Nijal Pearson: A Mentor from Afar

Nijal Pearson commands respect. 

Texas State’s all-time leading scorer, fresh off a league championship in Germany, was back in a familiar setting this week: Strahan Arena. The Texas State men’s basketball coaching staff was conducting a prospect camp and wanted the program’s icon there.

Part of his role in the camp? Coaching one of the designated teams. 

Yelling at referees. Instructing his players from afar. And even taunting the opposing coaches (an “on his head” celebration in the face of All-Sun Belt performer Mason Harrell after a slam dunk by his team was noteworthy). 

Pearson was the big dog once again in the middle of Strahan Arena. And everyone wanted to speak with him. 

‘Nijal, should I have gone for the lay-up?’

‘Nijal, how should we handle that switch?’

Coach Pearson – a title he’s not aiming for in his career, by the way – was being looked up to. Like he always is.

Although he has played in Europe for the first two years of his professional career – and he has re-signed with the Rostock Seawolves in Germany to play there, again, this season – Pearson stays in touch with the current clowder of Bobcats. He considers his role as a mentor for current and future Bobcats one of the most important parts of his basketball legacy. 

“I had guys like Tony Bishop and Joel Wright – guys that were there for me when I was coming up,” said Pearson after the prospect camp ended. “Even though I didn’t play with them, they always stayed in the loop and kept encouraging me. I’m making sure I stay the same way with these guys. Stay positive. Stay supportive. 

“These guys are talented and have a chance. I want them to not only get where I’m at, but go further: be big-time players, careers last longer and everything works out how it is supposed to work out.”

Pearson, who tries to make it back to San Marcos at least once a summer, checks in with Harrell, his teammate during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, on occasion.

“Mason Harrell is like a little brother to me,” said Pearson. “I’m always in his ear, before games or after games, anytime he needs something, he’ll reach out.”

Pearson also connects with the rest of the team, those who have never played with him, giving words of encouragement and being a resource.

It is something Texas State men’s basketball head coach Terrence Johnson values about Pearson. Although the two talk on the phone at least once a week for upwards of an hour or two – the two go back to when Johnson coached Pearson in AAU ball – Johnson knows what he adds to the program going forward.

“Nijal brings an interesting twist,” said Johnson. “He’s been with this program for a number of years before a lot of these guys stepped foot on campus. He’s been there throughout the transition of what it was to what it is now. 

“I think he’s one of the best people to tap into to know what it is like to be a Bobcat, and have them have a higher level of appreciation for where we are right now and what they have right now.”

Although Pearson has not walked in the same exact Adidas shoes as current Bobcats, he’s traveled down a similar path in similar style shoes. 

He has grown tremendously as a basketball player in the last year. Living in Rostock, Germany — a town of roughly 200,000 people located just over two hours north of Berlin — the Beaumont, Texas native averaged nearly 15 points per game for the Seawolves, finished top-10 in the league in steals, and helped lift the team to the highest division of German basketball after winning the second division championship just three months ago.

It is a far cry to when Pearson’s professional career tried to get off the ground amidst a global pandemic.

“That was extremely tough,” said Pearson about his Texas State career closing out due to the cancellation of the 2020 Sun Belt Championship Tournament despite expectations the team could win the championship. “For the career to end (at Texas State) at the start of COVID and another career to start in COVID. It was something I wasn’t prepared for … no one could be prepared for it. 

“But it was something that made me a better person, a better man, and better basketball player.”

Pearson landed in France’s top league in May 2020. But once the 2020-21 season got started in August, he went on to play in only seven games over the course of six months due to COVID shutdowns. He was cut in January 2021. But that same day, as fortune would have it, he signed with a team in Finland. He went on to lead the top league in Finland in scoring during his time there and guided the team to the playoffs. However, the team was swept in the playoffs.

It was another season that suddenly ended from the perspective of Pearson. He bounced back, though, by signing with Rostock of Germany’s second division in the summer of 2021.

“Another tough season, a grind of a season, but I just found how to be a professional early in the season,” said Pearson about this past year with Rostock. “I found out how to attack every day, how to get better, how to fall in love not so much with the game but fall in love in how to improving at the game. Fall in love with development. Fall in love with the best player I can be.”

