30 years since NBA draft, faith rerouted Steve Hamer's path back to Tennessee

Steve Hamer always believed God had a plan for his life. Like a lot of young believers, he had no idea how many times that plan would look nothing like the one he’d drawn up for himself.

He was sitting in his living room on June 26, 1996, his mother, Gracie, on one side and his father, Robert, on the other, when the Boston Celtics selected him with 38th overall in the second round of the NBA draft.

When the moment finally came, he cried hard enough that it caught everyone in the room off guard, himself included. One of his brothers rushed over and threw an arm around him, confused why he was crying. Hamer could barely get the words out.

“I did it,” he said. “I beat the odds. I had a lot of naysayers in my life that told me I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t smart enough, I didn’t look the part, I wasn’t athletic … and I did it. I did it.”

If you asked the 7-foot Hamer then, he would have told you it was the beginning of a long NBA career, with coaching to follow once he was done playing. But his time in the NBA lasted one season and just 35 games.

What came after, however, he now calls a “wonderful life.”

The redirection started before he ever thought of playing basketball. Hamer wanted to play baseball growing up in Grand Junction, Tennessee, population around 330. Then he grew to 6-5 in sixth grade and suddenly basketball became the obvious choice.

Hamer went on to lead Middleton to the 1992 Tennessee Class A state championship, earning the title of that season’s Mr. Basketball in the state.

Then, it happened again during the recruiting process. All signs pointed for Hamer to pick Louisville, and had already taken his visit. A snowstorm wiped out his Arkansas visit, and instead sent him to Knoxville and Tennessee coach Wade Houston, something his parents called “a sign from God.”

On his Tennessee visit, he ran into his basketball hero, Louisville star player Pervis Ellison, who was there to deliver a surprising message. Ellison told him to go to Tennessee.

“You can go to Louisville and be one of many,” Hamer remembered him saying. “Or you can come to Tennessee and be one of one.”

He committed on the spot.

After his senior season, Hamer was a two-time All-SEC center, averaging 18.2 points and 9.4 rebounds per game and was off to the NBA.

A week before his rookie season ended, he sat in a hotel lobby with the Celtics general manager Jan Volk discussing a contract extension. He told his family it was going to be great.

Thirty days later, he picked up a copy of the Knoxville News Sentinel at Food City and under transactions in the sports section he saw it: the Boston Celtics waive Steve Hamer.

No call. No explanation. Just his name in the paper.

“I saw myself through the lens in which everyone else saw me,” Hamer said. “That wasn’t Steve Hamer the person. It was Steve Hamer the basketball player. That’s how I found myself identifying, too.”

A torn meniscus in his right knee was the injury that ended it. A doctor had warned him during his senior year at UT that his knees only had so much basketball left in them. He didn’t believe it.

“God had other plans,” Hamer said. “It wasn’t until many years later that I understood. That’s not why I’m here on this earth.”

He leans on a line now: “There’s no growth in the comfort zone, only in the growth zone.” A long, comfortable career would have kept him from finding out what else life had to offer.

What life had to offer, it turned out, included his wife, Cher.

Not long after his NBA career ended, Hamer was at dinner with friends at O’Charley’s on the Strip. He got up for the restroom, opened the door from the patio, and there she was.

“A God moment,” he called it.

That was May 9, 1999, a date Hamer has never forgotten because it’s also Cher’s birthday.

They married and have spent more than 20 years raising their three children: Isabella, a UT graduate who’s fresh off a master’s degree from Lipscomb; Malachi, graduating from Tennessee in 2027; and Penelope, an eighth grader.

Hamer’s voice catches when he talks about them.

“They are my why,” he said. “They are the reason I do everything I do every day.”

In the end, Hamer accomplished most of his life goals, just not the way he envisioned.

“I look back at that jersey and sometimes I don’t recognize that person,” Hamer said, pointing to his Celtics jersey hanging in his office. “I’ve lived more of my life without playing the game of basketball than I did playing.”

Hamer earned his degree from Tennessee in 2020 with a bachelor degree in journalism. Now at 52, he’s a color analyst for Vol Network men’s basketball games and works for UT as director of letterwinner relations, helping former athletes stay connected after their eligibility runs out.

Former Tennessee basketball star Dalton Knecht, the 2024 SEC Player of the Year and entering his third season in the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers, recently stopped by his office.

“For him to grab me and give me a big hug, that means everything,” Hamer said. “That means I’m doing my job.”

Thirty years later, Hamer says he wouldn’t trade a single detour for his original plans.

“The two things I’ve always wanted to do since I was young,” he said. “We play basketball at the highest level, and sit courtside and be a commentator. I thought that was the coolest thing on earth. You get to sit there and talk about basketball and get paid for it, it’s like a paid vacation. God allowed me to do both of those things.”

When asked what he’d tell the 22-year-old who heard his name called on draft night, certain of his future, Hamer didn’t hesitate.

“Be courageous,” he said. “Everything’s gonna be OK. You see yourself as a basketball player right now, but there’s so much more inside of you. Take a leap of faith.”

Xavier Burton is a sports intern for Knox News. Email: Xavier.burton@knoxnews.com

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: 30 years since Steve Hamer, NBA draft, faith rerouted his life to Tennessee