Boston – No stranger to deprivation, Omar Abdi was 6 years old when his teacher in Somalia punished him for playing soccer by locking him in a dark room overnight, chained by his ankles.
Ahmed Ali also knows a little about suffering. After his family fled Somalia, he spent 14 years in a Kenyan refugee camp, where his mother died of malaria.
As grateful as both are for their free educations at Charlestown High School, they have been in America long enough – Abdi for four years, Ali three – to know that Boston could do better for its student-athletes. Both are elite distance runners, the senior leaders of a team that won the state Division 2 indoor track title in February after capturing the outdoor championship last year.
“It’s hard to be involved in any kind of sports in Boston, because you lack support,’’ said Abdi, who is bound for the University of Arkansas as one of only two student-athletes in the Boston public schools this year to earn full athletic scholarships to Division 1 colleges. The other is English basketball player Parris Massey, who has committed to Sacred Heart.
Ali is headed to Providence College on a full scholarship, half for athletics. Abdi and Ali are members of the National Honor Society, along with teammates Yaovi Jondoh, an immigrant from Togo who plans to attend Holy Cross, and Kamal Riley, a junior who arrived two years ago from Barbados and ranks among the state’s elite sprinters.
The Charlestown runners embody the spirit and determination it takes to succeed as student-athletes in Boston. They are not alone, as coaches in every corner of the city can take pride in helping to keep students in school and motivated to earn their diplomas and head to colleges, the armed forces, or careers in the trades.
While the city’s three exam schools – Boston Latin, Latin Academy, and O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science – send the overwhelming majority of their students to college, interscholastic sports have helped students in every city school maintain the focus needed to succeed in the classroom.
All nine seniors on the Charlestown basketball team are college-bound, including Sha-Lee Flavius (Boston College), Jethro Treenten (Bates), and Jamel Williamson (Salem State). So are the only two seniors at New Mission: Soloman Mastin (Morehouse) and Wilson Montiero (Northeastern).
Two valedictorians at the West Roxbury Education Complex competed in sports: volleyball player Jasmine Hall of Media Communications Technology High, headed to Rochester Institute of Technology, and baseball player Tristan Campbell of Urban Science Academy, who will attend Boston University. O’Bryant valedictorian Edner Paul, a soccer player, is headed to MIT.
Derrick Willis, a South Boston running back, received an athletic scholarship offer from the University of Maine but wants to compete at a higher level and hopes to attract more offers by playing next fall at Dean, said his coach, Sean Guthrie.
Fatmir Shkurti – an Albanian immigrant who never missed a day of practice in his four years on the West Roxbury football, swimming, and volleyball teams – is bound for Syracuse.
High jumper Jermaine Ellis of Snowden International School is headed to Denison on a full scholarship from the Posse Foundation for students with special academic and leadership abilities. Posse also awarded a full ride to East Boston discus thrower Jonathan Avila and 24 other Boston students.
Four student-athletes in the Boston schools received $1,000 annual college scholarships from the Agganis and Yawkey foundations: East Boston’s Anthony Caruso (BU), O’Bryant’s Ticarmel Cherisme (Salem State), Latin Academy’s Ruth Le (Southern Cal), and Latin’s Kara Shaughnessy (BU).
One of the brightest stars in the city is Ricardo Jaquite, a sophomore at Madison Park who arrived last summer from Portugal. Jaquite recently won the triple jump at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in North Carolina, all but guaranteeing he will be eyed by college recruiters.
Of all the student-athletes in Boston headed for higher education – and there are many others – few have come as far together as the Charlestown track stars. The four are all but inseparable. They live in different sections of Roxbury and begin their morning commutes at different stops on the Orange Line, typically timing their departures so they meet on the same train.
A couple of them once escaped together when a gang circled them on the street. Otherwise, the four spend most of their free time at each other’s homes to avoid neighborhood trouble. With their coach, Kristyn Hughes, they have squeezed the most out of their opportunities in the Boston schools.
“Our attitude is, we came all this way to America,’’ Abdi said. “Do we want to give up and be on the streets? Or do we want to be successful in life?’’.
Source: The Boston Globe
By Boh Hohler
Globe Staff
