Written by Mike Perry

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During the lean years prior to the basketball renaissance at Kent State, shooting guard Nate Reinking was pretty much all Golden Flashes fans had to cheer about night after night.

The 6-foot product of Galion High School was one of the top perimeter shooters in Kent history, and with 1,456 career points ended up seventh on the all-time KSU scoring list.

Kent hovered around the .500 mark during Reinking’s four seasons at the school, and he was selected to the Honorable Mention All-MAC team in 1994 and to the All-MAC Second Team in 1996. When his playing days were over at Kent, following the 1996 season, Reinking went to a few camps and NBA try-outs, but he could not hook on with an NBA team.

So Reinking did what many other Division I college players with no prospects to play in the States do – he headed to Europe.

He first signed with the Leicester Riders of the British Basketball League and averaged 18.3 points per game in two seasons there. He then moved on to the Derby Storm for a year, scoring 17.9 ppg, before finding a home with the Sheffield Sharks in 1999.

Reinking starred in his six seasons for the Sharks before moving on to the Euphony Bree and Dexia Mons-Hainaut of the Belgain League for six seasons.

He ended up coming back to the British Basketball League, signing with the Mersey Tigers in 2008. Reinking could have retired, but he felt he had unfinished business. Since he had played in Great Britain for so long he qualified to play for the National Team, and he has Olympic aspirations. Reinking played for the Great Britain National Team in Eurobasket 2009 and is hoping to be selected for the 2012 Olympic Team. So now, at 37, he is the oldest player in the British Basketball League and is still chasing his dream.

“I never planned to play this long,” Reinking recently told The Mirror. “Retiring has crossed my mind. I have been taking it year by year. But as the years have passed it has got closer to 2012. Now that is pretty much my goal, playing-wise, to make it on to that team. If I can get there it would be, by far, the pinnacle of my career.”

He is still considered by most to be the best pure shooter in Europe, and his Tigers sit atop the BBL standings at 12-2 this season. Last year the Tigers lost to the Sheffield Sharks in the BBL Cup game when Reinking was forced to miss the contest with a calf injury.

When he retires Reinking will probably stay in England. He has a British wife and holds a British passport. He is the perfect example of what an undersized big-time college scorer can accomplish by taking his act overseas.