Basketball Player Fab Melo
Fabricio De Melo (Fab Melo) was born on June 20th, 1990. Originally from Belo Horizonte, the capital and largest city in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, he started playing soccer at an early age like most Brazilian boys, but when he reached 6 foot 8 inches in the ninth grade, his soccer coach sent him to the basketball coach of the school and at 14 he started playing basketball, eventually landing a spot on Brazil’s 17-and-under youth national team. Now standing 7 feet tall and weighing in at 265 pounds it was a good choice for Fab Melo.
Though he was widely successful in Brazil, he knew he had to take his game to the next level, and that meant moving to the United States. He had some family in southern Florida so in July of 2009 he moved to Weston, right before his junior year of high school. Weston is located about 20 miles from Fort Lauderdale, right on the eastern edges of the everglades. He attended The Sagemont School, a well-respected college preparatory school with a great reputation for accommodating international students, and played for their school basketball team the Lions.
Adam Ross, the coach of the Lions, was blown away by his skill at an open practice but at first had trouble remembering Fabricio’s name. After the star center showed his undeniable skill, his coach came up with a solution: shorten the name to Fab. Due to his international status and the transfer regulations of the Florida High School Athletic Association, he wasn’t allowed to play basketball in his junior year, so he sat out the season and worked out on his own, perfecting his technique. When it came time for his senior year Fab Melo soon became a sensation at basketball practices and after competing with the Florida Rams at the King James Classic in Akron, Ohio, Ross saw 30 or so head coaches come in, including John Calipari of Kentucky, Jim Calhoun of UConn, Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, Billy Donovan of Florida and Leonard Hamilton of Florida State, all to watch him play. In his senior season at the Sagemont School he averaged 15 points, 11.3 rebounds, and 3.3 blocks per game.
The coaches started to recruit and woo Fab Melo over the course of the months leading up to his graduation and when he accepted his diploma in June of 2010 he had made up his mind to sign with Syracuse. Melo was bowled over by Syracuse’s facilities and developed a tight bond with Jim Boeheim, the coach of the Orange, so when the time came to hear the offer, he accepted the full scholarship much to his family’s delight back in Brazil. After arriving in the upstate New York town without a stitch of winter clothing, which receives an average of 121.2 inches of snow each year due to the lake effect from nearby Lake Ontario, Fab Melo saw his first snowfall there and had to adjust quickly to the differences in climate from his previous sunny Florida and Belo Horizonte homes.
When he started out with the Orange, Fab Melo was averaging about 2.0 points and 1.8 rebounds per game but he powered through it and is now averaging 7.2 points and 5.7 rebounds per game. Melo’s hard work is tempered with a prankster attitude and a keen ability to not take things too seriously. His coach is not an easy man to please and his presence on the team has been a huge challenge to Boeheim and his staff, possibly the largest individual challenge in 35 years of coaching. His teammates say he is constantly cracking jokes and trying to make everyone laugh. Despite his great work ethic life hasn’t been easy for Fab Melo, as learning English as a second language has made attending a top-ranking university academically difficult. His academic struggles have caused him to miss games with the Orange, though he continues to practice through it all.
Throughout his time playing basketball Fab Melo has had many personal goals. Besides playing one day in the NBA, when he learned that Brazil would be hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro he was ecstatic and has started planning an ultimate homecoming as a member of Brazil’s Olympic basketball team.
