A teenager who began playing basketball only five years ago is set to play at college level in the United States.

Ciaran Sandy, a former Rochester Math School pupil, has just graduated from a prep school in Connecticut where he was on a $63,000 scholarship to play basketball.

The 6ft 7in 19-year-old will begin playing in division one of the NCAA, the highest level of college basketball in the US.

His mother Nicola, who works at Hundred of Hoo Academy in Main Road, said after just a couple of years playing in Medway and the south east, her son was scouted while they were on holiday.

Ciaran took part in his first basketball session at 14 and went on to play for Kent Crusaders before joining the South East England team at 15.

The pair were visiting Nicola’s parents in New York when a scout spotted Ciaran playing in a park.

“He said, ‘You can’t take him home’. He had just done his GCSEs at the Maths School and was due to go to the basketball academy at The Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury.”

Ciaran took the decision to move to the States at just 16, first going to a private school in Baltimore, Maryland, before studying for a post-graduate year at Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Connecticut, where he was a high achieving student.

Having just returned from the US, Ciaran has used his experience to teach the next generation of student athletes that anything is possible.

He has given talks to pupils at Hundred of Hoo Academy, the school where his mother works as head of pupil engagement and wellbeing, and The Robert Napier School in Gillingham.

Nicola, who lives opposite The Maths School in Maidstone Road, Rochester, said: “He’s just such a nice kid. I would say that even if he wasn’t my son.

“He’s not arrogant or cocky, he just works hard. It has always been me and him all the time.”

Ciaran, who plays the forward position, will soon begin a six-week training programme at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he will start as a student in September.

He has dreams of becoming a pro, but if not, he would like to become a plastic surgeon to help people with rehabilitation.

His mother said: “I am a lone parent and he’s a young black boy; we moved down here from London in 2007.

“He just made use of those opportunities all the way. He never gave up even when it was hard and I asked him if he wanted to go home. He said, ‘No mum, people out here are working for this opportunity and I have got it’.”

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