Mitchell Scholar succeeding on and off the court
Sasha Seymore is a Morehead-Cain Scholar who is majoring in economics and global studies. He's also a member of the Carolina varsity basketball team.
University of North Carolina senior Sasha Seymore recently won one of the most prestigious post-graduate scholarships in America, the George J. Mitchell Scholarship, which will support his graduate study in Northern Ireland next September. Yet he fully realizes the reaction he receives from telling people about that honor tends to pale in comparison to telling them his other big news from the fall: making the Carolina varsity basketball team.
Seymore played two years of junior varsity basketball for the Tar Heels. He considered himself more of a soccer player when he arrived in Chapel Hill from New Bern High, but basketball was a way to stay in shape. After his first year of JV hoops, then-coach Jerod Haase sat down with Seymour.
“You’re big enough to play on the varsity,” Haase told him. “You have the grades to play on the varsity. You have the right attitude. You don’t really have the basketball skill set yet, but making the varsity can be a realistic goal for you if you want it to be.”
“When I walked out of that room,” Seymore says, “I wanted to be on the varsity basketball team.”
And when Sasha Seymore wants something to happen, it tends to happen. He’s a Morehead-Cain Scholar who is majoring in economics and global studies. After his freshman year, he teamed with three friends to help start Kicking Across Carolina, and the trio proceeded to dribble soccer balls all the way across the state of North Carolina — Asheville to Morehead City — to demonstrate the power of sports to unite.
He’s visited South Africa (“Where do you go to school?” a native asked him. “The University of North Carolina,” Seymore replied. “Oh, Michael Jordan!” was the response).
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