Pleasanton’s Laue lands scholarship
One of the fun parts of writing this blog, besides posting priceless photos of T-Pain, is looking at the keyword search terms that lead unsuspecting readers to our site. It’s the little things in life, right? For instance, “tim lincecum,” “mike singletary,” “brian wilson giants divorce,” and “raymond ridder ip match” have all led readers here. And as of today, so, too, has “how long is whale dung.” We wish we could provide a more definitive answer other than to say it’s longer than Kevin Laue’s left forearm. That is, it’s longer than something that doesn’t exist.
Laue, a 19-year-old Pleasanton native whose left arm extends just below the elbow as the result of a birth defect, has accepted a basketball scholarship to play for head coach Barry Rohrssen at Manhattan College. The Jaspers, who finished 16-14 last season, graduated their two leading rebounders, and the 6-foot-11 Laue is one of the players expected to fill that void.
Laue shined at Amador Valley High School, averaging 8 points, 8 rebounds, and 6.5 blocks as a senior, but broke his leg in the final game of his high school career. Rather than accepting an offer from a Division II or Division III school, Laue, who once dreamed of playing for Princeton, enrolled at Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy in hopes of attracting the attention of Division I coaches. But even after averaging nearly 10 points and 5 rebounds in his first season at FUMA, Laue waited for offers that didn’t come.
“I guess I’m a fun player to watch but a risky player to take,” Laue told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on April 22. “That’s what I’ve heard. It’s the most frustrating thing ever. Every single guy I talk to said I’d go to UCLA if I had two arms, every coach I’ve talked to.”
Enter Rohrssen, who put Laue on his recruiting radar after Manhattan president Brother Thomas Scanlan showed him the New York Times’ profile of Laue last December. At Manhattan, Laue, who has previously joked with new teammates that his arm was bitten off by a shark during a surfing accident, will continue to field questions about what he refers to as “the arm thing.” He’ll answer them, on the court, as a Division I athlete.
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By Scott on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 4:01 pm.