Caleb Wood slipped his feet into the size 14 shoes of his 6-foot-9 father years ago as a young child. There was ample room to grow.
Now a 17-year-old junior, Wood wears size 12 sneakers and at 6-3 is just an inch shorter than his dad, David, was as a high school junior.
Caleb, though, may never fill his dad's shoes. And that's OK.
"Kids say all the time, 'Your dad played in the NBA ...'" Caleb, a Galena guard, said. "It adds pressure but I think I perform well under pressure. There's some pressure. If I don't do as well, some people, obviously, are going to think less of me."
Caleb doesn't care what those people think. Neither does his dad.
The same goes for Reed junior Devin Gray, son of Wolf Pack Hall of Famer Michael "Fly" Gray.
"Devin knows who I am, what I did in basketball," said the elder Gray, who still goes by Fly. "But it's whatever he wants. There's no pressure. The only thing I want Devin to do is graduate."
David Wood played seven seasons in the NBA with nine teams, as well as in Europe and the Philippines.
Fly Gray averaged 20.5 points in his two-year Wolf Pack career and joined the Nevada Hall of Fame in 2005.
Their sons now are making names for themselves.
Caleb leads the Grizzlies in scoring and Devin provides the upstart Raiders with deft shooting and defense. Devin also excelled as a wide receiver on the Reed football team that played in the 4A state championship game.
"It makes we work harder because I want to follow in his footsteps," Devin said. "But I want people to know how good I am instead of just saying, 'Oh, your dad was amazing.'"
Devin only got to see how amazing -- "You don't get the nickname 'Fly' by playing below the rim," Reed coach Dustin Hall said -- in a couple highlights when his dad was inducted into the Wolf Pack Hall of Fame. When Fly finished at Nevada he went to training camp with the Warriors and briefly played with the CBA's Anchorage affiliate before he called it a career.
That was well before Devin came along. And of late, it's been the younger Gray who wins the family one-on-one games.
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"It was awesome," Devin said of beating his dad for the first time two years ago. "I was making fun of him the whole time. He still tells me that I shoot like him but that he's way better than me."
Devin, at 6-2, now has the height advantage on his 6-foot, 53-year-old father. Caleb cannot say the same and he's yet to beat dad.
There have been some bright moments for the younger Wood.
"He can beat me in shooting games," David Wood, 47, said. "But until he gets about 30 more pounds on him it's going to be tough for him to beat me one-on-one."
That proved true in a matchup a few months ago after Caleb dribbled the ball between his dad's legs.
"I was a hard worker when I played," David Wood said. "I didn't get into fights but I came close a lot. I told him I didn't like that."
"Why? Because you got schooled?" Caleb retorted.
"OK, I'm not going to treat you like my son anymore. We're just going to play," David said.
The game got physical after that and ended when Caleb suffered a bloody nose.
"I didn't play varsity ball until my senior year," said David Wood, who has three other younger sons. "And I was not a really good player until after college. So Caleb has some time."
DAD'S SCOUTING REPORT
With their wealth of experience, each father has built a bit of a scouting report on his son:
>> Fly on Devin: "He is still learning. He can hit the open shot but can still work on his game and is getting better. He could look for his shot more, and is a really good defensive player. The one thing he can do that I could never do is use his left hand on lay-ups. I never used my left hand to shoot the ball."
>> David on Caleb: "He's a late bloomer like I was. He can shoot the ball and is having a good season. We feel like he'll be a whole different player as a senior, especially if he can put on a few pounds. If God blesses him and he matches those blessings with hard work, he could be better than I ever was."
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