Humans of NGU : Braylyn Blakely & the love of Basketball
Rondo Thompson, Associate Writer
Junior Braylon Blakely, a native of Laurens, SC ,is a sport-management major with the hopes of one day becoming an athletic director at a big time Division 1 program. Blakely, an avid basketball fan who loves any and everything about the sport, dreamed of playing in college. The ex-hooper says the Lord led him to a different dream that still keeps him involved with the game.
Blakely is an assistant basketball coach at Greer High School where he runs the ninth-grade team. Laughingly, Blakely describes himself as a “washed up hooper with a bad shoulder.” His journey to North Greenville is a little different, since he’s unlike most college students who attend a small school have often had or still have the ambition to attend a large school to get the big school experience.
Upon graduating high school, Blakely was accepted into the University of South Carolina, growing up a Carolina fan. “It was like a dream come true” Blakely said. After attending USC for the first year and half, he decided that the big school atmosphere wasn’t for him.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy USC; the problem was that I enjoyed it too much,” Blakely said.
He talked about how there was always something to do and how it began to take away from his academics. The choice was clear for Blakely. “I felt like North Greenville was the school for me to grow as a person.”
