8th-Grader Shoots, Scores With Essay

With an assist from eighth-grader Beatrice Silva, Los Angeles Clippers center Michael Olowokandi on Tuesday illustrated the importance of staying in school for students at St. Didacus Catholic School.

Olowokandi is the spokesman for the team’s 8-year-old Stay in School program. Beatrice is one of this year’s essay contest grand prize winners.

Grand prize recipients--one elementary and one middle school student--wrote essays explaining the importance of staying in school and drew a picture to accompany it. Beatrice and her elementary school counterpart will be recognized as honorary ball boy or ball girl and student of the game at an upcoming Clippers home game.

Classmates cheered and stomped when the 7-foot, 291-pound Olowokandi introduced the barely 5-foot girl to read her award-winning essay.

“With an education I can do anything I want to do, but without an education I will probably go nowhere,” she wrote.

Her goals include a rewarding career and enough money “so that I can have everything I need plus the chance to give to [those] in need.” Beatrice also wants to be a positive role model for her younger siblings.

“I am the oldest of five and my little brothers and sisters are always looking up to me,” she wrote. “I have to be careful all the time because they want to do everything I do and I have to set a good example.”

Olowokandi, who is 25 and in his third season in the NBA and with the Clippers, said he spends much of his time doing the same. Speaking to kids and working with the Stay in School program are just natural extensions of his home life, he said.

“I’m always urging my younger siblings to get an education,” he said. “It’s just something I do every day.”