While waiting in a hospital room with Quintez Cephus, Stratford Academy basketball coach Jamie Dickey received a call from a strange number with a 608 area code.
Cephus had just fractured his thumb while taking part in a basketball camp the summer before his senior year of high school, a devastating time to sustain an injury with the Peach Jam just around the corner. The AAU tournament would be crucial to Cephus’ basketball recruitment as he attempted to draw top-level offers.
The call Dickey received, however, came from University of Wisconsin wide receivers coach Ted Gilmore.
“I thought someone was prank calling me because I did not think Wisconsin would be calling about (Cephus) to play football, at all,” said Dickey, also the offensive coordinator for Stratford’s football team.