The Ripple Effect: 2017 Unsigned Senior Austin Nelson
The leading scorer in WNC this season is 6-foot-6, play every position on the floor kid at North Henderson High School. Austin Nelson, was born in the Charlotte area and moved up to the mountains before his freshman season. Since…
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Continue ReadingThe leading scorer in WNC this season is 6-foot-6, play every position on the floor kid at North Henderson High School. Austin Nelson, was born in the Charlotte area and moved up to the mountains before his freshman season. Since he has been here no team or player has quite been able to contain Nelson. He is bigger, stronger, and just better than most of his competition around this area.
I first met Nelson when I was scouting a game at West Charlotte High School. A recruiting friend of mine called me and wanted me to pick him up. On our way out of his apartment complex, he asked me to stop by an apartment near the entrance. This was a single mother with four or five kids living in a very small apartment in Charlotte. One of the kid’s in the apartment was a tall, skinny 7th grader named Austin Nelson.
The rest is history. Nelson and I remained close with text messages and phone calls staying in touch. I would get away from the college basketball recruiting world for almost a year but would still see Austin Nelson’s name in the box score. 20 points one night, 32 the next. He was doing great in the new atmosphere that North Henderson High School gave him. Only one thing…. No offers yet. I knew that this day would come and I would tell him that. I had really in all honesty done nothing more than write a few articles or post a few tweets about Austin. On the other hand, Austin was the one in the gym getting better every chance he had. He was the one traveling back to his hometown of Charlotte to play on the highest stage of AAU basketball with Team United. He put the work in.
Fast-forward to this season with still no offers in hand, Nelson picked up his first from Walters State CC, that offer turned into one from Division Two Millgan College, that offer turned into an offer from Mars Hill College and that offer turned into one from his home-town Johnson C. Smith University.
That last offer coming from Johnson C. Smith turned into what happened today. While on a visit to USC-Upstate in Spartanburg, South Carolina the coaching staff extended Nelson a Division One scholarship to play basketball. His first Division One offer.