Editor’s Note: This is the second edition of a three-story series detailing Emporium native Nate Sestina’s basketball journey from Cameron County High School to the NBA G-League’s Long Island Nets.

Following Nate Sestina’s four-year career at Bucknell, he knew he needed to continue to grow and develop to achieve his lifelong dreams of playing basketball professionally.

Among some of the things on his checklist were improving his footwork, losing a little weight and being able to defend guards on the court.

“My coaching staff at Bucknell… I can’t thank them enough for being so honest,” Sestina said. “I had a bunch of really tough conversations with myself, a bunch of tough conversations with my friends and family.”

Sestina was granted a medical redshirt as a result of his season-ending shoulder injury his freshman year and decided to enter his name into the transfer portal. That was followed by heavy interest from many schools that made the experience humbling for him.

“In all seriousness, it was mayhem,” Sestina said. “A lot of people that had incredible basketball knowledge had reached out to me, talked to me about the things I needed to work on.”

During conversations with coaches, he was asked why he wanted to transfer. Along with wanting to grow, develop and play professionally, the opportunity to play and have success in the NCAA Tournament was another goal for Sestina wherever his next college journey took him.

“I didn’t want to skip a beat; I wanted to pick right back up where I left off. I wanted to work on the things I wanted to work on and I wanted to grow and develop, but I wanted to go to the NCAA Tournament and win, that was a big thing for me,” Sestina said. “I take pride in winning. I try my best to be a winner everywhere I go.”

Sestina received a call from legendary Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari, who discussed with him the number of players the program has in the NBA, player development as well as the importance of the program’s connections and relationships.

It wasn’t long after that Sestina pledged to the Wildcats.

“It was pretty much a done deal right there,” Sestina said. “Obviously they have a bunch of guys in the NBA, a bunch of guys that are pros, high-level pros all over the world, but the skill development aspect of playing there is what’s so attractive to me.”

Sestina recalled the first time he met Calipari in person, which was during a campus visit to Kentucky with his parents. After walking through the program’s practice facility in awe, speaking with Calipari and preparing to go have dinner with him, the reality of his situation began to hit the smalltown kid.

“It hit me when my parents were like, ‘Oh my God, we are going to dinner with John Calipari, this is crazy.’ After that, I had to kind of let the dust settle a little bit…Truthfully it was an incredible experience; it was a dream come true.”

Calipari’s coaching and teachings have had a positive impact on Sestina, who learned to always have confidence in not only himself but also his teammates.

“He changed everything about how I think about the game, how I think about basketball, how I think about myself, have a chip on your shoulder, be competitive,” Sestina said. “He’s a great influence on me, but it’s a lot bigger than basketball and I think that’s something that I really took with me after I left was you got to be confident in every aspect of yourself and every aspect of your game.”

Sestina’s veteran presence on the team was one that usually isn’t the norm for Power 5 conferences in college basketball, especially a blue blood program like Kentucky that usually consists of elite-level high school recruits who play in college for one or two years before entering the NBA Draft.

The leadership qualities that Sestina embraces hail from his two older brothers, Jason and Andrew, who are both Marines. Among those qualities includes a leadership philosophy where making sure your teammates are taken care of is important as well as a blend of pushing and teaching them.

“You can’t just swear at them and cuss them out and do all that and then just leave it at that, you got to teach them, you got to talk to them, you got to treat them like people,” Sestina said.

“And I tried my best to do that everywhere I go and just being (at Kentucky), those guys are so understanding, they’re smart, they’re good basketball players, they’re incredible athletes, but they’re incredible people as well and you got to create a relationship outside of the basketball court, too, and I think that’s something I tried to do and I hope that they feel the same way.”

During his lone season with the Wildcats, Sestina played in 28 games, starting seven, and surpassed 1,000 career points at the college level with 161 on the year, averaging 5.8 points per game. He also brought down 106 rebounds during the season and scored a season-high 17 points, including five 3-pointers, in a loss to Ohio State that year.

Scoring 1,000 points in both high school and college was a goal Sestina set back when he was in fourth grade.

Prior to the season, Sestina was able to lose around 35 pounds with the help of Kentucky strength and conditioning coach Rob Harris, which helped elevate his game by being able to defend guards better. Guarding Kentucky’s high-level guards in practice also helped him improve in that area and overall, current Brooklyn Nets head coach and NBA legend Steve Nash’s philosophy of being uncomfortable being comfortable applied to Sestina as well and helped him improve his game.

The 2019-20 Wildcats finished with a 25-6 record and were the regular season SEC champions heading into the SEC Tournament, before the COVID-19 pandemic led to cancellations across the sports world. That included the 2020 NCAA Tournament.

Sestina said the team arrived back in Lexington after traveling to Nashville for the tournament and played pickup basketball with each other one last time with no coaches or media present.

But after it was done, Sestina walked back into the locker room, stretched and then it hit him.

“I just started crying. I’m like, ‘Man, I’m really done. Five years of my life, five long years, hard years of injuries, wins, losses, all of that, is done,’” Sestina said.

“My teammates all came over and gave me hug and they all thanked me, they (said), ‘Man, you’re one of the best teammates that we’ve ever had,’ and that just was the culminating thing for me was the job I set out to do going there was done and it just made me smile real big.”

One of Sestina’s biggest takeaways from his time at Kentucky was enjoying the whole process and journey, grinding through the ups and the downs and doing what you have to do to reach your goals.

“Your journey is yours and it’s nobody else’s and you have to embrace that,” Sestina said. “It really is a family there and that’s something I was super fortunate to have.”