Rodney Pryor on Character, Identity, and Life Beyond the Four Lines
Sports and Coaching · From Student of the Game
Rodney Pryor on Character, Identity, and Life Beyond the Four Lines
Rodney Pryor played college basketball at Georgetown, won the 2017 NCAA slam dunk championship, and played professionally, including in the G League and overseas. Today he is the founder of Identity Made, an apparel brand built to reach young athletes with a message about purpose and character.
On this episode of Student of the Game, Brad Noll and Rodney trade basketball stories, but the conversation keeps coming back to something bigger than the game: who you are when the ball stops bouncing. It is a lesson that applies to student athletes, sports parents, and anyone in a nine-to-five who just got promoted and feels a little over their skis.
A Hard Lesson in the Bleachers
Rodney was born and raised in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago, in an athletic family. He grew up believing basketball was his only way out. He was a class clown who wanted to be liked and make everybody laugh, and he credits God's grace for keeping him out of the gang culture that claimed some of his friends.
After two years at a public school, he transferred to Notre Dame Prep, an all-boys school with a coach who simply handed him standards. Rodney was clearly the best player, but after a string of what he calls low-character moments, he showed up late to practice and was told he was no longer on the team. For about three weeks he sat at the top of the bleachers, watching his team practice. "All I knew was I'm supposed to be in that gym," he says. His family asked the coach to reconsider, and his teammates voted to bring him back.
He is thankful it happened. Once he returned, his coach wrapped his arms around him, they were in the gym every day, and Rodney learned real discipline. He had a phenomenal senior year and began to believe Division I was not just a dream but a reality.
“When you don't live with aim and you don't have that plan and purpose outside of this game, outside of the four lines, it just makes it so tough to have high character.”
Rodney Pryor
Confidence and the Athlete's Transition
Rodney wrote an e-book on recruiting, and one idea from it stands out. Kids need the far-fetched dream, but they also need reality, and the question is how quickly they can shrink the gap between the two. Every level up brings tougher competition, and his confidence was shaken plenty of times, especially when recruiting calls were not coming in.
He is honest that the same struggle follows him into business. People tell him he can walk into any room as Rodney Pryor, Georgetown, slam dunk champ. He feels he needs the perfect pitch deck first, and sometimes that has kept him from sending the email at all. Brad relates. After college he resented his parents for not teaching him business, until he realized basketball had taught him teamwork, hard work, perseverance, dedication, and sacrifice. He shares a line from speaker and former NBA player Walter Bond: imagine if the newspaper reported how you did at work on Wednesday.
Be Who You Needed When You Were Younger
Brad notices that Rodney seems to be talking to the kid he once was. Rodney confirms it: his driving slogan is be who you needed when you were younger. He says too many locker rooms he experienced were unhealthy, and athletes in that bubble often never learn responsibilities outside the game. He laughs about being 23 and not knowing how to get dental insurance until his future wife asked.
Back-to-back injuries in junior college, a broken foot and then a torn ACL, were when he let God take over and his character began to grow. When the pandemic paused his pro career, he had to ask, "What are you going to do now?" A G League off-court program had already sparked the realization that he was more than a basketball player. He and his wife also decided their family would stay together rather than have him spend most of the year overseas.
That is where Identity Made began. "When you don't live with aim and you don't have that plan and purpose outside of this game, outside of the four lines, it just makes it so tough to have high character," Rodney says. Because he stayed high character when he was benched, coaches and general managers still pick up his calls.
Apparel With a Purpose
Athletes love their gear, and Rodney saw that as the way in. "My heart is for the kid," he says, but you cannot just walk up to a teenager and tell them to have more purpose. Identity Made wants to be the brand that knows its athletes exist. Its plans include:
- Sponsoring high school and middle school teams with uniforms and travel gear, giving them an experience most programs never get.
- Doing life with the teams it sponsors and staying connected on social media.
- A podcast featuring pro athletes who talk honestly about low-character moments and how they grew.
- Invitational tournaments that add panels, sponsors, and internship and job opportunities alongside the games.
The ID logo carries his faith: the I is a nail and the D represents the palm of Jesus. Brad sees the bigger business lesson. People are not buying a hoodie. They are buying what the hoodie stands for. He also connects it to his own team, which wins because it operates with a shared purpose instead of a room full of individual agendas.
How Should Parents Support Young Athletes?
Brad has one daughter who golfs and another who plays AAU basketball, so he asks Rodney for advice. Rodney's first answer: be there for your kid, not the athlete. Many children spend most of the day under other people's guidance, so parents may have only a few hours to be fully present. He asks whether parents have earned the right to coach their own kids. Do they know what their child is struggling with?
Brad admits he once acted like the coach in the car. Then someone told him parents have one job: tell your kids you enjoyed watching them play. Rodney adds that children want to be seen, heard, and valued, and that much of what athletes carry is invisible. Winning for Identity Made, he says, means getting schools sponsored and building real relationships with kids. He closes with his favorite scripture about greatness: the greatest among us must serve.
▶ Listen to the full episode
Finding Your Identity with Rodney Pryor, on Student of the Game.
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