Getting a bucket was the least of sophomore Tyheim Monroe’s problems;. Averaging a double-double each game was a little too easy.
Every night, Monroe, the men’s Division III nation’s leading rebounder, would put his pride to the side just for his team to bring home a win. Not realizing it in the moment, Monroe would come out of every game with a double-double averaging at least 10 points and 10 rebounds.
“I just worked hard and did what I could so that my team could win,” Monroe said. Anything else extra wasn’t expected.”
It did not take Monroe long to know basketball was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Starting the sport at the age of six, Monroe was not the biggest or strongest.
“I was the smallest on my high school team so I had to work twice as harder to show my coach I was capable,” Monroe said.
Monroe’s high school coach, coach Brown, had a huge impact on him by seeing his highest potential and giving him the chance to show his true skill.
Growing up in his neighborhood everyone played a sport. Basketball just seemed to stick with him the most.
Now standing at 6’7 feet tall, Monroe is one of the tallest and strongest on the team. When he plays, he plays to dominate.
“I don’t have a pre-game routine I just always pray to God and take it from there,” Monroe said. “I never doubted my game, but I never thought I would go in each game resulting in double digits making a huge impact on my name.”
Attending college and becoming a student-athlete has been nothing easy for the sophomore accounting major.
“Coming to college impacted my life a lot, going to class then practice it’s just stressful sometimes,” Monroe said.
Cabrini College was not necessarily his first choice of schooling. However, Saleem Brown, director of first year experience, introduced Cabrini to Monroe and they built a strong relationship. That then resulted in Monroe taking his first leap in to the real world.
Monroe has two little brothers that look up to him.
“Everything I do, I do for them because I was given chances that they weren’t,” Monroe said. “So I just want to make them proud and show them you can do whatever you put your mind to.”
Monroe hopes to play professional basketball somewhere in his near future but if that does not happen, he plans to stay on the track of finding something in his field, which is accounting.
“There is no life without basketball, because basketball is life,” Monroe said.
It will be a long journey for sophomore Tyheim Monroe. He knows that it will not be an easy journey but he is ready for anything thrown his way.
“Basketball isn’t anything but just heart,” Monroe said. “If you have heart you can do it.”
