J.R. Smith Graduates From North Carolina A&T, Fulfilling A Promise Years In The Making
J.R. Smith has accomplished nearly everything a basketball player could hope to achieve. He spent 16 seasons in the NBA, won two championships, played alongside some of the biggest names […] The post J.R. Smith Graduates From North Carolina A&T, Fulfilling A Promise Years In The Making appeared first on Essence.
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“Probably the golf trip with Ray Allen,” Smith told ESSENCE. “I was in the DR doing this trip and I saw Ray running back-and-forth to his computer and I asked him what he was doing, and that kind of tipped the whole thing.”
Returning to the classroom required Smith to confront challenges that had followed him since childhood. Diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia at a young age, academics was a tall order. While he made a career out of hitting difficult shots in packed arenas, college often demanded something different. “To me being a student again,” Smith said when asked what was harder than playing professional basketball. “Being in the NBA and playing in the NBA was something I was born to do and for me academics was something that didn’t come easy to me.”
Over the course of five years, Smith committed himself fully to the experience of college. He worked with tutors multiple times each week, spent long nights completing assignments, and gradually became more comfortable in an environment he once resisted. “For me, it just gives me the opportunity to continuously get better,” he said. “As I got older, I actually wanted to do it more opposed to fighting against it when I was younger.”
The post J.R. Smith Graduates From North Carolina A&T, Fulfilling A Promise Years In The Making appeared first on Essence.
