Back when he was 17, current Miami Heat megastar Dwyane Wade was just another kid trying to figure it all out … except when he was in the classroom, that is. Because when it came to hitting the books, he did the bare minimum.

“I was kind of student that did just enough to get by,” he confesses on the newest episode of MTV’s “When I Was 17.” “I hated chemistry, and I didn’t get it because I didn’t think I was going to have to use it. I was like, I’m not gonna have to dissect frogs. I don’t even like frogs.”

About the only thing he hated more than frogs, it would seem, was math. And while he was already a burgeoning star on the Harold L. Richards High School basketball team, he struggled hard when it came to stuff like algebra (join the club). But luckily, he came across one teacher who helped change all that. And it didn’t hurt things that she was easy to pay attention to.

“I eventually found a teacher that kind of explained everything to me, in a way that I understood it. So I was like, OK, I need this teacher every year. So I had the same math teacher every year in high school,” he explains. “Her name was Ms. Porrello … she was my all-time favorite teacher because she was easy on the eyes. So, you know, I had a small, little high school crush that kind of made me want to work harder, because I wanted to impress.”

So with his math game on lock, Wade focused on improving his basketball too. And unlike algebra, hoops came pretty easy. After all, when he turned 17, he grew 6 inches, which turned him into the man on the Richards High team. And, really, that hasn’t changed since then.

“When I turned 17, I grew. The year before I was 5′ 8″, and I came back to school and I was 6′ 2″. I always had big hands and big feet, and my father always told me, ‘You’re gonna grow, your time’s gonna come.’ It took a little while, but once it came, it came all at once, and it came at a great time.”