Mini Berry
| No. 29 – Albany Alphas | |
|---|---|
| Position | Forward |
| Species | Mohave Ground Squirrel ( Sciuridae ) |
| Gender | Non-binary |
| Nickname(s) | |
| Ghost's Pepper | |
| Personal information | |
| Phonetic | Mini Berry |
| Born |
February 28, 2005 Lancaster, California |
| Listed height | 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) |
| Listed weight | 242 lb (110 kg) |
| Shoots | Right-handed |
| Career information | |
| School | UFLA |
| FBA draft | 2025 / Round: 1 / Pick: 3rd overall |
| Selected by the Albany Alphas | |
| Pro playing career | 2025–present |
| Career history | |
| 2025 - present | Albany Alphas |
| Contract information | |
| Contract year | 2025 |
| 2026 Salary | $4 million |
| 2027 Salary | $4 million |
| Player Contacts | |
| (IC) Agent | Comma Writer |
| (OOC) Creator | Comma Writer |
| (OOC) Actor | Unknown |
| (OOC) Usage | Ask me before any use |
Biography
"A sense of humor must've driven their parents' decision-making when they were born. Already taking on the last name Berry, the two of them christening their newborn "Mini" was certainly an urban, cosmopolitan, and "hip" choice after coming to Lancaster for work beyond the interior of the Mojave Desert. Yet, at the cusp of the arid landscape that was southern California, there lay much land, and with it, its own tales of freedom, of westerns, of spectacle… and fashioning a country of your own.
Before focusing on basketball as their primary passion in life, Mini would craft a small nation of their own, unknowingly creating what is now often called a micronation, after one of their older cousins with unfettered access to EweTube showed them random videos of people declaring their own small countries. Years down the line, they would discover internet forums that hosted virtual nation roleplay. Despite their parents worrying that they were talking to strangers online, the young teen would pay them no heed—and at least the "video games" they were playing weren't the flashy, twitchy kind, they claimed. For the most part, however, this would remain separate from basketball until the twilight of their time in high school.
When senior year rolled around, for excelling at the sport and propelling their team to various local championships, Mini had already gained accolades… theoretically. While it was true that they had been a starter and had displayed a visible impact for their team, it was where they contributed that was glossed over, which was easy to miss when steals and blocks were the only defensive stats that both showed up on the box score and were flashy enough for classmates to holler about. It didn't help that the bog-standard PE curriculum for basketball beyond the fundamentals was to be the one to score points. The logic didn't seem sound to Mini: if they were bad at shooting at a starter level, shouldn't they focus on what they could do well like hounding the opposing player and yanking the ball away for their teammates to find better use with? If anything, at least their freshman coach understood it well when, after benching them in a crucial tournament game for "not driving to the basket at all when you've had so many shots," their team would choke in terrifying fashion when the other team "somehow" went on a hot streak. The rest became history, although the MVP awards would always go to someone who at least scored in the double digits.
In their last year at said school, however, their team's success and the continued lack of recognition would be the final straw that broke their back. The resulting crashout wasn't one of anger but instead a despondence towards the sport. They didn't self-isolate by any means, to be sure, and they still had quite a posse of friends, but it took a rare specimen to endure years of being ignored despite chipping in the effort for results in the big leagues, much less a teen in high school… and at the time, Mini wasn't made of that stuff, not yet at least. They would give it their all in their final tournament, and while the entire team would add another trophy to the glass cabinet down the main hall, they would never be named for an award. There was always someone who'd gotten more points, more rebounds… better "personality" among the team, even. It was an unintentional cruelty when, a year later, they would discover that they'd just instated a Defensive All-Fur of the Year for the school: a year too late.
Still, by the time they figured it out, they didn't care much for basketball. Having applied for a degree in diplomacy, they would engage much more with their other passion: not just building a micronation of their own—which they'd taken to call the Monarchy of Vactida (which itself is an acronym that stands for "Voluntary Associates and Citizens of a Tree I Discovered and Adore")—but also engaging others with it as the sole constitutional monarch of the nation whose territory was a circle around a small tree in the middle of undeveloped road grids just north of Lancaster. Taking after what they'd learned in various online forums, they'd built up a sizable "population" (read: members of their online group), first starting with just tech-savvy cousins and other relatives, then snowballing into a fully fledged virtual democracy that boasted various parties and platforms, first taken under the guise of putting in extra credit for their university work and then admitting that it was a reasonable excuse to continue their childhood aspiration—an aspiration that now had nearly a thousand people backing it up.
Then, everything changed when, in 2023, Mini participated in an international convention for micronationalists like them, this year located not so far away from nearby Los Angeles. While the event itself would garner minor attention from news outlets, those paying attention to the sports sections on the papers or online journals would be surprised to see otherwise unrelated articles about this strange hobby. Turns out, a perfect storm had brewed: several college classmates attending said convention out of pure curiosity, Mini's parents' having uploaded their high school games on Snoutbook for UFLA scouts to stumble upon years later, and the convention having a basketball exhibition match between heads of state because the organizer was also a fan of the Santa Ana Spectrums—it all culminated in a livestream where spectators would be surprised at how swift and fluid Mini's defensive skills were. Although many things could be excused as this was essentially a pick-up game, the squirrel's publicized display of prowess was the second wind they hadn't known they needed to not only get attention from their own university, but to get encouragement from them to at least try out for the team: after all, they were a three-point threat but often had enough holes for the rest of the FCAA to punch through. Though initially unsure about how to balance collegiate basketball with their own studies, their father gave them the final push: "I did not raise a cookie-cutter kid. You can hang back if you need to since only you know your own limits, but if you pull this off, you'll be proud of yourself of being the next Halley Summers who's also real royalty and can apparently lead elections thousands of citizens can join in. No one else's gotten the opportunity to be you, Mini."
The rest was history. While Mini couldn't improve that much on the offensive end compared to their high school years (not to mention the lack of serious practice for those two years since), it turned out that their defensive game had barely any rust in it. For Mini's junior and senior years, UFLA's roster would become known as The State Highway Robbers as they fought to deny the rest of their conference possession of the ball. While they had no clear consistent stars (not even Mini), Mini's mastery in steals and souring otherwise good shots from the opponent showed the FCAA that what they lacked in star power, they boasted in depth—and Mini was giving everyone, from the 1 to the 15, a chance to shine by simply allowing them to have the ball at all times. Although in both years they would fall short of winning the national championship, Mini helped elevate the UFLA to a new golden age.
This was all while starting up a EweTube project to serve as the "official channel of all Vactida news" which, in practice, was a glorified vlog documenting both the life of their nation with its constituents and the basketball journey they're going through. As senior year waned and prospects of a wide open future lay ahead of them, Mini would create a series of videos visiting as many fellow micronationalists they could in their "capitals," making it a point to play some pick-up ball with either them or their friends on whatever court was convenient. The final entry of the series had a surprise announcement, although many saw it coming with a player of their caliber: Mini Berry would be declaring for the 2025 FBA Draft, not only for all the usual basketball reasons but also for the chances they could get in seeing the world, seeing other creatures. Furthermore, upon internalizing that an FBA player would have to travel a lot, Mini took it as a foundation to pivot the purpose of their country to go beyond fostering a sense of community with other micronationalists: no, Vactida would be a personal beacon of diversity and unity, and should they be drafted, Mini would be representing their mini monarchy in the spirit of "building cordial relations" with everyone and everything they encounter.