Subscribe to the NCSA BlogEarning His Shot to Play College Sports
May 26th, 2009 - byKevin Laue, 6′10″ center out of California is the most recent basketball commit to the Manhattan College. However, Kevin’s recruiting story is far from ordinary. Kevin has managed to put himself in the position to have his college education paid for despite playing basketball with one arm! Despite his disability we was being recruited by several programs until he broke his leg his senior year of high school.
But, Kevin refused to give up and enrolled to basketball at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. While he continued to try to impress college coaches, he ended up catching a big break. The New York Times wrote an article on his recruiting struggle and suddenly the article was being circulated among the basketball community.
After Laue was featured in The New York Times last December, Brother Thomas Scanlan, Manhattan’s president, took the article to Rohrssen and asked him to consider recruiting Laue.
Rohrssen said he thought of the former pitcher Jim Abbott, who played 10 seasons in the major leagues despite having no right hand.
“Years later, here I was in a position to help someone achieve their goal of getting a college scholarship and realize their dreams of playing Division I basketball,” Rohrssen said. “In some way, in doing this, it gives Kevin the opportunity to inspire many others.”
Since December, Laue said he had been contacted by about 100 people with similar disabilities. Some had lost limbs; others were born without them. One couple’s newborn daughter has a condition similar to Laue’s, and her parents told Laue he was a source of hope.
“Now that I’m going into a bigger pond, hopefully I can really touch some people,” Laue said. “If I can help anybody, that’s so great. But I also want to focus on playing ball.”
Kevin’s story illustrates the point that many times legitimate athletes are overlooked for reasons outside of their control. Many times all those athletes need is a little more exposure to find the prefect fit. Kevin’s unique situation allowed him the chance to gain a Division I scholarship.
However, most athletes will not be featured in the New York Times. Its up to them to find ways to pro-actively prove to college coaches that they have what it takes to be a collegiate athlete.
