Let's begin with an old cover of Sports Illustrated. The issue date is April 9, 1984. The image is of a Georgetown University basketball star, big-elbowed and bald-headed, dunking over two flailing University of Houston basketball players during the Final.
Photo by John Picker/The Georgetown Voice
Jamorko Pickett (COL ’21) graduates from Georgetown University today as a fine arts major and Big East champion.
“If you would have said that sentence to people five years ago, we can count on one hand how many people would have believed you, and it wouldn’t have taken up the whole hand,” said Emmanuel Kakulu, Pickett’s head coach at Eastern High School.
Indeed, Pickett’s journey was an improbable one. To rise above the adversity he has endured throughout his life speaks to his character and confidence. To take his opportunity at a prestigious academic program with a rich basketball tradition and pay it forward makes him immortal to the community he is rooted in.
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Even then, everyone knew the young Contee was destined for great things. But the student voted most dependable, most intellectual and most likely to succeed knew he’d have to leave the trappings of his neighborhood to live up to those predictions. So, he signed up to become a police cadet in 1989 while he was a senior at Spingarn High School.
“It provided a financial opportunity as a young man growing up in this neighborhood in Carver Terrace, the acting police chief said. I wanted a change of scenery.
Stepping out of a police cruiser, something familiar drew Contee s eye. A memorial, with teddy bears, for someone whose life story came to an abrupt end was set up outside an apartment building.