Here's Proof That Prince Was a Baller Back in Junior High

Prince played basketball in junior high.

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If you're a fan of Princeor Dave Chappelle—then you're probably familiar with Prince's background as a basketball player. He's talked about his love for the sport in the past and revealed that he used to play when he was a kid. And earlier this afternoon, Minnesota Star Tribune reporter Libor Jany proved that by liberating two really interesting pieces of Prince-related information from the Star Tribune archives.

First up was an old article about Prince playing basketball at Bryant Junior High School and Central High School. The article was written well after Prince had made it big in music. But it referenced his time on the Bryant and Central basketball teams and featured his former coach Richard Robinson referring to Prince as "an excellent player." He wasn't a starter for Central—Robinson says Prince was unhappy about it and "expressed that many, many times"—but he was apparently a great ball handler and shooter, despite his height:

1.

After tweeting that out, Jany also shared an old shot of Prince in his Bryant uniform. It's pretty easy to see why Prince didn't get a ton of burn running with that team (did anyone check No. 31's birth certificate back then?!) but he was definitely on the squad:

2.

Kudos to Jany for finding these. It gave us a good reason to dust this off:

3.

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[via @StribJany]

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