ATHLETE CHOOSES OWN PATH WHEN FOLLOWING HIS HOOP DREAMS

Before his junior year at Roselle Catholic High School, Simeon Wilcher was presented with a potentially life-altering choice.

- ADAM ZAGORIA

The 6-foot-5 Plainfield native was offered a high-six-figure salary to leave his high school and join the fledgling Overtime Elite league, a semiprofessional basketball league based in Atlanta. Overtime also has an academy that is an accredited institution with certified teachers, which allows the student-athletes to earn high school diplomas — rather than GEDs — and begin taking college-level courses. In the summer of 2021, league officials communicated the offer to Simeon’s father, Sergio.

But the family decided that Simeon — the fourth of five siblings, and the youngest of the four Wilcher boys (he was 17 at the time) — should stay in high school and enjoy a more traditional experience.

“You always got to love the regular high school stuff, like prom, graduation,” Simeon said earlier this season. “All of that is needed, that’s memories that you’ll never be able to get back.”

Sergio Wilcher, who has four sons with his wife Kim, including, C.J., a 6-5 sophomore guard at Nebraska, said at the time of the Overtime offer: “He’s still a child, a 17-year-old junior, and you’re still learning how to navigate life in itself, all the way around. Last year, we weren’t having dating conversations, now it’s a topic of conversation. ... Yes, I do believe my kids are going to play basketball for money, so you have to have a different type of sense of who you are before you go in the world. You have to learn how to say no because you can’t spread yourself too thin. You have people who are trying to professionally get at you and take what you have and take advantage of that situation.”