SCHUYE LaRue is a former ACC Rookie of the year, an All-ACC first team player and was once considered the best young basketballer in the United States.
Unfortunately, nobody remembers that when you’re the grungy, noticeably homeless person asking for a sandwich.
This is the tragic story of former College Basketball sensation Schuye (pronounced “Sky”) LaRue as told by former teammate and WNBA great Chamique Holdsclaw.
It’s only fair that Holdsclaw gets to tell the tale. She was the first person to identify the sandwich-shop loitering tramp as one of the brightest sporting prodigies in recent years.
In August 2012, Holdsclaw revealed on social media the moment she realised the homeless person she’d been trying to avoid was actually the younger teammate she always thought was going to become a superstar.
“I’m in shock now,” she posted on her Facebook account.
“I’m in Logan Circle in D.C. and went to Jimmy John’s for a sandwich. When I arrive there the workers are asking a tall woman to please leave the premises.
“I make eye contact with the woman and she says ‘Chamique, please buy me a sandwich’.
“I proceed to step up and order my tuna sandwich.
“What caught my attention was the woman was taller than me [and’ appeared to be homeless or on serious drugs. As I order, in my head I’m like, ‘I know this woman’.
“Finally it hits me. It’s Schuye LaRue, former UVA basketball star.
“I shout to the guys ‘y’all don’t know who that is huh’. I then tell them that was one of the best basketball players from D.D. She was an amazing athlete.
“They look at me in disbelief. I’m like ‘I’m serious. I used to play pick-up with her and she would give me a run for my money’.”
This was the Facebook post that stunned so many.
Holdsclaw has since revealed of that shocking chance-meeting that she bought her former teammate a sandwich before returning to the 11th floor of her hotel across the road before looking out her window and seeing her old friend lying on the street, apparently asleep.
LaRue was diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychotic disorder and has been homeless for years.
The Washington Post Reports she is one of 7,000 homeless people in Washington and almost certainly the greatest athlete in that group.
Before she was a statistic she was a star.
The star, of the University of Virginia team and Archbishop Carroll High School before that.
As a 19-year-old she had the world at her feet and was expected to complete the final two years of her college career.
Schuye LaRue as pictured in The Washington Post.
Then, not for the last time, she shocked her teammates, by revealing she was leaving the school to play professionally in Italy.
When she returned two years later, finally old enough to play in the WNBA, she was diagnosed with her schizophrenia disorder.
Despite the complications, Schuye’s pure talent saw her selected by the Los Angeles Sparks with pick No. 27 in the 2003 WNBA draft.
“It’s been a very long journey for Schuye and our family,” Barbra LaRue, Schuye’s mum, posted on Holdsclaw’s Facebook post.
“Schuye was diagnosed with Schizophrenia in 2002 when she returned from Italy. It took months to actually get that diagnosis, which was the reason for the sudden decision to go to Italy, and why Debbie Ryan nor myself could understand the change in her behaviour, and Debbie could no longer ‘reach’ her.”
Chamique Holdsclaw is now a mental health ambassador.
It was only the beginning of LaRue’s impossible battle.
In October, 2002, LaRue’s 18-year-old brother was murdered. His body was found inside a car with a gunshot wound to the head.
Barbra LaRue told The Washington Post that that’s when Schuye’s problems really began.
“She described the symptoms as “delusions — audio and visual,” she said.
“She’d be talking to people and it looked as though she was talking to you but she wasn’t.”
Despite moving to Los Angeles to play in the WNBA, LaRue never played a game.
A meltdown after training which was described by teammates as a “Britney Spears moment” was the beginning of the end of her career.
The tragedy really begins after she was sacked by the Spark.
After moving with Family Schuye couldn’t afford her medication. She moved back to Washington and she’s never recovered.
That’s where Holdsclaw found her and some teammates still go to look for her in the hope of seeing their former teammate somewhere hidden underneath the rags and tragedy.
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