Charlie Scott

Charles Thomas Scott, also known as Shaheed Abdul-Aleem, (born December 15, 1948) is an American former professional basketball player. He played two seasons in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and eight seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Scott was an Olympic Gold Medalist and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018. Early life Scott was born in New York City and grew up primarily in Harlem, New York. There, his father was a cab driver. A 6'5" (1.96 m) guard/forward, Scott attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City for one year before transferring to Laurinburg Institute in Laurinburg, North Carolina. Scott transferred to Laurinburg which was famous at the time for preparing basketball players for college. Scott said, "It had a well-known basketball program. I knew my family wouldn't be able to afford college, so a scholarship was going to be my ticket." Scott was valedictorian of his high school senior class. He was also a legend at Rucker Park. While in high school, Scott spent one summer at a basketball program at Davidson College with coach Lefty Driesell. Driesell recruited Scott who was accepted for early admission at Davidson. However, Scott also explored Duke University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest University at the suggestion of his coach at Laurinburg. He ultimately accepted the offer to play at UNC because he felt that, as a larger public university, it would be more open to a black player "breaking the color barrier".