[jwinslow]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/c...ck=1&cset=true

Low SAT score forces Alaeze to take detour before Maryland


From Staff Reports
Originally published July 30, 2005


Melvin Alaeze, a highly rated defensive lineman from Randallstown who signed with Maryland in February, failed to meet academic qualifications and will head to a prep school next month.



http://adserver.trb.com/event.ng/Typ...f,bboNjrrKywtl Alaeze, a 6-foot-2, 280-pound defensive end, learned of his predicament shortly after he graduated from high school in late May. He said yesterday that he'd been unable to reach the required score on the SAT. "I'd been working on it and I'd been getting closer to it," he said, "but it didn't work out."

Instead of enrolling at College Park, he's headed to Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va., where former Mount St. Joseph star and current Terrapin Keon Lattimore studied before going to Maryland.

Alaeze will be at Hargrave for one semester before going to a four-year college, "wherever it may be, but probably [at Maryland]."

With Shawne Merriman gone, Alaeze had the chance to help replace the No. 12 overall pick in this spring's NFL draft and play immediately this season. But he is less shaken by the prospect of waiting to start his college career than he was when he first got the news.

"At first, I was upset," he said. "But after that, I wasn't too concerned, because I was still going to go to school."