Unlocking the Door to His Future

Chris Braswell will be all smiles when he enrolls at Georgetown. Discovering a learning disability took him on a detour and delayed his arrival on campus. (By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)
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"He definitely did not want to get tested," Jones said. "It's your pride. You've got a lot of people telling you how great you are, and that you have nothing wrong. Then, somebody is telling you that you're missing something and it's something that you need. For a young man, that's not an easy thing to handle."

Indeed, Braswell resisted efforts to be tested at DeMatha.

"I told them I can't go through it," he said. "I didn't want them to make me stand out."

But Braswell didn't realize that his grades and class work were already conspicuous.

"Some things like reading, I'd read something and then forget it, so I had to read it over," said Braswell. "My teacher would do a math problem on the board in front of the whole class, but I'd need to learn it one-on-one."

Finally, after playing only 11 games his junior season at DeMatha, limited by his poor classroom performance, Braswell gave in. In March 2007, he went to a learning center in Temple Hills to get tested.

"I had nothing to lose," he said.

Said Keith Stevens, who has coached Braswell on the Triple Threat AAU team for four years: "He was scared. Me and Mike [Jones] had to point out that there's a lot of kids with learning disabilities. It's not to say that you're dumb."

Braswell said that the efforts of Jones and Stevens helped. After his learning disability was diagnosed, he said he felt relieved that he could get the necessary help in the classroom when he enrolled at Hargrave last fall.

"What has helped him really blossom is that we're a boarding school," Hargrave Coach Kevin Keatts said. "You may have 10 kids in a class, your assignments are due the next day, you can't go home after school and hang out with your buddies, and that's the kind of attention he needs."

Yet, the uncertainty about his academic future is what kept Braswell from signing his letter-of-intent with Georgetown, and locking up a scholarship slot for next fall. The five-week late-signing period begins Wednesday and he plans to sign next week.

Even if Braswell does not complete his coursework this spring, given his diagnosis, he could spend summer school and the fall semester at Hargrave, and still enroll at Georgetown in time for the second semester.

Either way, Braswell knows he will be scrutinized by the same eyes that have followed him for years.

"It will be tough if I have to continue with high school," Braswell said, "but people don't know what I have to go through. I just wish they'd understand."