Josh Warren: From the bench to the big time

For Josh Warren, every day at Fishburne Military School is a “blessing.”

“Being at Fishburne is truly a blessing,” said Warren, a 6’7″, 225-pound postgrad basketball player from Marietta, Ga., who has already made a verbal commitment to Tennessee-Chattanooga for the class of 2012 and will make that commitment formal when he signs his letter of intent with the Division 1 Mocs next week.

Warren somehow slipped through the cracks not just on the recruiting trail, but in basketball in general. He rode the pines his entire high-school career before catching the attention of Huckaby in a camp last spring.

“We’re lucky he didn’t play much in high school. There’s no way this kid with this talent ends up here at Fishburne in this program if that doesn’t happen,” said Huckaby, calling Warren the most explosive player on his team.

Warren, for his part, was all smiles at media day last week.

“Being on the court with these guys,” he said, nodding back to the court, where his teammates were in the midst of warmups, “is truly a blessing. I can’t wait until the season starts. It’s going to be something special.”

For his mother, Ida Susan Collins, the Fishburne experience has been something special for her son even before the first tip-off of the 2011-2012 basketball season.

“My prayer was that he would get closer with God, and that he could gain maturity with the exposure here, and that he would learn that it’s OK to be smart and great, and also to see him develop into the young man that he wants to be,” Collins said.

Warren aspires to play basketball professionally and then follow Huckaby into coaching.

First things first, though.

“My goals, first of all, are to work hard, get my credit hours for college, second of all, become a better player, become as great as I can while I’m here,” Warren said.