Gifft Hill School senior Bryan Morton, 18, has his eye on a career as a professional basketball player. His skills were good enough to land him a spot on the St. Thomas All Star team for the 14th annual Sun Stroke All Virgin Islands Basketball Tournament on St. Croix in mid-April. He was one of 11 young men picked to play on the team and the only one from Gifft Hill School.
“I showed him [Rashidi Clenance] the best in me, and it’s the first time anyone got picked from Gifft Hill School,” he said.
He joined Viniqua David as one of only two students from the school to be on the all-star team.
Rashidi Clenance, president of Sun Stroke Promotions, said Morton was a solid point guard who leads his team in scoring.
“He’s also among the league leaders in scoring,” he said.
Morton said after the basketball tournament that it was a good experience and he learned a lot.
He also plays on the Gifft Hill School basketball team. He got started playing at Julius E. Sprauve School, where he studied from grades four through seven. And when he’s not playing on a team, he plays pickup games with his friends on the Gifft Hill School court.
“Basketball zones me out from the rest of the world,” Morton said.
At 5 feet 9 inches tall, he’s hoping to add a bit more height before he finishes growing.
He’s applied to the University of the Virgin Islands, but he’s not sure if college is in his future. That said, he said he’s a good student with math being his best subject.
“You use it in the everyday world. It’s one skill you need,” he said.
Judy Chamberlain, Gifft Hill’s head of school, expects good things from Morton.
“He’s going to be successful because of his quiet determination,” she said.
She added that once anyone has spent any time with the soft-spoken young man, “you know he’s going to make a life for himself and he’s going to be doing good.”
Morton knows that once he puts his mind to something, he can accomplish anything he wants.
For now, basketball and school are his whole life. In addition to his basketball activities, he’s involved in Gifft Hill School’s program that educates people on the perils of sunscreen to the territory’s coral reefs.
“Our class had to come up with an idea,” he said, waiting his turn at the April Earth Day fair to explain the sunscreen issue. Sunscreens without harmful chemicals are available, and that’s one message his group wanted to get out.
If there’s any free time, the Nevis-born young man spends it with his family, mother Angela Morton-Grant, father Elvis Grant, and siblings Yakita Morton, 20, and Ryan Morton, 19.
His mother called her son a good kid.
“He’s caring, helpful, and someone you can trust,” she said.
