WHEN GRANT ELLIS was a freshman playing for the Iona Gaels, he had to fight for his spot. He didn’t have time for any potential distractions. Romantic relationships didn’t cross his mind.

He was focused on one thing: basketball.

Fast forward to 2025 and Ellis, with his basketball career long behind him, is starring in Season 29 of “The Bachelor.”

Ellis was called back to reality TV after being a contestant on “The Bachelorette” in 2024. The former hooper was one of the final five contestants on the show before being sent home just before hometown dates.

Now? He’s serving as the titular figure on a show that began with 25 women vying for his heart. On Mar. 31, fans will watch as he chooses between the final two contestants.

Basketball paid for Ellis’ education and carried him through an extensive career that included playing for top high school programs, Division-I in college and professionally overseas. But his singular focus on the game didn’t come without sacrifice.

“I always was training, training, training,” Ellis told ESPN. “And I thought I saw it as my way out. So I didn’t put a lot of emphasis on my relationships. I lived, ate and breathed basketball growing up. So I didn’t really have relationships like that.”

ELLIS GREW UP in Newark, New Jersey, where he discovered his love for basketball. His father, Robert Ellis, introduced him to the game at eight years old.

“My dad was the one who used to take me to Jersey City and Newark and drop me off at the park and like, have me play against the older kids. And he was the one that would be at the games arguing with the other dads,” Ellis said. “He was the one that was the basketball guy. My mom was just supportive in anything I did.”

In Ellis’ early years of playing basketball, his family went through a tumultuous time. His father struggled with a drug addiction and had multiple criminal convictions. It disrupted the environment of the Ellis family. In the first episode of “The Bachelor,” Ellis shared that his parents frequently argued, leading him to turn to basketball as an escape from his family’s tension.

“Growing up, I had a lot of issues in my family. My father had a little bit of a troubled past. So, in order for me to get away from the influences that came in the outside world, I would play basketball,” Ellis told ESPN.

The sport not only provided him with an escape from his challenges at home, but also it became a shield from the negative influences around him.

“A lot of times coming up, I was protected because I could hoop,” Ellis said. “It was a thing where I would go outside and people would be doing stuff and they’d be like ‘Nah, he’s a ball player,’ or ‘he’s a hooper.’ So it was a good way for me to really stay focused and prioritize my wellbeing.

“Starting from when I was in elementary school to grammar school, to middle school to high school, I always used basketball to escape my issues and my problems. And I feel like it’s a really good outlet.”

STANDING AT 6-FOOT-5, Ellis was a combo guard at Hudson Catholic High School in Jersey City, New Jersey.

“I was pretty aggressive on the court but I was the type of guy that did the things that needed to get done to win,” Ellis said. “I was a winner. And I always played for the top programs in the state.”

A two-star recruit where he was ranked the 135th small forward nationwide, 127th in the region and the 20th best player in New Jersey, Ellis received interest from College of Charleston, Manhattan Jaspers, Florida Atlantic Owls, Fairleigh Dickinson Knights and Iona. Iona and Manhattan were the only schools that offered him a scholarship.

In Sept. 2011, Ellis verbally committed to Iona, becoming the first Hudson Catholic basketball player in two seasons to earn a Division I scholarship. The Gaels had just finished the 2011-12 season with a 25-8 record and earned a No. 14 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Ellis spent two seasons at Iona, earning a trip to the 2013 NCAA tournament, where the then-15 seed Gaels fell to the No. 2 seed Ohio State Buckeyes in the second round of the West Regional.

He then transferred to the Southern Jaguars for the 2015-16 season but was forced to sit out due to the NCAA transfer rule.

At the start of the 2016 spring semester, Ellis made another move-this time to Division III Albertus Magnus College. He instantly stood out by averaging over 12 points per game his first season. Ellis was named second-team All-GNAC in 2016-17 where he was the second-leading scorer, averaging 19.1 points per game.

After college, Ellis began his professional basketball career overseas, playing in the Dominican Republic for four and a half years.

In his fourth year abroad, Ellis’ life took an unexpected turn when he suffered an injury that required surgery on his shooting arm.

“I’m not going to say [the injury] derailed my career, but it made me think about the reality of playing professional basketball overseas and how unstable it could be for the player who’s not a superstar on his team, and I started really getting into finance,” Ellis told ESPN.

“Your whole identity, being basketball and then it be taken from you is one of the hardest things to go through because you don’t know, you have to build yourself up.”

FINDING HIMSELF AT a crossroads professionally, Ellis moved to Houston to be closer to his grandmother who suffered from Parkinson’s disease.

During that time, Ellis was single and focused on his career. That is, until his mom took matters into her own hands.

“I think she just got tired of her friends asking about me,” Ellis said. “I’d visit her at work, and some of the ladies there would ask about me. And then she saw the “Golden Bachelor,” and that’s why she signed me up.”

The rest is history.

In his preparation for being “The Bachelor,” Ellis realized the lessons he learned on the court could translate to his romantic endeavors.

“The biggest thing [basketball] taught me in my life and being a bachelor is the art of resilience. I think that’s the main thing that basketball taught me — and work ethic.

“Being a Bachelor, it takes a lot of resilience,” Ellis said. “You have to go through a lot. It’s a love story, but it’s also reality TV, where you get harshly criticized.”

Ellis took another habit from his basketball toolkit into his reality TV turn: watching film. He approached the season with the same care as his games, rewatching episodes back like a film session to find what he could’ve done better.

Though Ellis doesn’t lace his sneakers up on the hardwood professionally anymore, he still sticks around the game by playing with the Seton Hall Pirates over the summer, maintaining his competitive mentality.

“I’m a little older now. I can’t jump as high, but I still got the jump shot and I’m still really competitive,” Ellis said.

Currently, Ellis is valuing the importance of balance by making time to not only experience love, but also life.

“I pushed away a lot of things that I could have been doing because my mentality was like ‘When I make it, that’s when I’ll have fun,'” Ellis said. “But you gotta have the balance of work and life, because if not, you’re gonna be 40 years old and life is gonna pass you by.”