Cotton Finally Decides to Enroll in Prep School

Ending his freshman year at UCLA before it began, Schea Cotton has enrolled at St. Thomas More, a prep school in Oakdale, Conn., Cotton said Monday.

Cotton, declared academically ineligible by the NCAA only six days before the start of classes at UCLA, said attending the prep school in a postgraduate program allows him to get back to playing basketball after almost two years away from organized play.

“The NCAA won’t allow me to go to UCLA, and I want to go to school and play basketball,” Cotton said from Connecticut. “I only played 11 games my junior year [in high school] and I didn’t play in my senior year.

“I don’t want to leave home, but I want to play. This will be a growing up period for me.”

Cotton’s Scholastic Assessment Test score was invalidated by the NCAA Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse after it ruled that he improperly received special accommodations during each of the three times he took the test.

His mother, Gaynell, said that Schea hopes to take the SAT again, and still wants to attend UCLA. Gaynell Cotton said she wasn’t sure when he would take the test again.

“He didn’t want to go away, but the NCAA didn’t give us many options,” Gaynell Cotton said. “He didn’t want to go to a [community college], so this was really all we could do.”

Cotton said he will begin classes Wednesday and will attend the school until May 8.

Tuition at St. Thomas More, the temporary landing place of many academically struggling players who have gone on to Division I schools, is about $17,000. Gaynell Cotton said that they expect to pay part of the tuition and added that they are hoping to receive some financial aid.