IT’S A FREEZING Tuesday afternoon in mid-February and a snowstorm has blanketed a good portion of southeast Michigan. So much so that hundreds of schools in the region have canceled classes. Yet, in the southeast outskirts of Ann Arbor, right off US Route 23, a couple of SUVs filled with student athletes are pulling up to an empty parking lot in the back of a building, on the grounds of what’s become known to the high school hoops world as Ypsi Prep Academy—home to the most highly heralded HS recruit in recent years, Emoni Bates.
On a day like today, where school activities are halted by the city, Ypsi Prep perfectly exemplifies the power, flexibility and freedom that doing it their own way has given the Bates family.
Emoni’s dad, Elgin, launched the program this past fall to provide Emoni with better resources and to avoid the limitations and distractions that attending a regular local high school sometimes brings. After two years at Lincoln High in Ypsilanti, MI, Emoni joined his father’s newly founded school.
“The school actually came to mind about, I want to say, around Emoni’s freshman year. Just the thoughts of being able to do something on a national schedule,” Elgin says. “Also, as far as safety reasons, a high talented kid playing lesser competition at times and when your dominance tends to get the best out of your opposition, things start to
