The NBRPA’s Legends HBCU Scholarship program offers career prep, job placement, and mentoring support to students at historically Black institutions.
The National Basketball Retired Players Association has announced the opening of the application process for its Legends HBCU Scholarship, a scholarship fund and scholars program for undergraduate students attending historically Black colleges and universities across the country. This is the second time the NBRPA has offered the scholarship.
The NBRPA is comprised of former basketball players from the NBA, ABA, WNBA, and Harlem Globetrotters. The organization was founded in 1992 by Dave DeBusschere, Dave Bing, Archie Clark, Dave Cowens, and Oscar Robertson. Currently, Scott Rochelle is president and CEO of the NBRPA.
“We wanted to make sure that whatever we did provided a direct, academic career advancement benefit to the students because everything in the space is very multi-faceted,“ said Rochelle in an interview.
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Students who are rewarded the scholarship will be aided in career preparation and development, job placement, and mentoring both during and after they graduate college. The original class of students to rise through the program were:
- Damon Germaine Bryan Jr. (South Carolina State University)
- Erin Foster (Spelman College)
- Saniya Keeton (Tuskegee University)
- Tyrell Miller-Johnson (Central State University)
- Jayla Imani Thornton (North Carolina A&T University)
“This means the world to be able to give back to the institutions that were created to provide opportunities,” Rochelle said. “We have such a wealth of knowledge and culture in the HBCU space, we have become a mainstream interest in our industry has been amazing. I want to give credit to our members and the players. Our membership has a large population of former HBCU stars, and as time has passed, the ability for HBCU players to reach the professional court has gotten smaller. So it is very important for our players many of them who come from these schools to connect the dots from professional basketball and the HBCUs of which they come.”
The 2022 Legends HBCU Scholarship application opens on Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022 at legendsofbasketball.com/HBCU. Current undergraduates attending HBCUs will have the opportunity to apply until 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday, March 15, 2022.
