Providence Journal · Feb 23, 2019
PC was life-changer for Jamel Thomas
Hide captionPROVIDENCE — Back in the fall of 1994 it was time for Jamel Thomas to make a few recruiting trips.
A broad-shouldered but raw forward at Lincoln High in Brooklyn, Thomas served as a running mate for his cousin Stephon Marbury, the most highly decorated prep player in the country. Marbury was ticketed for Georgia Tech. Thomas’ future was much cloudier.
His first trip was to Rutgers, the big New Jersey state school that was getting ready to join the Big East. A few weeks later he visited Providence College, a small, mostly white school that seemed to be a world away from life in Coney Island.