When he is not soaring over players for rebounds or dunks, senior center Josh McCarver is doing something only a small number of other student athletes are, raising a child.

McCarver, 21, plays for the Sacramento State men’s basketball team and has a 1-year-old daughter named Kayleigh, who was born to him and then-girlfriend Alyssa.

Kayleigh lives with Alyssa in Galt now because of commitments McCarver has to basketball and his education and because the two are no longer in a relationship.

For McCarver, the drive to see Kayleigh is only 35 minutes from Sacramento, but getting enough free time to do it is the hard part because of his commitments, he said.

McCarver joined the Sac State basketball team and began his career as a Hornet in 2011.

During the season, a typical day for McCarver is waking up, eating, going to class and then to basketball practice and weight lifting.

On a good day, McCarver is lucky to make it back home by 7 p.m., but homework and studying is often waiting for him.

With such little free time, seeing Kayleigh is tough for McCarver during the season, but he said Alyssa always helps him to see her as much as possible.

“I see her whenever I get the opportunity,” McCarver said. “(Alyssa) is really flexible and works with me around basketball and school. She’s really understanding and whenever I have time, I go and pick her up.”

Just like every other sport, traveling is a part of the commitment and McCarver is not always around to pick his daughter up.

With early-morning practices, flights, hotels, study hall and game day, being on the road is just as challenging. Thanks to technology, McCarver is still able to see Kayleigh and even get a gameday speech from her.

“We can get on Skype and FaceTime, so we at least have the face-to-face interaction,” McCarver said. “But it gets hard because I do miss her a lot. I have to give a lot of credit to her mom, Alyssa, for how hard she works, especially when I’m not there to help at all times. I know we aren’t together, but she always makes sure Kayleigh and I bond as much as possible. She even has Kayleigh make videos saying, ‘I luhh yoo daddy, gooluck daddy’ that she sends me on game days.”

McCarver is not the only person on the team who is a father.

His teammate, sophomore guard Kendell Groom Sr., has a 1-year old child, Kendell Groom Jr.

Groom is in the same situation as McCarver as his son Kendell Jr. is back home with his mother in New Haven, Conn.

“At times, I have it kind of hard being so far away from my son,” Groom said. “It hurts, but I know I’m doing something to better his life so I use that to keep me motivated. Everything I do now is for him.”

But Groom is not the only teammate McCarver is close to.

McCarver said he and his teammates are all close and they are his second family.

“The only guys I hang out with on a regular basis are my teammates,” McCarver said. “When I want to do something, when I want to hang out, I’m calling these guys to hang out. This is pretty much my family away from home.”

Being in a family, you share a lot of stories and freshman point guard Dylan Garrity said McCarver does just that.

“Josh always talks about his little girl,” Garrity said. “He always talks about how big she is compared to other little kids her age. Last game (against Northern Arizona University) when all those little kids did the halftime dance, we were watching them during pregame warm up and he told me how his daughter is bigger than those girls even though they are 4 or 5 years old.”

Having such a strong supporting cast has helped McCarver get through things, but he admitted having a child at such a young age has been a challenge for him.

“I was fresh out of high school and thought I knew everything about everything and wound up having a child,” McCarver said. “I love my daughter to death, but if given the choice, I would have preferred to have her when I was a little older and settled.”

When the news of becoming a father set in, McCarver said he realized that he would have to become a responsible adult, immediately.

“Before (Kayleigh’s birth), I would go out a lot more and, admittedly, I was much more immature,” McCarver said. “Having Kayleigh at such a young age really forced me to grow up quickly and change a lot of my childish ways because I was now responsible for the life of another.”

Looking back on the birth of his daughter and everything leading up to it, McCarver said it was a tough road, but when the day came for her to be born, he said he was all smiles.

“When I first found out about Alyssa being pregnant I was really scared,” McCarver said. “But the closer it got, I accepted it more and more and the day she was born became the happiest day of my life.”

McCarver is on track to graduate after the fall semester with a psychology degree.

He said if given the opportunity to play basketball overseas, he would, but if that doesn’t work out, he would look for a job and go through to graduate school.

With the season ending at the end of February, McCarver will finally have a lot more time to interact with his daughter and be a part of her life any way he can.

“Basketball is my passion,” McCarver said. “But my daughter is my life and any opportunity to see her more, I would be a fool not to appreciate it.”

Josh Stanley can be reached at [email protected].