It was cold outside and lonely inside the gym. As Peyton Watson got settled in Michigan last November, he was encountering new hurdles in every environment.
Watson was used to being the young pup on his basketball teams. The rookie who gets messed with sometimes but has fun with it, because his default setting is lighthearted and laughing. In high school, he was the only freshman on varsity. After one of his team’s 6:30 a.m. conditioning workouts in Los Angeles, he was checking his phone, waiting to go to his first class of the day. An older teammate snuck up behind him and smacked his neck, giving him a scare.