It’s mid-afternoon in a quiet neighborhood in Gary, Ind. Only a few cars line this one-way street. The homeowners, busy at their 9-to-5s. Their children are seated at desks at one of the 19 city schools or five charters.
This is the time of day when Polk Street seems like a deserted block, but activity buzzes inside one home.
After rummaging through his bedroom, 17-year-old Rondell Gardner returns and spreads his most coveted keepsakes on a glass table. They are letters, lots of them. Letters from in-state basketball coaches who could use a 6-foot-6 power forward like him on their team. These are coaches who like his toughness and heart and his 10-rebound-per-game average.
“They just send letters sometimes,” Gardner says without a hint of boasting. “Assistant coaches come to the games.”
Gardner, a senior at Roosevelt Career and Technical High School — a school located in the heart of a city that’s on life support — has a way out of Gary. To him, it’s an orange leather ball. Ancilla College (Indiana) has offered a scholarship; Indiana University Northwest has him on its radar; and Northern Michigan has expressed an interest.
Gardner has what these coaches want. However, much like the rest of his Roosevelt Panther basketball teammates, Gardner may not have what he needs to accept their scholarships — and that’s the academic foundation from high school to succeed in college.
Gardner, the oldest of Lisa Heath’s four children, now pulls a 2.0 grade point average but there was a time when he could not get the grades to even step on a basketball court as an eligible player. Gardner has been enrolled at two schools during the past three years; he found trouble too often and was classified with “anger management.” Roosevelt became his only option as well as his greatest challenge.
