Inside the longest 24 hours of Frankie Ferraris life

MINNEAPOLIS — When San Francisco point guard Frankie Ferrari got in his rental car after dinner on Thursday night, he thought that he was making the responsible decision. The week leading up to the Final Four is filled with parties. Players, coaches, media members and fans go out on the town and blow off steam after a long season of basketball. Indeed, the 23-year-old Ferrari was on his way to one of those parties, but it wasn’t to attend himself. Ferrari was driving his brother Ralph and friend Henry to a party sponsored by the West Coast Elite AAU program. He dropped them off and then started driving home, set on getting a good night’s sleep before playing in the 3X3U National Championship at the Mall of America on Friday afternoon.

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About half a mile away from where he dropped off his brother and friend, Ferrari got to the corner of West Lake Street and Lyndale Street South. He started to turn left after yielding to traffic, and then …

“BOOM! Impact.” 

A Buick Century hit Ferrari’s rental Nissan Altima, then fled the scene, according to the Minneapolis Police Department. A full police report was not yet available. Ferrari said the officer told him the other vehicle was traveling at a high speed prior to the collison.

“My car did, like, three 360s in the middle of the intersection, and I was just in shock,” Ferrari told The Athletic. “I didn’t see the car when it hit me; I didn’t see the car when he hit and ran. But I knew I got hit and was still conscious.”

Getting hit and staying conscious is basically the story of Ferrari’s life on the basketball court. And, well, it’s a part of his family’s story, too.

Ferrari grew up just outside of San Francisco with three brothers. His dad, Paul, is a longtime basketball coach in the Bay Area. But before that, he was a boxer. He owns both basketball and boxing gyms. Then, on top of it, he still manages fighters. So when Frankie was younger, he had the unique opportunity to learn a lot of skills that many kids don’t have.

“It was interesting. I’m in the third grade, and I’m sharing a room with a professional fighter,” Ferrari said, laughing. “Guys from Philly, we had a guy from Canada living with us at the time. So you learn a lot about life.”

Ferrari didn’t just share rooms with fighters, though. He also learned how to handle himself in the ring. He was in the gym all the time and sparred with amateur fighters. Ferrari wasn’t going out trying to find fights, and by the time he reached high school, the boxing lessons became more about conditioning than about being able to fight. But the ultimate reward was confidence.

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“Being a small white guy that’s undersized, you’re kind of looked-over,” Ferrari said. “You gotta be tough. I think boxing has played a big role. Boxing and basketball correlate.”

The best example of that toughness correlation in Ferrari’s past came during the summer after his junior year in high school. During an AAU game, he felt a crunch after getting hit in the side and knew that something was wrong. Listening to him tell the story and what happened next, you’d think it was just any old injury.

“So I got rushed to the hospital,” Ferrari said. “They said, ‘You have three broken ribs and a partially punctured a lung.’ They fixed the lung. Whatever. Then, the following weekend, we went out to Los Angeles for the Double Pump Tournament. So I strapped a football pad to my side and taped it around my waist. I was kinda dodging screens, but I played really well.”

This year, Ferrari had a stress reaction in his foot that almost turned into a stress fracture after he continued to play through it. During his career, he’s twisted ankles, and he had his eye split open. The only time he missed games at San Francisco was when he broke his hand during his sophomore year. Ferrari might as well be college basketball’s Rocky Balboa between the Italian heritage and the way he keeps getting up after getting knocked down.

“Frankie is one of the toughest players I’ve ever coached,” San Francisco coach Todd Golden said. “He played through nagging injuries the second half of the season and never complained or made excuses. He’s a feisty competitor and won’t back down from anyone.”

So with that being established, it shouldn’t really surprise anyone that Ferrari wasn’t exactly floored by a car accident.

A police officer was immediately on the scene of Ferrari’s accident on Thursday night. Why? He’d been tailing the person who hit Ferrari, suspecting him of drunk driving. He told Ferrari that he was about to flip on his sirens right as he collided with the car. But when the accident occurred, priorities changed. The officer first checked on Ferrari to make sure he was OK and to ask if he needed an ambulance. Still in shock and trying to get his bearings, Ferrari didn’t know the answer, so the officer called one. He then took Ferrari’s license to identify him and radioed to other officers to be on the lookout for a Toyota Camry that had just been involved in a hit-and-run.

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Eventually, Ferrari got a handle on his situation. He had slammed the right side of his body into the car’s median when the guy made contact, causing pain there. Additionally, his neck whiplashed, causing immediate discomfort. He got out of the car and surveyed the damage, immediately seeing that the rental was totaled. He texted his brother and friend that he’d been in an accident, and the two immediately left the party Ferrari had just dropped them off at to check on him. At this point, Ferrari started to feel something strange in his foot. He looked down and saw that blood was coming through his loafers because he didn’t have socks on. He pulled it off and told the police he was bleeding.

“So I’m now standing in the middle of an intersection with one shoe on, foot’s bleeding, my neck is killing me,” Ferrari said. “I had to have looked ridiculous. I was sitting there thinking, ‘Man, I don’t know how guys play in the NFL,’ because that’s what I thought this kind of collision felt like.”

