High School For Recording Artsits Basketball Player Has Big Dreams

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- He never played a high school basketball game, and his school has a Prince fingerprint.

Aaron Gill came to Minnesota from Indiana. He enrolled in the public charter high school for the recording arts in St. Paul -- a school founded by one of Prince's good friends, David Ellis.

They help encourage kids to explore music and get an education. Gill also has some basketball skill. Maybe enough that could help define his future.

It's practice time for the Grassroots Basketball program -- a place where a mixture of talent and demographics gather, from the suburbs to the inner city.

"Seventy percent of the kids that I draw are inner-city-based kids who come from nothing," Brian Sandifer of Grassroots Basketball said.

Sandifer has got a project this season -- his name is Aaron Gill, and he's never played a high school game. Gill grew up in Indianpaollis, the youngest of five boys. The first four of them have struggled.

"Me looking up to them, and they all became felons," he said of his brothers, who are now in jail.

The key to making it for Gill might not be on the court, but at the High School for Recording Artists -- a public charter school in St Paul where he's under supervision to get his grades in order, with one goal constantly in mind.

"I look at this school as a big opportunity," Gill said. "There are a lot of nice people here, and they dedicate their time to help us a lot."

Sandifer says those nice people are the school's key to success.

"I think the individual attention we have at this school is second to none," he said. "The teachers are so engaged with the kids that they have."

He's been labled a kid with big potential, both on and off the court.

"When we had Aaron in to orientation, I assigned him an advisor -- her name is Tiki -- her first impression was just off the charts," the HSRA's Dan Frey said. "Here's an intelligent young man who's ready to do the work that he needs to do."

He's seen as scholarship material -- even as a Division I player. Sandifer wants to lead him there.

"I've kind of taken him in as a second son, myself," he said. "This is a kid who, at night, some days he didn't know where he was going to sleep. He didn't know where he was going to eat."

At the same time, he's trying to accept another responsibility -- he will soon be a 17-year-old father.

"It ain't the right time for me to have a baby right now," he said. "But I have to deal with that right now, so I accept my responsibilities."

He's interested in music, and the HSRA offers a high-end studio to study.

"From the second I started working with Aaron, you can see that he's humble, he's polite, he's approachable, he's intelligent," Frey said.

If he can figure that out, he can live his other dream -- to get a scholarship, and maybe even beyond.

"I've decided to dedicate my life to basketball," Gill said. "I would like to get a scholarship and be in the League some day, but if that doesn't work out, I'd like to get a scholarship in management and see where that goes."