Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
By Tom Archdeacon
After first committing herself to three other colleges and along the way enduring a pair of knee surgeries and a definite blow to her psyche, she has become the poster child of a familiar slogan:
“Wright State – Right School.”
“And with her being Jada Wright, she’s even got the name that fits,” Trina Merriweather, WSU women’s basketball coach, said with a laugh. “That’s kind of cute.”
Although the 6-foot-3 junior has moved into the starting lineup for the 15-5 Raiders – who close the regular season this weekend with 2 p.m. games against Wisconsin Green Bay today and Saturday at the Nutter Center – much of her college journey has been anything but “cute” up to now.
It’s taken her onto some of the more unattractive detours that are all too prevalent in college basketball.
Coming out of Rich East High in Park Forest, Illinois on the south side of Chicago, Wright was recruited by several colleges – including Wright State, which she visited – and chose Rutgers.
When she didn’t meet all the academic requirements there, she was going to be forced to sit out a season, just as Obi Toppin had done at Dayton.
Instead, she chose to hone her books and basketball approach at a junior college, where she could play immediately. And when she joined the Trinity Valley Community College program in Athens, Texas, she was rated the No. 1 center in all of JUCO basketball.
