Schea Cotton

Vernon Scheavalie "Schea" Cotton (born May 20, 1978) is an American former professional basketball player. He was highly touted as a high school player, when he seemed destined to play professionally in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played 10 years professionally, but never reached the NBA.

Growing up in the Los Angeles area, Cotton was physically mature beyond his years. He gained national exposure before even playing in high school. The interest level in his prep career was arguably as high as any player ever. Due to disputes over his entrance examination scores with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), his college basketball career was delayed for two years. After a lawsuit with the NCAA was settled, Cotton played one season with the Alabama Crimson Tide. He decided to forgo his final two years of college eligibility to enter the 2000 NBA draft, but he went undrafted. Cotton played professionally for 10 years, both domestically as well as in numerous foreign countries. After retiring as a player, he became a basketball coach and trainer for young players.

Early life Vernon Scheavalie Cotton was born in Los Angeles County at Inglewood, California, to Gaynell and James Cotton. After his family moved from San Pedro, California in 1990 due to concerns with gangs, he enrolled at St. Irenaeus Catholic School in Cypress. The school did not have any openings in the seventh grade, so Cotton repeated the sixth grade. His mother denied that he was held back to gain a physical advantage to earn an athletic scholarship. At age 12 and in the sixth grade, he stood and and was captain on a team which included seventh- and eighth-graders. That year, Cotton was featured in the Los Angeles Times. He was able to dunk on alley-oops as a seventh-grader, which was uncommon at the time. Cotton became nationally known before even reaching high school. According to ESPN in 2010, the expectations for him were "as great as any pre-high school aged player ever, even LeBron James." He started the year at St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, where he played four games. Citing a desire to play with teammates from his summer team, he transferred mid-season to Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, where many of them attended. That year, Cotton averaged 20 points and seven rebounds per game, and Mater Dei won the 1994 Southern Section Division I-A championship and advanced to the Southern California regional final. He was profiled in Sports Illustrated, who billed him as one of the nation's top high school players. Youngsters would wait for over a half-hour for his autograph. In 2014, Cal-Hi Sports hailed him as "arguably the most ballyhooed youth player in [California] history."

In his sophomore year, Cotton averaged 24 points and 10 rebounds, leading Mater Dei to a 36–1 record and a state championship, their third in 13 seasons. He was voted All-Southern Section Division I Player of the Year, and was named to the All-Southern Section Division I Team for the second straight year. Cotton also became the first and only sophomore to be named Cal-Hi Sports Division I State Player of the Year, and was honored nationally as a fourth-team Parade All-American. He wore 37 pairs of shoes that year, a new pair for each game courtesy of Nike. According to Cotton, "I basically had a shoe contract in high school, to be honest, without the money." The school received little press coverage, and he had grown weary of the attention he garnered at Mater Dei. Though he played in only 11 games, he was named a first-team Parade All-American. He missed his senior year after undergoing surgery to repair damaged ligaments in his left shoulder. He had suffered the injury over the summer in an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) game against Lamar Odom. Afterwards, some college coaches believed Cotton would jump directly to the NBA. Cotton denied any wrongdoing, and felt he was being targeted by the NCAA.

Blocked from attending UCLA, Cotton enrolled at St. Thomas More, a prep school in Connecticut where players had gone to enhance their academic profile and play in a competitive environment. In parallel, his family sued the NCAA in September 1998; the case was settled four months later. The Cottons said they spent $60,000 battling the NCAA. Although the team struggled, Cotton averaged a team-leading 15.5 points and 4.6 rebounds per game, Playing out of position as an undersized power forward, he did not help to address critics of his perimeter skills. The Orlando Magic invited him to play in the Orlando Summer League, but the team's summer season ended after just one day when Magic player Conrad McRae collapsed and died during practice. Later that summer, Cotton was drafted fourth overall by the Anaheim Roadrunners of the American Basketball Association (ABA), but the team was unable to secure the Honda Center (known then as Arrowhead Pond) as its home arena, and he never played for them. In 2002, the NBA Development League allocated him to the Huntsville Flight. On the first day of practice, he pulled his thigh muscle, and was still unable to play the next day. He was eventually cut. Cotton played for the Los Angeles Clippers in the Summer Pro League in 2003. but he was waived a couple of weeks later.

Nonetheless, Cotton played professionally for 10 years, and picked up several languages over a career that saw him play in seven countries and numerous U.S. leagues. Domestically, he also played in the United States Basketball League and toured with the Harlem Globetrotters. His career also took him overseas to France, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Mexico.

Player profile Entering high school, Cotton's physical maturity provided him the size, speed, and power to dominate his opponents. "He is a kid in a man's body," said Toby Bailey, who faced a freshman Cotton in the Southern Section Division I-A semifinals in 1994. As a sophomore, Cotton was described by the Chicago Tribune as "already a complete player with upper-body strength of a college senior." However, he did not undergo a second growth spurt.