360 pound, 8th grader Caleb Swanigan was living on the streets, going school to school, and was struggling to find a healthy meal. Through out his life, he struggled with eating problems. He couldn’t count on his mother or father’s support, but no matter what food was always there to comfort him. His   In 2012, he told his brother that he wanted didn’t want to follow in his  fathers footsteps. He pushed him self to get off the streets and lose the weight. His father being a crack addict and mother living on food stamps, he had no one to look up to besides his brother. He watched his brother work hard to gain a scholarship to Ole Miss. Sadly his brother was  shot and was not able to further his basketball career. After that incident, his brother was not able to help Swanigan to lose the weight and to be better player, so he picked up the phone and called Roosevelt Barnes his high school AAU coach. Mr. Barnes, a successful sports agent, adopted him and moved him to Fort Wayne, Indiana. While living with Barnes, Swanigan was pushed to eat healthy and to work out. He attended Homestead High school for only three years. He averaged 22.6 PPG and 13.7 RPG at Homestead High School, leading the Fort Wayne school to its first state title in school history in 2015. He can be seen as Purdue’s most-decorated recruit in school history, Swanigan was ranked No. 9 in the ESPN Top 100 for the Class of 2015. Was also ranked the third nationally at his position and was named Indiana’s Mr. Basketball. He originally committed to Michigan State, but then changed his mind and went to the University of Purdue. Swanigan would have had to play the center at Michigan State, but at Purdue they had two 7 foot centers and he would be allowed to play the 4. That was a breaking point for him because that is the position he would play in the NBA. He made the correct choice of attending Purdue. As a Sophomore, he is leading the country in rebounding and double doubles. There have been 11 times that a player has had 20 points and 20 rebounds this year, Caleb has 4 of those 11. He is on track to win the Wooden award (player of the year). After everything he has been through, he deserves everything that is coming his way. He will enter the draft after this season and for go his junior and senior season. Playing in the NBA has been a dream of his since he was a kid. He finally gets the opportunity to fulfill his life long goal. From poverty to prosper, Swanigan’s Story is truly inspirational.

For more information check out this espn article:

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/18523734/purdue-caleb-swanigan-overcoming-obesity-homelessness-become-big-nba-prospect