Two complex emotions tangled together, and the final thought was—how much I want to survive!

Henry Bolton recalled all the bits and pieces of his time studying in the United States, and couldn’t help but give a wry smile... In this era, the most severe period of racial discrimination in America, he actually came to study abroad in the US, and even thought about bypassing the domestic system to break into the American sports industry—wasn’t that just wishful thinking?

Thinking about his own father, who was a shrewd businessman, but when it came to projecting his own youthful dreams onto his son, he was still a bit too naive.

This was Henry Bolton looking at the current situation with the perspective of his “future” memories, because the version of himself from the future, compared to his current self, whether in terms of experience, vision, personality, or social skills... was stronger in every way. So naturally, the one with more knowledge took the lead, since both sets of memories had become part of him, and of course the one who knew “more” would dominate.

Currently, it was 1995, the second semester of senior year. The state high school league had long since ended, even the NCAA games were over, and all the major college basketball teams were chasing after high school prodigies. He was already applying to various colleges.

Last year, in his junior year, he had already passed all kinds of exams and achieved excellent results in academic subjects, so getting into college wasn’t a problem. But the issue in front of him wasn’t that.

Basketball scholarship! That was what he really wanted.

Many years ago, before he even started elementary school, his father, a retired soldier, saw his “potential” and wanted to train him to play basketball. His dad had also been a basketball ace in the army and even tried out for the second team of the Bayi Team, but didn’t make it.

As for his “potential”... it was just being tall, running fast, and jumping high.

But the family’s current situation wasn’t great. If he wanted to attend a private elite school in the US, the tuition fees in the 90s were simply too high for a Chinese family.

So he needed a scholarship!

The just-concluded NCAA 94-95 season’s Division I full basketball scholarship was $13,772. With the current exchange rate of about 8.4 yuan to the dollar, that would save his family a lot of money.

But getting a full Division I basketball scholarship was very hard!

There were only so many Division I schools in the NCAA... not a small number, but compared to the vast number of college students in the US, it was a tiny proportion.

Each NCAA Division I basketball team had 15 full basketball scholarship spots, but a college team wasn’t a professional league team. A team couldn’t have just 15 people. From freshmen to seniors, including starters and bench players, there were at least 30 to 50 people, and at big schools, maybe even over a hundred. Not every game was played by all the starters—there were injuries, last-minute absences, so bench players had to step up. So the scholarships couldn’t just go to those dozen or so players; several or even a dozen full scholarships might be distributed among everyone on the coach’s list. To get a full scholarship as an individual player—while not exactly rare—each college probably only had two or three such players.

Every one of these people was a dazzling star in high school.

For example, the chatty Pierce—even though he was still a chubby kid, his talent was incredible, his skills were all-around, and before even starting college, it felt like he could do everything.

But for Henry Bolton, the biggest headache wasn’t whether he played well in high school—he was already somewhat famous, ranked in the top 30 among all US high schoolers... but the key was, he was Chinese!

Henry Bolton stood up and went to the bathroom to wash his face with cold water. His situation wasn’t good, just as April April Clark had said—he could choose to go straight to college, his SAT scores were great, but the key was money!

After washing his face and drying it, Henry Bolton looked at himself in the mirror...

“With this build, I could make at least 500 bucks a day doing manual labor... Wait, this is the 90s, so at least 50 bucks a day. Tall, strong, and kind of handsome...”

Just as Henry Bolton’s thoughts started to wander, Pierce’s voice came from outside the room: “Alex, your dad’s on the phone...”

……

……

“I know, Dad, I’ll work hard to get a scholarship. I know you said not to worry about money, I know you’ll figure something out, but if I can get it, why not...”

Henry Bolton hung up the phone, thinking about the past two years, and sighed. Although he had the fallback of his family paying for him to attend a Division I college, if he went in that way, his status on the team would definitely not be great! A scholarship represented not just money, but also status on the team!

Seeing Henry Bolton finish his call, Paul Pierce, although he didn’t understand what Henry Bolton said, noticed that his forward partner, high school friend, and most honest roommate was in a bad mood. Pierce patted Henry Bolton on the shoulder: “Come on, want to go practice at school?”

“You go ahead. Auntie said you’re not going to UCLA?”

“That’s right, I’m not. The coach from the University of Kansas invited me.”

“Full scholarship too?”

“Yep, they gave me a full basketball scholarship as well.”

Henry Bolton was really envious!

Seriously, that’s just insane—UCLA, the Bruins! A basketball powerhouse! Just turning them down like that.

And on top of that, he had an invitation from another NCAA powerhouse, the Kansas Jayhawks!