Imagine being a little girl and attending your favorite player camp and at that camp your favorite player came over to you and told you how good you were and inspired you not to only be a better player but a better leader on the court. That is what exactly happened to Je’Niya Culbreath or as her friends call her Nikki, when Angel McCoughtry came up to her at the basketball camp. Angel told Nikki not to be like her but to be better than her and thats exactly what Nikki has set her goals to become.
An 8th grader and have been ballin’ since she was about age 3 and doing some type of instructional/organized basketball playing since age 5. She is the captain for the #1 ranked Stephenson Jaguars Middle School basketball team and played on several AAU basketball teams such as GA Pistols, GA Bombsquad, Lady Allstars, Hardball Elite, and has played with multiple recreational, church and Summer Leagues that play during the Summer but not compete Nationally for AAU. This young lady has made basketball her life while still staying focused in the classroom. Nikki embraces competition but that is easy to do when you grow up in a family that is full of athletes. She credits her oldest sister to teaching her to play the sport and her other sister as some good constant in house competition as both of those two go at each other on the court hard.
To her teammates Nikki is more than just a combo guard who started out at a pure point but now since she has developed her scoring ability she can float between the two. She is also a very good leader to her teammates. As she would say, them believing in me is great but really me believing in them is a must. That is what our coach preaches, we play for each other, we win together, we lose together.
Already Nikki is making a pretty good name for herself as has received interest letters from North Carolina University and Florida University. As how far she will go on the court, who knows at this point but maybe Angel McCoughtry was right when she told Nikki that being like her shouldn’t be the goal but instead to be better than her is where she should have her dreams set because at this rate that is something that is very possible for Je’Niya
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