Shomari Figures

U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile, took time Wednesday afternoon to pay tribute to Mobile native and former Alabama basketball star Mikhail Torrance.

Torrance, also a star at Mary G. Montgomery High School in Semmes, died suddenly last week. He was just 37.

“He was a young man whose passing has unleashed a tidal wave of shock and disbelief and raw grief and emotion back home,” Figures said in a speech on the house floor.

Torrance was a two-time, first-team All-State selection for Mary G. Montgomery, averaging 22 points, 8 assists and 7 rebounds as a senior. At Alabama, he played for coaches Mark Gottfried and Anthony Grant from 2006-2010 and was a second-team All-SEC selection in his final season. Gottfied told AL.com that he loved Torrance’s “potential as a player, but I really loved him as a person.”

Torrance, who grew up in Eight Mile, overcame several heart scares in the past, though they likely cost him a chance to play in the NBA.

“Every single year, he got better,” Figures said of Torrance in his speech Wednesday. “He waited his turn, and by the time he came out, he was an all-conference player, excelled in the pre-draft process, and by all accounts was headed to the NBA.

“But he had a heart condition that was discovered. And it cost him his shot at playing in the league. And imagine that. Being 21 years old and on the pathway to fulfilling a childhood dream and having done everything the right way. I mean this kid didn’t have so much as a rumor of a blemish on his character or his reputation and then that dream was suddenly taken away because of a medical condition.”

Torrance did play five years in various North American and European pro leagues. After his career ended, he worked as a real estate specialist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“He still stayed close to the game that he loved so much through coaching, and training kids, and hosting camps, and refereeing local basketball games, even doing play-by-play announcing of televised college games,” Figures said. “And also doing motivational speaking, giving his testimony, sharing his pain, his struggle, his journey to inspire younger guys to continue to persevere and be better, even better than he was.”

Figures said Torrance’s children can realize and relish the fact that their father “lived a life that was worthy of tribute and honor on the House floor of the United States Capitol. In the same room where presidents speak, where heads of state speak, where we recently just hosted the King of England, because he deserved that.”

Watch Figures’ complete speech below: