Prince Ali never thought he’d make it to UCLA.
He started out as just another face in the crowd, playing basketball in a borough loaded with basketball aspirants – the Bronx, New York.
“I was in a neighborhood where all of my friends played basketball. My brothers played basketball, just everybody around me played basketball,” Ali said. “That’s a sport that everybody wanted to be good at: basketball.”
In the beginning, all Ali wanted to do was make a 3-pointer. He’d go to the park, day in and day out, striving for that first swish from long range. He can still remember his first make like it was yesterday.
“I used to always try and make 3s and I would always air ball,” Ali said. “But I would come close. And I finally made it.”
Now, about 13 years later, Ali has made it in a much bigger way. He’s earned a full-ride basketball scholarship to UCLA, and is about to begin his freshman season with the Bruins.
His path wasn’t devoid of obstacles. The Bronx has the highest poverty rate of any county in New York and its adults have a high school graduation rate of less than 70 percent.
“Where I grew up in New York, we’re not supposed to make it out,” Ali told the Sun Sentinel in 2013. “Unless you got a scholarship, you’re not going to college.”
Ali earned his college basketball opportunity by working his way up to higher levels of competition. Starting out in the Bronx, Ali practiced on the playground, but never entered into any recreation leagues or club teams. It wasn’t until ninth grade – when he and his family moved to Florida – that he finally began playing in an organized league.
“I was just playing in the park. You know, I live in New York, I play in the park,” Ali said. “I never thought I’d be at UCLA. … I never thought I’d be a Division I basketball player.”
Yet Ali started to make a strong case for recruitment once he grew into his body during his sophomore year of high school. Almost overnight, he went from touching the backboard to tomahawk dunking.
“That kind of gets eyes on you,” Ali said. “My ninth grade year I averaged six points and then sophomore year I went from six to 21, just like that. So it started bringing a lot of eyes on me locally.”
After his success as a sophomore at Pembroke Pines Charter High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Ali moved onto The Sagemont School in Weston, Florida. It was another chance for him to step up, entering a new school with a rich history in Class 3A Florida basketball. Ali rose to the challenge by embarking on a new strength and conditioning regimen with two personal trainers.
“Prince spent a lot of time working on his game on his own – whether it was in our gym, or at his neighborhood park or at public facilities,” said Sagemont coach Adam Ross. “If he wasn’t sleeping or at school, he was doing something. Whatever it took for him to get to the next level, he felt like he needed to do extra work. And so he was constantly working at it.”
That work came to fruition in the Florida Class 3A state semifinal in 2014. Ali was pitted against one of the top recruits in the 2014 class – shooting guard Grayson Allen from Providence School in Jacksonville, Florida – and he thoroughly outplayed him. Ali finished with 22 points and seven rebounds, while holding Allen to seven points.
“That was the game that really put me on,” Ali said. “I really went in that game with a nothing-to-lose mentality. … There really wasn’t anything to lose for me because (Allen) was a highly touted player in that game.”
Fewer than six months later, Ali committed to play basketball at UCLA, where he’s already drawn comparisons to former UCLA star guard Norman Powell.
“Prince is probably athletically very similar (to Powell),” said UCLA coach Steve Alford. “I think Norman’s a little bit more powerful maybe, but I think Prince will gain that, because Prince, he’s got good weight on him already, he’s 190-plus as a freshman guard so he’s explosive that way.”
As Ali sits in Pauley Pavilion today – with his home courts in the Bronx nearly 3,000 miles away – he says he still can’t believe how far the game of basketball has taken him in such a short time.
“It just happened so fast,” Ali said. “You’d look back a year and you’d know right where you were at. (But) this year, you wouldn’t even think you would be here.”
“Basketball got me to where I’m at today, and I’m grateful for that.”