Khimki signee Anthony Gill likes having a good time, almost as much as he loves playing basketball. Once, he told a reporter he was an amateur magician, even though he didn’t know a single trick. The reporter was on the verge of publishing the story before Gill admitted he’d made the whole thing up. Another time, he duped people into believing he had a Siamese cat with two heads. In high school, he had friends convinced he was a national ping-pong champion.
People who know Gill say no one’s safe from his tricks. In college, Gill liked to sneak into his teammates’ rooms at night and pour water on them. He even found a way to pick one of his teammate’s doors, leaving him defenseless.
Anthony’s been known to coat doorknobs with vaseline and stretch clear tape across doorways, tripping up unsuspecting teammates. Once, after a teammate broke his nose, Gill joked he looked “ugly as usual.”
Once the VTB United League season starts, expect to see him crashing interviews and making faces behind teammates’ backs. The former Virginia star just likes to have fun.
“I like to keep the guys loose,” Gill jokes. “I want them to have a little fun. Sometimes basketball can get overwhelming and we need to realize it’s not the only thing in the world.”
Those aren’t empty words. Gill learned to smile from birth. Literally.
Anthony Gill was born with facial paralysis. According to his dad, when Gill’s mother was in labor, the doctor used forceps to pull him from the womb, damaging the nerves on one side of his face. It took months for the damage to fade and the muscles on his face to function properly.
Years later, Gill says you have to accept and overcome what life throws at you. We’re always being tested, he believes. It’s how we respond that matters.
There were other challenges. When he was 12, his parents got a divorce. Gill’s life had been built around his parents and he couldn’t believe what was happening when they separated. He ended up moving to Charlotte with his dad, but constantly visited his mom, despite the 90-minute drive. Though his heart was torn between his two parents, Gill knew that everything he was going through would make him a better man.
Gill believes that. When it comes to overcoming challenges, there aren’t many that have had to go through as much as him. The summer before his senior year of high school, his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. When he found out, Gill immediately jumped on a plane so he could be with his mom that same day. During chemo, Gill shaved her head himself, telling her “Mom, I promise it’s going to grow back.”
At one point, it looked like the cancer was gone, but the disease came back during his freshman year of college and Gill’s mom had to be hospitalized at one point due to an infection.
With all this going on, Gill got through the season, starting in 26 of 31 games, while serving as incredible example for everyone: teammates, coaches, and fans included.
“He battles through adversity better than a lot of men that I know,” says former teammate Justin Anderson. “Honestly, you could not ask for a better teammate.”
Driving home from a game one night, he noticed an overweight man struggling to walk up a hill. Gill stopped and gave him a lift, not knowing that anyone was watching his good deed.
“He thinks more about others, than himself,” says his mom, who’s been cancer-free for several years now. “He’s grown into a wonderful man and I love him the way he is. When someone needs him, you can always depend on him. He’s very, very kind. I can’t find words to describe how happy I am to have a son like him. I would have never dreamed it.”
Jenna Jamil, now Jenna Gill, is also happy about how he turned out. The two met in high school in Charlotte. Jenna’s sister actually had a crush on Anthony, and she wanted to find out who he was, but the two of them ended up falling in love.
Jenna and Anthony remember their first Facebook messages, but disagree on what happened on the first date. Jenna says they went to a French restaurant, then a movie. But Anthony says it was an Italian place and that Jenna’s mom came along too.
Gill has a reputation for making stuff up, but it’s true family has always been a huge part of the relationship. He even waited six months to propose so that all of the relatives could be there for the big moment.
“We were riding horses in the Dominican Republic,” Jenna recalls. “I’m not a great rider, so I was pretty stressed out. I was finally getting comfortable, when he asked me to come down and take a picture. I didn’t want to, but my sister convinced me it would be a beautiful picture. That’s when he proposed.”
Who knows what actually happened to the picture, but Anthony and Jenna Gill make a wonderful young couple. The two waited until after the NCAA tournament–Virginia reached the Elite Eight–to get married in Charlotte. Anthony wore a pair of new white Air Jordan’s at the ceremony, while Jenna had on Nike Roshe. Even though you couldn’t see them beneath the dress, the two are obsessed with shoes, so it was a big deal.
Anthony Gill is 24 and one of his eyebrows arches a little higher than the other. He says it’s because of the facial paralysis, but you never know when’s he joking or being serious. Russian reporters will need to be careful with the playful American, otherwise they might fall for stories about his childhood in Cambodia and the seven pairs of twins he and his wife are raising. But his prankster approach keeps things interesting, especially since we know he’s got such a kind heart. Who knows, maybe there really is something magic about this guy.
