https://www.newsday.com/sports/college/college-basketball/liu-men-s-basketball-1.38151465:
"He wears No. 23. He averaged a team-high 18.9 points last season. All of the 11 Northeast Conference coaches picked him for the preseason all-conference team. And yet none of those numbers tell the real story of Long Island University’s superlative forward Raiquan Clark.
The number that tells the real story? Zero.
That’s the number of Division I scholarship offers Clark received after four years of high school and one at prep school. Yet as the Sharks embark on this season Tuesday at URI, the redshirt senior has a good shot at eclipsing Jamal Olasewere’s school record of 1,871 career points and possibly hitting the 2,000-point mark. He enters the season with 1,404 points."
"Going back to high school, the 6-6 Clark had an unshakable belief that he belonged playing Division I basketball. But the New Haven, Connecticut native got no validation in the form of an offer. Out of options, he began an email campaign.
'I sent emails, to multiple people at every Division I school — head coaches, assistant coaches, [operations] directors,' Clark said. 'I could have gone Division II, but I didn’t want to settle for Division II. I believed I was better than that.'
Through a string of connections, he was introduced to an assistant coach on former LIU-Brooklyn head coach Jack Perri’s staff and was invited for a campus visit where he played in front of the coaching staff. They told him that he could be a 'preferred walk-on.' He didn’t understand the concept of walking on and was more-or-less stunned to learn that he’d have to pay for college that year. His mother, registered nurse Shontay Watts, agreed to pay what financial aid could not. It's the reason to this day that when he takes extra shooting early in the morning 'all I am thinking about is her.'
Clark got inserted into a game early that season. Instead of reveling in making his Division I college debut, he was upset about it. Afterward, he explained to Perri that he wanted to redshirt that season. He believed he would convince them he deserved a scholarship. And convince them he did. He landed a scholarship for the following season and his rags-to-riches story suddenly had momentum."
“'My first look at him I thought he could have been an [Atlantic 10] player for me at UMass,' Kellogg said. 'He didn’t just go from a walk-on to making himself a Division I player. He has made himself into a top scorer and a [conference] Player of the Year candidate.'
'He has a toughness — kind of an inner chip on his shoulder to prove people wrong. And some of it maybe comes from how he was recruited and maybe left behind,' Kellogg added. 'He's out there to prove now that he belongs with those guys that were so-called "ranked ahead of him" coming out of high school.'
'I didn’t think I would be a leading scorer, but I always knew I was going to play Division I,' Clark said. 'Now we know it. It’s about winning championships now.'''
