All young boys grow up idolizing their father. University of South Alabama men's basketball senior Herb McGee was no different.

"I looked at him like Superman," he said about Herbert McGee Sr.

Born and raised in Kenner, La., Herb was one of four children to Coretta Jackson, and grew up in rough neighborhoods in Susan Park and Lincoln Manor. Despite the rivalry between the two areas, he avoided problems thanks to having ties to both.

Herb lived with his parents and siblings until around the age of 8 when Coretta and Herbert Sr. got divorced. Herb wasn't happy about his parents separating, as you would expect, but understood that his mother did what she had to do.

"I was pretty young (when they divorced). I didn't read into it. I knew what was going on, but it didn't bother me too much because I still got to see my dad."

Herb was involved in a number of sports with both Susan Park and Lincoln Manor, and his mother remarried and had a second son in 2003.

Everything changed in May 2010.

In a life marked by several stints in jail, Herbert Sr. looked like he was starting to get everything right. He talked about how he was reading his Bible and getting close with the Lord. While Herb was in Baton Rouge with his AAU team getting ready for a championship game, the two spoke on the phone. Herbert Sr. explained that he wouldn't be able to make it because he would be spending the day painting his mother's house.

Herb was disappointed, but understood. After the game – a loss – Herbert Sr. talked to Herb's younger sister Tasheia and said "Tell (Herb) I love him and take care of him."

That night, Herb spent the night at his coach's house while his dad slept at a friend's place. In a foreboding turn of events, Herb had a dream someone was killed. He woke up in the middle of the night and saw he had a missed call from his mother, but ignored it and decided he would call her back in the morning.

A few hours later, his AAU coach, Gabe Corchiani, woke Herb up and told him he had to go see his mother. When Herb asked why, Corchiani told him his father had been killed.

Herb says he'll never know the full story about the night his father was killed. What he does know is that while his father was sleeping, a man entered the house in the middle of the night, found Herbert Sr. on the couch and stabbed him to death.

He was 38 years old.

"He was a great guy. We butted heads, but at the end of the day, I knew he loved me. As a father, he was a great guy. I'm not going to paint a bad picture of my father, although there was stuff that he'd done that I wouldn't agree with."

As hard as it would be for anyone to lose their father at such a young age, unfortunately it wasn't the first time as three years earlier he had suffered another death in the family.

Herb grew up with two sisters: Tasheia and Ireonne Marie Wright, his half-sister that was six years older. Routinely, Herb said, the two older siblings would gang up on Tasheia and get her in trouble.

After Hurricane Katrina, Herb's family relocated to Reserve, La., a 30 to 45-minute drive from Riverside Academy. Every morning before school, they would get up at 5 a.m., get ready and drive to school. On the way, the kids would catch up on some much-needed sleep in the car. They would go to McDonald's, where his mother worked, then head to the bus stop.

When they arrived at McDonald's, Coretta told Ireonne that she had a doctor's appointment, but Ireonne, for some reason, said that she wasn't going to make it. She got back in the car and went to sleep.

She never woke up.

They drove back to McDonald's and called for an ambulance. Despite the fact that Ochsner Hospital was only five minutes away, Herb said it took almost 45. They tried to revive her to no avail. Ireonne was pronounced dead at the scene.

She was 16 years old.

Ireonne suffered from cardiomyopathy, a disease that causes the heart to abnormally enlarge.

By the age of 12, Herb had lost both his father and his sister. Shortly thereafter, his mother remarried and had another son. At first, the adjustment to having a stepfather was rough, but they have grown close since.

"Early on, it was rocky with me and my stepfather because I always had the mindset of, this is my father, you're not my father. I respect you as a man, but you're not my father. But now I would call him my father. As I grew up and I matured, I built a relationship with him, and have seen him be there for my mother and my brother. He took care of us when we were younger. I respect him even more now."

The common bond between the two men was Coretta. Now she had to play dual roles while raising three children and working low-income jobs. Herb sought mentorship from local church groups, but everything came back to his mother.

"I would say she's the ultimate hero in this whole thing. She played the mother and the father. I know people say your mother can't be your father, but she was my father. Although I couldn't relate to her about manly things, she was still there for me."

The deaths in the family also brought him closer to Tasheia.

"We just began to jell. We got to hang out more. We were with each other 24/7 basically. Every night we were hanging out, watching something or playing a game – anything. We talked about a lot of things and always were there for each other. If I need anything, I just call her and she'll be there for me, with no hesitation."

Herb persevered and was a two-sport star at Riverside. He led the basketball team to three straight state titles as a point guard and quarterbacked the football team to a state championship game appearance. In all, he played in six state title games in his career.

He was recruited by LSU, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Cincinnati, Louisiana and ULM in football, and got looks from Tulane and LSU, among others, in basketball.

With no father to lean on during the recruiting process, he had to do it largely on his own, but his family played a major role in the decision.

"I thought regardless of the decision I made, he would be proud just because I made it out of the area where not many guys make it out from. I think that would be a proud moment for him. I just wanted to go somewhere where my mom could see me play, where it was not that far. I think that was a big thing for me – my mother and my family being able to see me play."

He eventually chose South Alabama thanks to what Herb describes as the "relentless" recruiting by former assistant coach Brock Morris.

"It was something about Coach Brock. He kept coming back. He made sure that I knew they wanted me. That was the biggest thing – they kept coming back. They were relentless. That's what swayed me.

"I chose (South Alabama) for school. That's what I wanted to do. I knew one day, whether it would have been football or basketball, the ball is going to drop – you can't play it your whole life. Those guys only play for so long. Hopefully they invested in something to where they don't run out of money, but you see a lot of athletes back in the day that had to file for bankruptcy or losing money. School was the most important thing – education – because whether I decide to play professionally overseas or something of that nature, I'll always have school to fall back on."

Herb has made the most of his time at South Alabama. Not only has he excelled on the court, currently ranking 11th in South Alabama history in career 3-pointers and posting a personal-best 10.0 points per game last season, in July he was named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches' Honors Court, comprised of juniors and seniors with at least a 3.2 GPA, and in 2018 was voted to the Sun Belt Ambassador Program. The only men's basketball representative in the program, Herb attended the league's spring meetings that May.

As Herb enters his senior season, he is not only focused on helping the Jaguars win their first conference title in over 10 years, but he's also weighing his postgraduate options that include becoming a graduate assistant on the basketball team, play professionally overseas or even make a return to football.

One possible path would be one that's been in his mind since coming to South Alabama: medical school with the goal of becoming a pediatrician.

"Being a pediatrician was not a dream of mine – being an NBA player was the only dream I had. After my sister passed away, I knew her dream was to be a pediatrician. I always felt like I could accomplish that for her so she could live through me. I want to make her dream come true."

That's a choice any father would be proud of.

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/WeAreSouth_JAGS. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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