Two years later, Peterson transferred to Arkansas, and that didn’t work out as he’d envisioned, either. So now he’s in Florida State’s 10-man rotation, playing out his final season of eligibility while earning his master’s degree in marketing. And finally, things are working out. The Seminoles (15-6, 6-1 ACC) will enter Saturday’s matchup against No. 16 Virginia (18-3, 5-2) having won six straight games and are ranked No. 21 in the country.
“Obviously, that’s not the ideal situation that you want to put yourself in coming out of high school,” said Peterson, the first men’s basketball player to compete for programs in the Big Ten, Southeastern Conference and ACC. “I never thought I’d be at two universities, much less three. But I just tried to make the most out of it. It’s just what my situation is, and I just tried to stay positive and keeping learning.”
Peterson’s travels began even before his college career began. Originally from Springfield, Mo., Peterson and his father moved to Laurel the summer before his freshman year of high school in order to attend DeMatha, the Hyattsville school with a nationally renowned boys’ basketball program.
“On the East Coast, I feel like there’s a little bit better schools — at least not in Missouri, there aren’t any great high schools with that competition,” Peterson said. “And like I said, there was the academics. DeMatha, they were on a roll there.”
John Peterson, Jeff’s father, ran a business that sold mouth guards to colleges, high schools and individuals, Jeff said. According to Jeff, the University of Maryland was one of his father’s clients for a time. During high school, Jeff and his father moved to Lanham and then to Bowie.
Jeff Peterson said he turned down the academic scholarship to Princeton because he wanted to play basketball “at a higher level on a consistent basis.” He was recruited to Iowa by then-coach Steve Alford, but by the time Peterson arrived on campus, Alford had taken over at New Mexico and Todd Lickliter had been hired as Alford’s replacement.
Peterson said he soon discovered that Lickliter ran a style of play that was slower than Alford’s and was not a great fit from him, especially when compared with the up-tempo style he’d been used to at DeMatha. After his sophomore year, he transferred to Arkansas to play for John Pelphrey.
When Pelphrey was fired at the end of last season following an 18-12 campaign, Peterson had another opportunity for a fresh start.
He’d earned an undergraduate degree in marketing at Arkansas and would be eligible to play a final season at another school immediately, provided he begin work in a graduate program.
Peterson said he fielded calls from Virginia Tech, Miami, Purdue, Texas A&M, Boston College and Iowa State. He contemplated returning to Iowa. But he chose Florida State and enrolled in the school’s first-year marketing graduate program. Eventually, Peterson wants to become a sports agent.
For now, though, he averages 17.4 minutes per game off the bench for a squad considered to be one of the ACC’s best once it recovered from a string of early defeats.
The loss to Princeton “was frustrating,” Peterson said, “but it definitely turned into a positive.”
He was talking about one loss in the course of one season. He might as well have been describing the odyssey his collegiate career has become.
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