On Wednesday November 09 2016, Elijah Olaniyi of Newark East Side HS basketball team has officially signed his NCAA NLI “National Letter of Intent” to attend Stony Brook University. Elijah has maintained a 3.0gpa and 1050 SAT score on 2 parts.
Elijah Olaniyi “On behalf of my family and I, I am thanking the East Side Coaches for pushing me and helping me maximize on my potential as a student athlete. East Side has taught me to be resilient in my approach, regardless of the situation. “Even when your back is against the rope, you keep fighting”. That is the mindset that I intend to bring to the family at Stony Brook. Coaches at East Side always do a great job at reminding Elijah that he has long ways to go as his ceiling is very high. Co-Head Coaches Bryant Garvin and Anthony Tavares have many years of knowledge and wisdom embedded in Elijah.
Elijah’s parents moved to Newark when he was 7yrs old. The idea was to find a location where they can raise their 7 children (5 boys & 2 girls) and open up a couple businesses to earn a living. NJ turned out to be a much better cost effective situation. Mr. and Mrs. Olaniyi were able to set up their own Day Care and Construction businesses in efforts to raise their family. All of the children have chosen college as a secondary education source, while the 2 more await a future high school graduation.
Choosing Stony Brook was not as stressful of a process as most basketball college recruiting can be. Regardless of the 10 or more scholarship offers that Elijah had, NJIT and Stony Brook were the only two schools before he attended the “Hoop Group Summer Elite” camp and earned the top 20 all-star game MOP “Most Outstanding Player”. Elijah would use public transportation to travel to a variety of local D1 open gyms in hopes of earning a scholarship; even after a solid April “Live Period” campaign. By time the July period came, Elijah took an “I don’t care about no Coach, no beat writer, no spectators opinion” approach. He literally just went out there and played as hard as he can for himself, Coach Sandy Pyonin, and his Newark East Side family. “After experiencing no success, and success, my mindset is to just maximize on what I can get”. NJIT and Stony Brook both embodied a familiarity with their family structure and genuine perspectives on basketball philosophies.
August 28th 2016, Elijah made his announcement to attend Stony Brook University through online social media sources. School such as Duquesne, St. Bonaventure, NJIT, San Diego, MAAC, and NEC schools were hoping to be in selection process. Coach Jeff Boals of Stony Brook was very excited to hear the news. After following Elijah for an entire 2016 AAU season, researching his character, after the face-to-face, and viewing his academics, Coach Boals knew he wanted Elijah to attend the university and be a member of their basketball family.