Point guard Donivine Stewart, who joined the Vikings this year, knew nothing about the Pacific Northwest when he decided to use his fourth year of eligibility at Portland State. He will be taking a Conflict Resolution class as a graduate student in preparation for applying to law school.     

But he did know that there was something about Portland that drew him when he played here against the Vikings (two Viking victories) for Southern Illinois Edwardsville in 2013 and 2014.     

"I remember standing outside where we were staying and calling my then fiancé (now wife, Payton) and saying 'there's something about this place and I want to live here sometime.  It's a great place. It's got a small city atmosphere, but it's a big city'," Stewart recalled.      

In fact, now that he's here, he'd like to attend law school in the Pacific Northwest.  "I want to stay here and raise my family here," he said simply.     

"I've always been interested in law. I love to learn and the law is always changing. There's always something new to learn. I'd like to make a difference in peoples' lives and that would give me that aspect," he said.      

There were some curves, though, on Stewart's route to Portland.      

One of nine sports-playing children (two sisters, seven brothers ranging in age from seven to 27—he's in the middle) Stewart grew up in a very close family in a not so nice part of Peoria, IL.     

"I grew up in south Peoria, not the best place to grow up.  I have a lot of friends from when I was young that are gone," he said.  Did he mean they left?   "No, they got into gangs and they're dead," he said.     

Basketball and his close family ties led Stewart away from that fate.     

"When I needed to get away from everything, I'd go shoot baskets," he said.    

In grade school, Stewart played basketball, football and dabbled in baseball.  Football was (and still is) his favorite sport.     

He excelled at basketball enough that following his freshman year at Limestone High School he received scholarship offers from Illinois and West Virginia.  "My dad said I was not going to lose those scholarships, so I needed to stick with basketball."      

Still, he began his college career by accepting a scholarship from Bradley University, which was 15 minutes from his home.  Seems that as a high school senior, he started dating Payton, a libero on the Limestone volleyball team (who went on to play that position for a while at Illinois Central College).  Between that and his closeness to his family, he decided he wanted to play near home.    

After a year, there was a coaching change, so he switched to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), which was just a couple hours away. Two years later, there was a coaching change at SIUE.  He actually liked the new coach. "I liked him a lot and learned some of the most useful things about basketball from him," he said.     

Then, he and Payton decided to get married.      

"We went on our honeymoon and when we were coming back, I decided it was time for me to go to work and take care of my family.  Also, there were younger guys on the team and it was time for them to be able to show what they could do," he said.      

Off to St. Louis he went looking for work.  In the meantime, his name appeared on a list of players looking to transfer.  Having seen him play the previous two years, Viking Head Coach Tyler Geving was immediately interested.      

"We were looking through the list and saw his name.   He's a good point guard and he started 60 games for SIUE," said Geving.  "We knew he'd already transferred once.  We saw he was leaving and hoped he'd graduated (he had earned a degree in business)."       

Stewart's SIUE coach told Geving that he was a "great leader and a great kid.  We thought he was a good player and that we should get him if we could."      

The Viking's interest was timely.     

"I was having trouble finding work in St. Louis when I ran into my former coach.  He asked me if I'd found a job…'no'…then would I be interested in playing more basketball…'maybe'.  Stewart also heard from USC, but PSU stayed in touch.  "Illinois contacted me, but by then it was too late."  He'd already committed to Portland State.      

And, it turns out, "that was a great decision.  "We really like it here!"  Even with all the rain?  "I'd rather have that than snow."  Payton also has enrolled at PSU in business and son Duke is three years old.     

Ahhh, you're through the terrible twos.  "Well to be honest, at this point, we think it's going to be the terrible threes", he said.     

Until he became a Viking, Stewart carried the number 32, which has great significance in his family.

Both he and a sister, who plays basketball for Northern Illinois, carry that number.     

Their dad, Nate Augusta, used basketball "as a way to teach us about life.  My dad always told us that our GPA should never be less than a 3.2.  'You should use basketball as a way to get to where you want to be in life.  After that, it's up to you', he told us."       

Stewart's cumulative GPA as an undergraduate?...3.2 of course.     

So, at PSU is he a basketball player going to graduate school, or a graduate student playing basketball?     

"Good question," he said and paused.  "I guess I'm a graduate student playing basketball,"  he said after some thought.     

And, he'll be applying to Lewis and Clark, University of Oregon and University of Washington law schools next spring.