Verbals: Corey Grooms

The careers of many young athletes begin when they are old enough to walk,often under pressure from parents and coaches. Millions of kids reach for the dream of super-stardom, but few achieve it. Most children know how expensive college can be and many parents find it nearly impossible to pay for tuition, fees, room and board without a scholarship. Striking a balance between competitive sports and having funis hard for children because their future livelihood depends on how well they do in the game of basketball.

The road from urban-America to a college basketball scholarship is full of many obstacles. The biggest challenge for an athlete is coping with the fact that their chances of getting the athletic scholarship are very slim. For example, according to NCAA statistics, only 10 percent (one in 10) of all African-American male students in Division 1 universities are athletes. In other words, most college-age African-Americans do not receive an athletic scholarship which indicates that 90 percent (nine out of 10) of them used their academic preparation in order to get into college. However, the image in the minds of many people is that African-American males use their physical abilities to go to college. This mis-perception is grounded in the skin color profiles that people observe when they watch big-time revenue producing college sports on television. Read More »

Verbals: Corey Grooms

In the past, many student-athletes have opted to correct their academic situation by enrolling in multiple prep schools as a post grad student or re-classifying themselves/repeating a grade when they transfer to another school. However, the NCAA has implemented a new rule that will change the landscape of college basketball and it affects the class of 2011 and beyond.

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