Shaequan Williams is a seventeen year old high school basketball player. Shaequan is from Lafayette, Louisiana, and lives in a bad part of town surrounded by gang activity and violence. He wants to become a college basketball player but his life gets changed by a car crash on the way to a meeting with a coach from Louisiana State University (LSU). This is Shaequan’s journey.
On the first week of the playoffs for the state championship, Shaequan was playing at his best, scoring thirty points in the first game in front of college scouts. Two days later, Shaequan was invited to meet with the head coach of LSU with his mom. Shaequan’s family is really excited and proud of him. But his friends want him to go attack a rival gang instead of practice for the next game. This is the breaking point for Shaequan when he had to make the hard decision of leaving his friends behind to focus on basketball. This was one of the hardest moments in Shaequan’s journey.
Right now Shaequan is on his way to meet with the basketball coach at LSU in Baton Rouge. Shaequan and his mom are having a tough conversation about how they have to move out of the city they have lived in for all their lives because of the gang activity. They are now driving onto the bridge to get into Baton Rouge and a truck hits Shaequan’s mom’s car. They are being rushed to the hospital by an ambulance. Shaequan and his mom are seriously injured, Shaequan’s mom has brain damage and Shaequan has a broken leg and knee. This will put Shaequan behind on his goal to get the scholarship he was trying to earn.
Almost a year has passed and Shaequan is finally showing progress in recovering but he his having a hard time going back to the basketball court. He is scared but he is going back to the gym after eleven months of recovery. He struggles to make basic shots and he gets really sad because he thinks everything he worked for was taken away from him. The basketball coach comes in and tells Shaequan that he can get to his previous level. Shaequan is then motivated and spends all after school hours in the gym. After two weeks of hard work, Shaequan gets his spot back on the team.
Shaequan’s school went undefeated all season and went to state. The team won the state championship by two points after the game winning three pointer shot by Shaequan. After this, the coach from LSU offered him a full scholarship for basketball. Shaequan Williams went to be a professional basketball player and motivational speaker after four years at LSU.