As shots go, a player can't do much better than having his or her basket described as "The shot that saved lives." That is the title given to former Alabama forward Mykal Riley's 3-pointer in the 2008 SEC tournament. The shot sent the Alabama-Mississippi State quarterfinal into overtime and kept thousands of fans in the Georgia Dome instead of walking or driving into the path of the tornado that rushed through downtown Atlanta that night. Now playing professionally in Paris, Riley spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the shot and his life since. (Questions and answers were edited for brevity and clarity.)
Q: What do you remember about the moment the tornado hit?
A: I was running. I think we had just scored. I was running back on defense and I heard a lot of noise. It felt like it was a lot of rain, like it was raining very hard outside. I looked up and everything was shaking. We kept playing for a little while. After that, it was crazy. Like the Jumbotron stated shaking. Everybody got off the court. It was scary. I'd never been in a tornado before.
Q: When did you first realize the impact your shot had?
A: It wasn't even after the game. They took us to the locker room. One of my teammates, I think it was Brandon Hollinger, said, "Do you realize you probably could have saved people's lives? People could have been going out if we had lost."
That was the first time I thought about it. I was like, OK, OK. After the fact, after the game, a lot of people were saying that. I gave it a lot of thought then.
Q: Did people reach out to you?
A: I was getting messages from people saying, "Thank you." I was like, well, I guess. It could be that I saved people's lives from going out into the tornado. I don't know how many messages I got. It was a lot like, "Thank you for saving me and my mom." I was happy about it. It was something special for me.
Q: What is Paris like?
A: It's good. I can see the Eiffel Tower from my teammates' room. Paris is Paris. There's always something to do. There's always people visiting. There's a street called the Champs-Elysees. There's always something going on on that street. It's always busy.
Q: Do you think back to that game often?
A: I was talking to one of my other teammates, maybe last month, about it. He said, "What do you think was more special about it? The shot or the fact that you saved people's lives?" I was like, for sure, saving people's lives. He was like, OK, you saved people's lives, but the shot was pretty amazing, too.
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