Summit’s Analeza Edore wins school’s first athletic scholarship, by Nathan Weiser

Summit Academy Charter School senior Analeza Edore is a trailblazer for her school as she is the first student athlete who has received an athletic scholarship to college.

This Nigerian young woman lives in East New York, spent her first three years of high school at Nazareth Regional High School in East Flatbush, and has spent her final year of high school in Red Hook. After much interest from other colleges, she decided to continue her basketball career and academic pursuits at Division 2 Queens College.

On Tuesday, May 1, at Summit Academy, there was a ceremony at the school’s basketball court where Edore, who was wearing a Summit basketball team jacket and a Queens College t-shirt, signed her letter of intent along with her parents at her side. Dytonya Mixson, who is her basketball coach at Summit as well as her AAU coach, was on hand to lead the event.

Others who witnessed this historic event for Summit Academy were Edore’s siblings, other family members, the executive director and principal of Summit, her coach at Nazareth, some of her teachers, students at Summit and many of her teammates on the basketball team.

Everyone was present to witness the senior officially make her future official by signing the papers that made the athletic scholarship binding.

After Mixson said a few words welcoming everyone to this historic event for the Red Hook charter school, Natasha Campbell, the executive director, echoed his sentiments about the importance of this day and talked about how proud she is of Edore. The principal, Cheryl Swift, also shared some words about Edore.

“She is an important part of our school community and this is an important moment,” Campbell said.

Campbell talked about how Summit has had many firsts in their short period of existence. They had their first graduating class in 2016 with above 90 percent of the class going to college. According to Campbell, the second graduating class was the first group to get scholarships to college.

They are now sending their third graduating class to college, and the East New York resident has received a major first for Summit. Campbell is very proud that she is the first to sign with a full athletic scholarship to college.

“The moment is more beautiful because Analeza is my baby,” Campbell said. “She has only been with us for a year, but she stole my heart. She is an extraordinary young lady. She is smart, she is kind and she is wise beyond her time. We are honored to have you as part of our class in 2018, and we expect nothing but the best from you.”

Mixson described how important this achievement is and how they were lucky to have her come to the school.

“It’s a big deal for us,” Mixson said. “We are excited. It couldn’t happen to a better scholar athlete than Analeza Edore. She just wanted a better opportunity in basketball. We were fortunate to have her come to our school.”

During Edore’s only year at Summit, the girls varsity basketball team went to the city wide Final Four, losing to perennial power Murry Bergtraum. She scored 14 points and had 10 rebounds in the semifinals.

According to Mixson, the team was led by Edore, who was the captain. Two years ago, they were a developmental team in the PSAL, and this year advanced all the way to the Final Four, which was a great achievement but somewhat of a disappointment.

“I think the season was good,” Edore added on her senior season. “I feel like we did play as a team but there was always room for more improvement. I think we should have at least made it to the championship game, but we lost in the semifinals.”

She was ecstatic when she found out that she was the first from Summit to receive an athletic scholarship. She enjoys the fact that she is a pioneer.

“I felt great because it feels good to make history and be the first at something,” Edore said. “No matter what it is, it always feels good to be the first. So, I was really excited about that.”

Mixson factored in to her deciding to attend Summit. He has been her AAU coach (competitive travel team) with the Lady X Men since 8th grade and when she decided to transfer out of Nazareth, she wanted to go to a school with a coach she had a great relationship with.

“When I was leaving Nazareth, I was weighing all my options, and I felt like if I am going to switch schools, I need to go with somebody I trust, and I trust my coach, so I picked Summit,” Edore, who has had other members of her family get athletic scholarships, said.

In order to come to Summit each day, she has to make some sacrifices because the school is about an hour from where she lives in East New York, which is at the other side of Brooklyn next to Queens. She takes the bus and then takes the A train and then the G train.

“It sometimes gets annoying when the A train is messed up,” the future Queens College student said. “I listen to a lot of music {during the commute}. I am Nigerian, so I listen to a lot of Nigerian music every day.”

There is only one girl out of the 15 girls on the basketball team who is from Red Hook, and this is because this school offers a combination of what a Catholic school and a public school offers.

The basketball coach believes the draw is that charter schools are “the bridge” between public and catholic since charter schools like Summit give a small class setting like Catholic schools but also are very affordable like public schools. Kids get the best of both worlds because Summit is free like a public school, but it also has a small enrollment.

At Summit, which has 220 students in the high school and 130 in the middle school, Edore was able to develop very much academically and athletically in her one year at the charter school on Huntington Street.

“I feel completely different from my game, the mental aspect, just everything,” Edore said. “I lost weight, my game developed tremendously, and I am more focused. It was a great change for me.”

The 6’0” senior said she enjoyed her transition to her new school since she was able to have more of a connection with the teachers and staff at Summit than she had at Nazareth. A real positive for her about Summit is that she found that teachers actually care by putting time and effort into making their students better people.

She is someone who finds that she is able to adjust in any new situation she finds herself in, and she made a seamless adjustment to this new school. She found that there was always someone she could talk to about anything during her year at Summit.

On the recruiting side, she had many Division One schools interested in her, including St. Peter’s, Delaware State, Wagner and Howard, but they only showed interest without making an offer. Mixson told one of those Division One coaches that if they miss out on Edore that they would regret it.

Her basketball coach thinks Queens College is the best situation for her since they had a lot of interest in her for a long time, their coach came to many games and they will be helpful for her.

“I think that Queens College was really interested in her, and I think they will do their best for her to be successful,” Mixson said about Analeza, who wants to major in business management and administration.

Queens College is getting the total package as she is committed in the classroom and excels on the basketball court.

“When you have a scholar athlete like her, who is fourth in our class in graduating, who has a 3.7 GPA, who has 1,110 on the SAT, and can play the low post, can rebound and can shoot, what more can you ask for?” Mixson said.

Coach Bruce, who coached her during her freshman and sophomore years at Nazareth, was at the signing at Summit and thought it was great coaching her. The team went to the citywide JV championship game and lost to Christ the King when Edore was a freshman.

Coach Bruce was a key factor in her attending Nazarath and he thought back then that she could one day get an athletic scholarship.

Now that she is done with the whole college process it is a stress factor that she doesn’t have to deal with anymore.

“It feels good that everything is done,” Edore said. “I am really happy with my decision and I’m going to have a great season. Now I have just been working every day.” She has been running for about 30 minutes a day and lifting to stay in shape.

Her next step is being part of the Queens College Knights and she wants to help the team make NCAA tournaments like they were accustomed to doing before. The Summit Academy scholar has ambitious goals athletically and academically that she will strive to achieve.

“I want to average the most points on the team as a freshman,” Edore said. “I just want to be a leader as a freshman because I feel like I have really good leadership skills and can push everyone around me to do well. And academically, I am shooting for a 4.0.”

The highlight of her time in Red Hook at Summit was indeed being with her teammates on the basketball team. She wants to be a leader as a freshman next year and her experience this year has given her the ability to do so.

“It taught me how to be a leader first of all because everybody said I had leadership skills, but I was never in a role where I had to be a leader,” Edore, who is taking her talents across the city to Queens, added. “I was a captain this year, so I had to remember that everybody was looking up to me and everybody is going to come to me.”

She had to remember that the younger girls looked up to her, so she tried to put her best foot forward. The power forward/center is blazing a trail for those at this small charter school in Red Hook as six or seven others on her team could follow in her footsteps to receive athletic scholarships.