Prep school is Shamari's destination

By Ronnie Gallagher (Salibury Post)

Shamari Spears cupped the ball in one hand, soared toward a defender and crashed home a dunk.

The defender backed off as soon as he saw Spears coming at him.

"I ain't standing there," he said very seriously to his buddies, who were all verbally dogging him. "I can't stop him."

The other Hornets at Salisbury High's open gym shook their heads knowingly. It was simply no challenge for Spears, a 6-foot-5, 235-pound hulk who just finished his sophomore season.

As a matter of fact, there isn't anyone in the Central Carolina Conference who can do anything with the big fella either. No one has forgotten how Spears dropped 55 points on East Davidson. Or the 43 (and 24 rebounds) in a win over first-place Lexington. Or the 46 against Avery County in a 2A playoff game.

"Shamari would probably score 100 on East Davidson next year," said Drew Mathews, who coached Spears at Salisbury the past two seasons. "We could keep Shamari here and be very successful, but he wouldn't be as polished. Shamari needs to play top competition every day."

Mathews won't have to worry about that again. Spears is headed for Blairstown, N.J. to attend Blair Academy, one of the top prep schools in the nation.

In other words, Scooter Sherrill's Rowan County career scoring record is safe.

Had Spears decided to stay at Salisbury and continue to play in the lightweight CCC, he would have surely shattered Sherrill's mark of 2,469 points.

"I hate I won't have the chance to break it," smiled Spears, who passed the 1,000-point mark as a sophomore. "But opportunity is knocking at the door."

And what an opportunity. Blair Academy finished third in the nation last year at 25-4. Luol Deng will be a freshman at Duke this fall and Charlie Villanueva has entered the NBA Draft. The team travels all over the nation.

"We're pretty high profile," says Blair coach Joe Mantegna. "We get about 150 inquiries a year."

What helped Spears get in, Mantegna said, was a North Carolina link.

"Our headmaster is from Charlotte," he said. "We have a number of kids at Blair from North Carolina."

Blair is like most prep schools, isolated from the rest of the world.

"Think about Catawba and then put it between two mountains and you've got Blair," said Mathews. "It's beautiful up there."

"It's books and basketball," Spears said."But that's what I need to get ready for college."

Blair is not a military academy. It has girls on one side of campus and boys on the other. It costs $30,000 a year to attend and students get financial help depending on need. Mantegna says Spears, who isn't even 16 yet, will repeat his sophomore year and be a three-year Blair student.

"I want to stress the fact that we're a very academic school," the coach said."We're not a basketball factory, although they are out there.

"We're looking forward to having Shamari. We'll take care of him."

On the court, Spears will be taking his game outside. Blair has several players in the 6-10, 6-11 range, so he may start as a small forward and ultimately finish his Blair career as a big guard.

"He has a lot of potential," Mantegna added, "but there's a lot of work to do. Shamari's going to be playing against some of the best competition. He won't be able to get away with some of the things he did down there."

What Spears got away with was, well, anything he wanted. He manhandled the CCC to such a degree he was tabbed as one of the top sophomores in the country after scoring a whopping 736 points and averaging 27.3 points per game.

Mathews, who has since moved to New York, said he realized in January that Spears needed more.

"Sometimes, you just have kids who need to be in a different environment," Mathews said. "He has so many distractions here in Salisbury. At Blair Academy, he'll get great study habits and work habits.

"I realize how special Shamari is. I want him to be the best he can be, not just in Rowan County or the state of North Carolina, but in the country."

Spears visited Blair recently and according to new Salisbury coach Bill Lee, "it was an eye-opening experience."

Spears began warming to the idea that he could compete on this level when he found himself involved in a workout with Chicago Bull Jay Williams, formerly of Duke.

"He was coming down on a 3-on-2 drill," Spears remembered as if it were yesterday. "He went by me and I blocked his shot from behind. It felt great knowing I could block somebody's shot who is playing in the NBA."

When Spears arrives in New Jersey later this summer, he'll find himself playing that caliber of potential every single day. The sky's the limit.

"Most of the guys know I'm going," Spears said of his Hornet teammates."I'll miss Salisbury. But it is what's best for me."

Mathews knows there will be some longing for his hometown.

"All good basketball players who go to prep school go through being homesick," he said. "Once they grow up, they realize it's one of the best things that could happen to them."

He also sees Spears sucking it up and performing in the classroom and on the court.

"He'll stay there," Mathews grinned. "That's a long walk home."

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