Coming to Georgia Southern all the way from Delano, Minnesota, freshman guard Calvin Wishart has proven himself to be a valuable contribution to the men’s basketball team.

Wishart saw a lot of action at the beginning of this season. He tallied 14 points during his 27-minute stint against Pepperdine University, 11 points in his 30 minutes against Montana, and five steals from Carver University.

Wishart won the state championship his senior year of high school, with it being the first time in his four year tenure that the team even qualified for the tournament. He was also a finalist for Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball alongside Duke’s staple player Tre Jones.

In addition to playing basketball in high school, he also played football his senior year. Even though he was just playing for fun, due to him already being committed to GS for basketball, he left his mark in the Minnesota record books. 

In his one season as a football player, he was the top wide receiver on the Star Tribune’s All Metro first team offense, East Central South MVP, and on several lists for Minnesota’s top high school players of 2017.

Calvin, one of four athletic children, knows a thing or two about a strong work ethic. His father played basketball at Concordia College, and his mother went to the state basketball tournament during her high school career. His older brother was a division three national decathlon champion at Concordia and his younger sister just committed to playing basketball at the University of Mary. His youngest brother still has a ways to go until his college days, but he is currently playing basketball and football.

Wishart gives credit to his older brother for making him the basketball player he is today.

“He was basically my athletic trainer back home,” Wishart said. “We lived an hour outside of Minneapolis where all of the real trainers were for basketball development. He’s currently getting his master’s degree in Kinesiology right now and he really did train me. Between my freshman and sophomore year, he helped me gain weight, I grew five inches in a year because of him.”

Though he is 20 hours away from home, he doesn’t mind being in Statesboro with the team and his electric skateboard.

“You may see me riding around campus on my electric skateboard,” Wishart said. “I ride it everywhere. I’m rarely in cars. Basketball-wise, Georgia Southern was the best school for me because of my position. Compared to Minnesota, the climate here is just so much better. The campus is just pretty all around, really.”

Wishart is currently playing under guard Tookie Brown, and loving every minute of it.

“I’m trying to soak up as much as I can from these seniors,” Wishart said. “They’ve set the Georgia Southern tradition that we want to continue on for the next couple of years.”

You can catch Wishart and the rest of the GS team back in action against Georgia State on Saturday at GSU at 1 p.m.