Everett Osborne went through a traumatic breakup with basketball before coming back to it for 'Sweetwater'

If things went the way Everett Osborne had planned, he wouldn’t be making his motion picture debut on April 14.

Instead of playing the title character in the upcoming biopic Sweetwater and introducing the world to the important story the Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton — the first Black basketball player to sign a contract with the NBA — Osborne would still be playing professional basketball himself.

“My basketball journey was something I dedicated my whole life to,” Osborne told FTW. “I threw my whole self-identity, I sacrificed, put my whole soul into something I really loved.”

Playing ball for a living was always the dream, and Osborne had achieved it. After finishing his college career at UT-Rio Grande Valley, he played in New Zealand and Australia.

Then, the coronavirus pandemic struck, and his dream was over.

“Literally the world shift, and I had to let it go. Which is heartbreaking. I went through a whole identity shift,” Osborne said.

He called his transition away from basketball “traumatic,” comparing it to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. It’s an appropriate comparison, because whether he knew it or not, he had been preparing his entire life for what was to come.

Acting isn’t something that just happened upon Osborne. It’s something he had been doing all along from childhood, starring in commercials and different television roles. He just didn’t see it as a future career for himself. Until it was.

“Denial ends up becoming the path of destiny,” he said. “I had to let a lot of stuff go from the basketball world and absorb a new world. My true passion, my true purpose had been there all along. It was a treacherous journey, but it became beautiful.”

Osborne was at his grandmother’s house when director Martin Guigui notified him he landed the role in Sweetwater. That was the first place he had ever shot a basketball.