Soon, former assistant Josh Posterino called, interrupting a young man’s freshman year of classes and part-time work at Barnes & Noble, with a question: Can you try out? The summer after Gregory was hired by Tech, the Jackets were going to be short of players and he’d heard through the grapevine of Peek. He had a fine time at former Tech head coach Paul Hewitt’s summer camp the summer before his senior year of high school, and word got around. Peek was a talented player at Mays, but quite lightly recruited. The only player on the roster who has been here for all four of head coach Brian Gregory’s seasons didn’t plan to be here at all. Since I didn’t know I was going to play college basketball, that’s something I didn’t aspire to do.” The first time I went to Duke, that was something I had only seen on TV. “My experience has come with the ability to travel, be with the team, and go places I’d never been. But I know they’ll be in my life, and I’m going to be in theirs. It’s been a great experience, and in developing such close relationships with players and coaches, I can see it coming to a close. Peek says the same about his time at Tech. The 6-foot-4, 188-pounder from Mays High can dunk, but that one – in the heat of practice – rated highly. “I’ve always loved to dunk, but that happened for the first time.” “A couple weeks ago, I tip-dunked in practice,” he said with a grin. With just a single bucket to show for all of his hours of work, that coming last year, Peek may have peaked about 10 days ago – in practice.Īsked about career highlights, he’ll mention that layup last season, yet spend more time talking about a recent moment in practice. He’s relishing his time, however, and not just the sparse few game minutes. Peek has been with the Jackets all along, playing two minutes this season in one game, and has played 25 minutes in 13 games in four years at Tech. He’s played in all 28 games this season, and started 11. Sampson was highly recruited out of high school and played a lot in three seasons at East Carolina before transferring to Tech. Tech’s only two seniors (not counting transfer graduate student Demarco Cox), are on consecutive pages in the media guide, yet Peek and Robert Sampson have traveled vastly different paths to this point. The senior walk-on didn’t even plan to be in Clemson Saturday, after all, let alone a player for the Yellow Jackets. With just a handful of games left in his quiet hoops career, Aaron Peek can say whether he plays in any of Georgia Tech’s final few games or not that he’s done a pretty good job ticking through his basketball bucket list.
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