George Bernard Shaw was wrong this time

Brooklyn-born Imani Jean is a freshman standout tennis performer at Howard University, Washington, D.C.
In fact, she became the second Bison since 2005 to win the illustrious Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Rookie of the Year honor – Brittany Morgan captured it in 2010.
Tennis was – and is everything – for Jean. “My mom was watching Serena (Williams) playing in the U.S.Open,” Jean told the Eagle by phone the other day, “And she enrolled me in a USTA workshop program.”
Almost forgot to mention, Jean was six at the time.
And tennis immediately took over Imani Jean’s life.

“I attended Royal Springs School, an on-line school in California for high school,” she said. “While I trained at the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JCC) in College Park, Md.”

Eventually, she left Fort Greene behind, relocated to Maryland, “For higher, intense training.”

A predominately white sport seemed unusual for a young Black woman from Brooklyn. “I was the first one in my family to play tennis,” she said, “I have two brothers– one younger who is a tennis player and another who plays basketball at Howard University.”

Howard was the choice – for two specific reasons – the HBCU culture – and the chance to play tennis with all Black players.

But as easy for Imani Jean to perform on the tennis is court, well, it was a different kind of challenge enrolling and finding a college.

“I was injured during my high school junior year,” she said. “I wrote letters and sent e-mails to various schools, on my own.”

And for all her previous success, Imani Jean was, gulp, a walk-on at Howard.
No scholarship.

“My first semester,” she said, “I was an Academic scholar. “The second semester I was on scholarship.”

And rightly so.

Imani Jean dominated the competition in her first year as a Bison, collecting Rookie of the Week five times while going 13-3 in singles play, including a perfect 5-0 in conference competition.

She finished the season with a…