Scott signs to Claflin for hoops St. Charles graduate heads to same HBCU school as older brother
While growing up in Woodbridge, Va., Sean Scott and his older brother Carlton Johnson would frequently have their NBA 2K basketball video game battles on Xbox to see who would finish first.
When it came to sports, the same battles occurred, especially in basketball.
Yet no matter what happened, Scott always looked up to his older brother and the two always had each others backs.
Years after the battles, Scott, a St. Charles High School graduate, will now be heading to the same college that his brother graduated from, recently signing his national letter of intent to play basketball at NCAA Division II outfit Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C.
Scott, who watched his brother walk with the Claflin senior class on May 7, said that he went on his official visit that same day of the graduation and was just in love with the school.
With Claflin most notably being his only scholarship offer, according to Scott, the former Spartan felt that it was the perfect fit and is excited to carry on a little family tradition at the HBCU-based university.
“My family is close to the school down there and my brother just graduated and played there, so it was nice knowing that I had people that knew each other and they knew me at the school,” said Scott, who officially had a signing ceremony
at St. Charles on July 27. “It is pretty cool to playing at the same school that my brother played at.”
Scott said that recruiting process was very hard and that several schools were looking at him but just didn’t put an offer on the table.
“It made me work even harder to get into school because nothing is guaranteed,” said the 18-year Scott, who moved to Waldorf when he was in the fourth grade. “Each day I had to work hard on the basketball court, so I’m just thankful to be playing basketball.”
Scott said that on his official visit Claflin already felt like home.
“I met some of the players on the team through my brother and they were cool. They said to me, ‘That is little Carlton.’ Everyone just made it feel very welcoming for me.”
Claflin, which finished 16-13 overall and were 10-8 in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference last season under head coach Ricky Jackson, will be looking for Scott to bring an immediate impact at the guard and wing positions as a true freshman.
“I have been working out all summer and I can’t wait to start the new journey,” who had to report to Claflin on Saturday but left on Friday afternoon.
For Scott, who attended McDonough his first two seasons, the journey was tough at times, but once he arrived at St. Charles under head coach Brett Campbell his overall game groomed even more.
Despite the Spartans only winning six games in his junior season, Scott was leading scorer on the team averaging 14 points per contest, to go along with 5.8 rebounds and 1.3 assists.
In his senior season, Scott embraced the leadership role more and not only was the leading scorer at 11.7 points a game, but helped lead St. Charles to a 15-9 overall mark, more than doubling its wins from a year ago. As a senior, he was named to the All-Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Potomac Division team and was an All-County selection. According to the maxpreps. com, Scott led the state by taking 25 charges his his senior year.
“Sean has done a great job doing what we’ve asked him to do on and off the court, taking the leadership and getting his grades together so that he can enroll himself in school,” Campbell said. “Leading the state in charges is a stat that tells a lot about his willingness to put his body on the line to win. With Claflin they are getting a kid that has a lot of basketball left ahead of him.”
Campbell pointed out that in the two years that he coached Scott he saw a tremendous amount of growth.
“He really worked on his left hand and finishing around the basket. His jump shot is getting better and they are getting a very strong guard that works hard,” Campbell said. “I think he will be doing a lot of good things for Claflin the next four years.”
Scott added, “I will miss the team and individual workouts coach Campbell and [assistant] coach [Brian] Walker, they both pushed me a lot. “If they didn’t say something to me, it was problem. We had that type of relationship. I was just thankful for everything at St. Charles.”