Name: Mike Zanidean AKA Ghost
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Position: PG
Height: 6’3’’
Biography
Michael Ryan Zanidean was born in Calgary, Alberta. Father Frank Zanidean and mother Sandy Cliff had separated while he was young. He moved around a lot when he was young keeping him very tight with his only 2 sisters, Amy Cliff and Patricia Cliff. He ended up in Coquitlam, British Columbia for a mass majority of his elementary days. In 1996 he moved to Maple Ridge, British Columbia. He grew up with an obsession for playing hockey. In 1998, because of lack of money, Michael did not peruse his hockey dreams. Instead he found a new passion in basketball. He made his grade 8 team and was quickly a starter. Idolizing Jason Williams and Ray Allen He was quickly known for his flare, passing ability and lethal shot. In 2000 he transferred to Westview secondary. He was the leader and captain of his team every year. “When Jay moved out here my life changed man, for real” Michael says about Jeffrey “Blueprint” Farmer. “He would have me runnin suicides and doing push ups if I lost. DUDE even gave me BUNKS!! LIVE ASS BUNKS!! I respect him for it though. If we ever had any beef it was straight to the park. He made me what I am. And that’s how he got his name”
As he grew up he felt that the competion level wasn’t there. He decided to travel out of city to peruse better runs. Playing in all around BC as much as he could and rollin with his long time friends, and adopted family, “the iLL sONS” Michael started to get pretty good at ball and holding down runs everywhere. He soon picked up the nickname “Ghost” for his ability to be a threat at every aspect of the game. “No one could see him”. In March of 2002 he set up a website with a friend of his for his crew. The iLL sONS site dropped and a new street ball legend was born. Ghost was dropping some of the hottest clips the net has seen in a while. Dropping Freestyles, 2 man freestyles with his iLL sONS team mate Stu “No Joke” Ross, and Game clips that left viewers wondering why he wasn’t in a larger crew. The buzz built and Ghost wondered too. In November of 2003 Ghost dropped a Onetime on the website Dime55.com. After the huge buzz he created he spoke with the Ceo’s and they decided it was best for ghost to drop a sequel. After the sequel was released the net went crazy. After thinking and doing what’s best for iLL sONS a week later Ghost dropped his next clip on DIME, his ANNOUNCEMENT CLIP. It was OFFICIAL ghost was the newest member of the Toronto based street ball crew, DIME.
Ghost was featured on the Dime MIXTAPE: “The movement”. He Flew out to his first Dime Event in August of 2004; Toronto HOOP IT UP, where he was then given the position of the DIME LEADER. In September of 2004 ghost moved to Cambridge, Ontario to finish up his last year of high school. After spending 4 months in Cambridge he felt it was more beneficial to move to Toronto where he would be able to play on the Prep School team known as TAPS (Toronto Academy Prep School). Staying in Toronto alone and making the sacrifice of leaving his whole family and friends on the west coast. Ghost says “it’s great to be making moves and letting my actions speak louder than words” when asked about how he felt on the move.
Ghost has been featured in many Hoop it Up tournaments, streetball games across north america, Toronto Trotters games, Power to choose motivational games, and on tour with the hustle up streetball team. The hustle up streetball tour feaures the best streetball players in the world such as: Hotsauce, Springz, i’ll be right back, the professor, high rizer, bad santa, air up there, and many more and1 standouts.
