingly has an uphill battle ahead of him. This would be an awesome story if he is able to put things together and live a happy and productive life.
We are rooting for Page to get his life together and get his life back on the right course. Hopefully he can get things together and continue to contribute in some way to the sport of basketball. The one thing that will always be there regardless.
