Paul Shirley

Paul Shirley ( born December 23, 1977 in Redwood City, United States ) is an American professional basketball player and author.

High School and College

Shirley attended the Jefferson West High School near his birthplace, Redwood City, California. He then moved to the Iowa State University. Although he was not equipped with an athletic scholarship, he stood there in three of his four years at college in the starting five. His trainer was first Tim Floyd, who, however, after two years moved to the Chicago Bulls and was replaced by Larry Eustachy.

At Iowa State, he played together with the two future NBA players Jamaal Tinsley and Marcus Fizer. His biggest success at the University, he reached in his third year of college, where he reached the last eight with his team. In his senior year, he was named "Second Team Academic All-American " appointed to the.

Professional basketball player

Shirley has been selected in the NBA Draft in 2001 by any team, but was given the opportunity at the training camp of the Los Angeles Lakers take part. This, however, released him before the season starts again. Then Shirley began a tour of the basketball world that led him to Greece, Spain, Russia and China, as well as in the smaller U.S. leagues ABA and CBA. In 2002, he received a ten-day contract by the Atlanta Hawks, but was subsequently released. The same happened at the 2004 Chicago Bulls. Beginning of 2005 and under him the Phoenix Suns for the rest of the season including the playoffs.

Author

During his second year as a professional basketball player Shirley began a diary of his experiences to write. This was made known to a wider public, as Shirley during his time with the Phoenix Suns published two blog entries. Then he got his own blog on ESPN. The blog entries turned not only on the topic basketball, but also a variety of other topics.

Several renowned newspapers such as Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal reported on Shirley's blog entries. In 2007, Random House then took Shirley's book, " Can I keep my jersey? " Out, based on the previous texts and Shirley recounted the career of Shirley's in diary form.

Haiti

In 2010, Shirley published a blog post, which dealt with the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. In this he announced that he had donated a penny to Haiti and I will not do this. He justified this by saying that he does not expect because of the historical development of Haiti that they would use the money wisely. ESPN finished then working with Shirley.