Playing closer to his expectations and helping a team win a championship, Pearson’s journey so far at the professional level has come back around. After being cut from a top league in Europe, he was back at that starting point 18 months later when his team from Germany earned the promotion to the first division.

Through it all, even if he’s playing in Europe and celebrating the championship with the local fans in a parade of only 2,000 people and drinking German beer alongside them, Pearson still grounds himself.

“To take your passion and inspire someone in the stands, it’s a beautiful thing,” said Pearson. “I love it.”

And inspiring someone is not limited to the stands. It is why he stays so close to the Texas State program. 

That is something he learned from Johnson.

Coach Johnson had such an impact on Pearson that Pearson asked his former coach to be the godfather to his daughter. As Bobcat fans remember, Pearson’s daughter was born in February 2020 as the team was playing some of its best basketball that season. Pearson asked Johnson midway through the season before his daughter was even born.

For Pearson, the question for Johnson to serve in such an important role and guide light in his child’s life was a no-brainer.

“I asked him while my girlfriend was still pregnant,” said Johnson. “He almost went to tears saying thank you and I almost went to tears because he was in tears. He appreciated me offering it, but I appreciated him for accepting it. He’s a great godfather. He’s an amazing man, outside the game of basketball, with the words of wisdom he shares.”

Pearson and his girlfriend brought their daughter to visit with Johnson in San Marcos in July. The two got to hang out for an hour or two, precious time due to Johnson’s role as a head coach and Pearson and his family not being around San Marcos very often. But despite the limited in-person time, Johnson knows the kind of father Pearson is and will be.

“(Pearson will) wear his feelings on his sleeve when it comes down to his passions and how he competes, but he’s not an ultra-sensitive dude,” said Johnson. “But when you see him, he’s very keen and aware the needs of others. When you see him showing a sensitive side with his daughter, it’s the right mix of that sensitive side but yet a stern enough side that she understands that he is the father. 

“As often as he’s made game-winning shots for this program and made big stops and delivered in spot-on interviews, he’s doing that every day in the life of his daughter.”

Combined with being a father, a partner, and a professional basketball player overseas, Pearson still makes time to to interact with the Bobcats because he believes the men’s basketball program and Texas State University helped shape the person he is.

“I’m invested in this program,” said Pearson. “Through the things that I have been through in San Marcos, the things that I have been through while a part of this program, it made me into the man I am today. 

“For me to leave San Marcos and not stay in tune with this, it’s like leaving the part of me that is a man. I’m still becoming Nijal Pearson, still growing, still learning new things, stuff that I learn I want to pour back into those guys. I want them to not go through the things I went through when I left the program.”

And what does Pearson see in the current program at Texas State?

“Right under your nose, a powerhouse is being built,” said Pearson. “You might not understand it, you might not realize what’s going on. But that’s also why I stay around because in powerhouses, guys that go professional stay locked in to the team and don’t disown them. Stay positive and give them something to look to. 

“When I come back, I want to work out and play with the guys. I want them to see me, and I want them to say, ‘Let me compete against Nijal and see how it is. Let me see if I’m good enough.’ Because that’s what happened to me.”

Pearson is going into year three of his pro career. In other words, he is just getting started. And he is mentoring current and future Bobcats at any opportunity he gets while also having an eye on a graduate degree to set up his life after basketball. 

And while he’s not aiming to be a coach one day – “I’m not into coaching. I love to put energy into the kids, but I can’t do it every day. If anything, I want to sit in Don Coryell’s chair as the athletics director,” said a smiling Pearson – he still has a vision for what his success as a basketball player.

“When my playing career is over, I want to be able to say I played basketball at the highest level and I want to say I won at the highest level,” said Pearson. “Whether I’m afforded the opportunity to play in the NBA – that’s about timing and situation, definitely got to be a blessing from God – but if not, I want to a European champion. An international top player. As well as I’m known in San Marcos, I want to be world-renowned. I want the Nijal Pearson name to ring. I want it to be known as a winner.”