Kentucky Found Hidden Gem in Anthony Davis
As a high school freshman Anthony Davis fell a few inches shy of being the tallest player on his basketball team. He was 6-2 but shot up eight inches by his senior year.
That made him a hot commodity in basketball hot-bed Chicago, but in an unlikely place: Perspectives Charter School. It is a contradiction to urban public schools that produce high-caliber players and have a reputation for being crowded or run-down.
Perspectives is modern, down to the architecture of its Joslin campus building that is shaped like an isosceles triangle in the Downtown South Loop area.
But Perspectives, with a high school enrollment of about 200, has no gymnasium and plays in the off-the-radar Blue Division of the Chicago Public League, a place for start-ups and foundering programs that are no match for teams from the powerful Red Division.
From this little-known school, Davis made it to Kentucky, the Final Four and NBA draft charts as the projected No. 1 pick if he chooses to declare. He is just a freshman, but his immediate impact reverberated across the country. He won the Oscar Robertson Trophy as national player of the year and will lead NCAA tournament favorite Kentucky in its national semifinal against rival Louisville on Saturday.
“I thought I would do whatever I had to to help my team win,” Davis said last weekend during the NCAA regional in Atlanta, “but as far as awards rolling in, I didn’t have plans on being this successful in college. I’m just thankful for it.”
Davis has nifty averages of 14.3 points, 10.1 rebounds and 4.6 blocked shots a game and holds the Southeastern Conference season record with 175 blocks, but the president and co-founder of Perspectives, Diana Shulla-Cose, raves about the development of his speaking skills because that is emphasized in the school’s guiding principles, coined A Disciplined Life.
“I asked him once what about (the principles) resonated with him,” she said in an interview this week. “He said, ‘A hard work ethic and accept only quality work.’ He models it to the core.”
While his classmates spent some lunch periods trying yoga, learning how to dance Salsa or picking up tips on how to DJ, Davis, an honor-roll student, was outside, shooting baskets at the school’s portable backboard and rim, the closest thing it has to a sports facility. The backboard is beat up and the net tattered.
“It’s from Anthony dunking on it,” said Perspectives senior Ronald Brown.
They call it Anthony’s hoop.
Davis is a rare find on many fronts. He became a coveted prospect only two years ago, in contrast to other prospects spotted as early as sixth grade by college recruiters and scouting services fixated on youth basketball in search of the next rising star.
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