Growing up Primo: A dad’s early morning wakeup calls and a mom’s devotion delivered much more than basketball skills
Charlai Lang wasn’t always a fan of the routine.
She had a 5-year-old boy that, like her, was a night owl; hated mornings. Unfortunately his dad didn’t. So there were plenty of mornings when little Amir Spears IV was rolled out of bed at 6 a.m., into the car of a determined Amir Spears III, and off they went; spending all day training on the basketball courts of Hartford.
He was a toddler training like a high schooler.
Lang was worried that her young son was missing out on a “normal” childhood, but she always backed his basketball trainer of a father – she knew they had to co-parent in unison, conflicted parenting wouldn’t have worked.
While father and son shared the same name, they also shared the same nickname: Primo.
So Charlai got up early, prepared Little Primo some cereal, sometimes she’d get up extra early and make some hand-cut home fries, seasoned and dunked in the fryer. Pancakes and bacon were often on the menu as well – Little Primo was a big bacon eater.
She told her tired son he could fall asleep in the car on the way and packed two bags, one for him and one for his father, throwing in juice boxes, Gatorades and waters just to make sure they each got through the day. The bags also held some extra clothes, just in case they decided to take a break and went out to eat or something later in the day.
“You give him one of those great breakfasts, he’ll be fine,” Lang said. “That subsequently ended up being the thing, but by 7 (years-old) he was saying, ‘Oh, I’m going to work out,’ ‘Me and my dad are going to shoot around and I like the one-on-one training with him.’ ”
The regiment worked — Spears starred in high school at Northwest Catholic and then Windsor before taking a post-grad year at Mt. Zion Prep in Maryland. He earned a Division I scholarship to Duquesne University, eventually transferring to Georgetown, where he starred last season, then Florida State, where he’ll play as a junior.
It started with one-on-one drills when Little Primo was 3- or 4-years-old. As his son picked up the game and continued to develop with the ball, Big Primo decided to start his own program — HDS (Hard work Determines Success) — which eventually became an AAU program where his son could learn to play with others. By the time he was 10, Little Primo would be up to go to the gym with his dad before school and once school finished he’d return for practice.
They shared the court, working out together regularly, until a competitive game of pickup in 2019 that sent Big Primo to the sideline with a torn Achilles.
“It didn’t hurt like everybody said it does, mine didn’t. So their team starts losing and he looks over at me and says, ‘Dad, come on, tighten the shoe strings up. Come on, let’s get back in the game, let’s beat these dudes,'” Spears III said.
“I am happy that I went out that way. Last time I played competitive, full court basketball was with my best friend. If I could go out any way, that’s the way I want to go out.”
“Primo”
Amir Spears III says he was a late bloomer, though he earned the nickname “Premiere” from a public address announcer when he played at Weaver High in the late 1980s. Everybody called him “Premiere” growing up, which then evolved to “Prem” (pronounced “preem”) and finally became “Primo.”
After Weaver, where he played with the late local legend Mike “Uzi” Williams, who went on to play with fellow Hartford native Marcus Camby at UMass, Spears III walked-on at Auburn — “I was a walk-on, not the big-time scholarship player my son is,” he admitted. The elder Spears was a more successful pro-am player; he was on the team that won the first-ever Greater Hartford Pro-Am Championship in the late ’90s and then he won five more.
Now, a Google search for his name will only dredge up photos and articles about his son.
Amir Spears IV was dubbed “Little Primo” before he was born, “when he was in the womb,” said his father, who sometimes calls him “Prince Primo” in reference to the first name’s Arabic meaning. Amir Spears II, Big Primo’s dad, was a three-sport athlete in college and spent some time with the Green Bay Packers (a Google search for his name garners similar results) so he knew the athletic genes would be there.
“There was a plan for him,” Spears III said.
“In the beginning it was my dream for him to be a D-I athlete but very, very early it started to become his dream. And when it did, you could see his dominance. … Did I know that he would be on the NBA radar at six? Nah, I mean I was praying for it but I didn’t know it. But I did think he could be a Division I athlete at six, seven (years old), a very early age.”
Embracing Primo
Lang dated Spears III for 12 years; they ultimately didn’t work out but the co-parenting team always remained friends. When they were together, Lang would travel around and watch him play in the local pro-am or at other basketball events out of town – everyone called him Primo, except her.
“All his friends, coaches, he was an IT tech for years and they never even called him Amir,” Lang said. “But I wanted to be different and not call him that.”
