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Will Religious Beliefs Interfere With High Schooler’s Promising Basketball Career?

Jermaine Lawrence has some serious talent. Only a sophomore at Cardozo High School in Queens, N.Y., Rivals lists him as having basketball scholarship offers from Louisville and Virginia Tech, while his coach, Ron Naclerio, says he hasn’t seen a prospect in New York City with his potential since Lamar Odom. In fact, the only thing that might hold Lawrence’s budding career back is…his religion.

That’s because he belongs to the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which strictly observes the Sabbath between sunset on Friday and sunset on Saturday. For Lawrence, that means no basketball during that time – and missing a significant chunk of games. It also meant being on JV instead of varsity as a freshman – Naclerio admitted that talent-wise, Lawrence should have been on varsity, but he thought it was too soon to push Lawrence and his family on “the religious factors.” But the day of reckoning awaits:

Cardozo is scheduled to face Patterson HS (Baltimore, Md.) in a non-league game on Jan. 15, a Saturday, and Naclerio said the Judges have three other games and scrimmages scheduled on Saturdays.

Naclerio said he has tried his best to schedule games on Sundays, but he knows he’ll have little say come playoff time.

The Cardozo coach added that he’s already heard from a Big East school and Pac-10 program, each of which expressed concerns about Lawrence’s religious obligations and how it might affect their recruiting of him.

So not only is the Sabbath affecting Lawrence’s immediate high school career – it’s also having an effect on his relationships with colleges (though his scholarship offers suggest he’ll be fine on that front). Lawrence’s mother said the situation is “weird” and “uncomfortable” but that in the end, “it will work out.” Lawrence himself, though, seems fine with the idea of playing during Sabbath:

Jermaine said jokingly that his father, Christopher Lawrence, a cross-country truck driver, is more lenient than his mom about basketball on Saturdays. But the youngster is still confident that his mother will change her position.

“Right now, it’s an argument every week,” he said. “But down the road, I think she’ll understand.”

So many sports figures are devoutly religious that it’s surprising (to me, at least) this kind of conflict doesn’t come up more often. In fact, the only other times I can remember conflicts like Lawrence’s arising are with Jewish athletes (ex. Sandy Koufax skipping a World Series start for Yom Kippur)…never with another Seventh Day Adventist.

Certainly, though, I hope Lawrence, who sounds like a tremendous talent, and his family can indeed get it worked out. Replace “football” with “basketball” here, and that’s about the situation Lawrence finds himself in. Hopefully, he won’t have to sacrifice one for another.

[h/t Prep Rally]

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