At this point, the police told Ferrari he was clearly not at fault for the accident. The officer observed the entire incident, saying that Ferrari entered the intersection going about 5 mph and was hit by the other driver going 65 mph. It’s at this point that Ferrari went to the hospital. He arrived at 12:30 a.m., and they put him in a room and started running tests. At first, they focused on his neck and put him in a neck brace to stabilize things while conducting their battery of exams. In the end, they told him that there was no serious injury. Maybe a slight concussion, but they did not believe so. They then put four stitches in his foot to stop the bleeding. At some point, Ferrari texted his parents to call him — not wanting to terrify them by just saying he was in a car accident, as they were actually flying to Minneapolis during the wreck to watch him play in the 3X3U Tournament. He also texted the director of the tournament, alerting him to the incident and to the fact that he might not be able to play. Obviously, the folks involved at the 3X3U understood and gave him space to make his decision.

At 4:30 a.m., Ferrari finally got discharged and drove back to his hotel room, not getting to sleep until 5:30 a.m. He got three hours of sleep and woke up feeling better than he thought he would: sore, but not totally out of commission. At first, he felt like there was no way he was playing in the 3X3U, and he even texted to let the event coordinators know that he wouldn’t be able to. But when he woke up, got some breakfast and took another little power nap, he felt rejuvenated.

So Ferrari came down to the Mall of America and immediately saw the trainer. She sealed up his foot with gauze wrap and padding and told him it would hold up. He got loose and felt like he could help the team. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened.

Playing on a talented WCC team with San Diego’s Isaiah Pineiro and Olin Carter, in addition to Pacific’s Roberto Gallinat, Ferrari dominated the tempo with his typical floor-maestro game. He’s hitting backdoor passes with ease, knocking down shots from distance and making sure everyone knows exactly how to play with all of the open space on the court. After his first game, he went back to the trainer’s table and saw that his foot had started to ooze a bit of blood from the stitched wound. He said it wasn’t comfortable, but it didn’t necessarily hurt. Maybe it’s his high tolerance for pain? Who knows. He had the trainer reseal the wound, and he went back out there for the second game, in which they beat the OVC team.

Overall, the team representing the WCC finished the day 2-0, one of just six teams to win its two games in the pool play portion of the tournament. The team has its next game on Sunday against the Southland Conference squad that will either finish its run or advance in the playoffs, where the ultimate prize for the winning team is $100,000.

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That money is certainly nice, but Ferrari didn’t play for that today.

“I woke up and I said, ‘You know what? It’s a unique opportunity,'” Ferrari said. “My family is coming out, and it costs a lot of money to get out here. I said that if I could play, I was going to play. If I could help my team, I’m going to play. It would be hard for me to be down here and have to watch these guys on my team try to compete with only three players. And honestly, I like to hoop. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 24 Hour Fitness; it doesn’t matter if it’s a backyard. I just love basketball.”

Ferrari will finish his time in Minneapolis, head back home, pack it up and then move to Myrtle Beach, S.C., for pre-draft training in May. After winning All-WCC first-team honors the past two years, he has his sights set on a pro career. His agent, Chris Patrick, has already lined up a few workouts with NBA teams. Patrick tends to like the underdog, having been the first agent for Robert Covington. He compares Ferrari to another one of his clients, Josh Magette, another small, distributing guard who surprisingly worked his way into the NBA after a career at Alabama-Huntsville and significant G-League success.

However, the NBA won’t be the only option on the table for Ferrari. During his sophomore year, he started the process of getting his Italian passport. In September, he had his interview and meeting at the Italian consulate and officially got his certification two weeks ago. His Italian passport arrives in May. Because of that, he’s become a highly sought-after pro prospect in Europe, as he would not count against American player roster limits that leagues have in place. Multiple Italian league teams have already reached out to offer him six-figure salaries as a rookie overseas. It’s not an unfair characterization to say that he’ll be among the most pursued players in this rookie class by overseas teams.

“I think it’s a good position to be in,” Ferrari said. “I could get an offer in June where a team doesn’t want me to have an NBA opt-out clause. That would be a tough decision. You don’t necessarily need to start in the NBA, and just because you go overseas immediately, it doesn’t necessarily shut your chances out. At the end of summer league, I could get offered a two-way, and it could be potentially less guaranteed money than what I’d get in Europe. That’s a decision we might have to make. G-League to Europe to wherever we have decisions. I look at it as an opportunity. I’m incredibly lucky to be in this position. Not many people even have the chance to make these decisions. We’ll make the best decision for me.”

Ultimately, any team that takes a shot on Ferrari will be getting a point guard with remarkable poise and feel for the game. That team will get a guy who’s not the most athletic, but his skill is off the charts. And of course, it’s getting a guy who has to be one of the toughest players in college basketball.

After all, not even a car hitting him at 65 mph just hours before could stop Ferrari from getting on the floor.

(Top photo: Robert Johnson / Getty Images)

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