It took her years to call her son by his inherited nickname, but by the time he was at Sage Park Middle School it might as well have been on his report card — “They didn’t even know his real name,” Lang said. Now, when talking in the group chat often used for live reactions to Primo’s games, or if they’re in the same space and Lang says “Primo,” she can always count on Spears III to comment: “Big or Little?”
To his father’s delight, Amir IV embraced the “Primo” nickname – “This Primo thing was (my dad’s) and I just came and I put my little spice on it, just made it national and wanted to build a legacy for him,” he said.
“I’m blessed that he embraced it,” his father said. “I’m blessed that he’s the type of kid that would let me be so tough on him and set the bar so high at a young age. The work ethic that was instilled in him at a very young age, a lot of kids would fight that and go the other way. But he embraced it and he took it to the next level.”
A hitch in the plan
Little Primo transferred from Northwest Catholic to Windsor High (where he was also a football star) for his junior year after missing his sophomore season due to a gruesome elbow injury he suffered in an all-star game at the historic Gauchos Gym in Harlem.
Two surgeries later, Spears returned to training with his dad until he was cleared for a return to high school ball. He averaged 25.3 points, 9.5 assists and two steals per game as one of the best players in the state his junior year — the season highlighted by a 41-point performance in the Central Connecticut Conference final.
But the plan was in shambles.
“He had no offers. None,” big Primo said.
“It wasn’t great, but the pandemic just made it worse,” Lang said. “We were really just stuck in a position where we didn’t know what to do.”
Told he was special from the day he was born, Little Primo was dejected.
What else could he do to show that he’s able to play at the next level? Why isn’t the phone ringing?
He parents urged him to stay the course. Whatever they needed to do, they would do it like they always had. So, after another strong season as a senior, Spears took a post-grad year at Mt. Zion Prep in Maryland. It was tough to send him away but the family group chat was active, his parents always commenting on games live as if he could respond.
He shined at Mt. Zion, where he was playing a national schedule and re-amped his recruiting. He returned to Windsor High in 2021 to announce his commitment to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, midway through his speech that reflected on his journey, Primo broke down and cried.
Fully adopting Primo now, he led Duquesne in scoring, minutes and assists as a freshman and transferred into the Big East to play for Patrick Ewing at Georgetown the following year, leading the Hoyas in scoring, minutes and assists.
When he re-entered the transfer portal this spring, his phone was ringing like never before.
“From no offers to being one of the most sought-after kids in the country,” his proud father, and trainer, said.
Hearing from schools like Kansas and Oklahoma, Little Primo ultimately chose to play his third college season for Leonard Hamilton at Florida State.
“Ham’s a great guy, one of the legends” he said. “African-American coach as well, I try to stay with coaches that can relate to me and what I’ve been through, where I come from. And playing in the ACC, playing against North Carolina and Duke is a dream of mine. It was a no-brainer when they came and recruited me hard.”
Full circle
The gym at St. Joseph’s University in West Hartford, Jim Calhoun Gymnasium, was full hours before the main attraction arrived last Sunday.
His family and friends filled multiple sections of the bleachers. They hadn’t seen Primo since he moved down to Florida in May – sometimes Lang will pull up his old games when she’s bored, it’s nice to see him having fun on the court with his friends.
“We told everybody to come – ‘Rain, snow, sleet, shine, you’ve got to be there,'” she said.
As his fan section sat and watched the earlier games at the Pro-Am that day, Little Primo and his former high school teammate, Corey McKeithan (a rising senior at Rider University), were getting shots up in a sweaty gym to the side. Big Primo rebounded for them.
“It felt so good to just be back with the court with him. It’s a little different now because I just rebound, they tell me what they want to do,” Big Primo said. “They have all these exotic, organic workouts from these high-level trainers at school so I just rebound and take notes and learn; it’s no longer me teaching him. He’s teaching me stuff now that I go ahead and bring back to kids around Hartford.”
Doing it his way, highly entertaining with his quickness and his ball handling and his space creation, Little Primo scored 38 points on 50% shooting from the field, 5-of-8 from 3-point land. McKeithan scored 39 with seven steals and eight rebounds and they lost in overtime, 107-102.
Big Primo was one of the first to the team’s bench after the game, sitting next to his son’s chair and helping him pack up some of his things. He let the crowd of people have their interactions with his son before they got to share the moment together.
“He’s been working at his craft since he was 3-years-old. He would go to bed with his basketball stuff on so he would be ready in the morning. And yeah, we are super, super close,” Big Primo said, reflecting.
“He’s not just my dad, but he’s my best friend,” the son said. “We kinda have a brotherly relationship outside of the basketball thing so it’s great. He taught me everything I know, and then I put my little spice on it.”
