Working together makes anything possible

Decisions that affect the rest of your life are not easy to make and the twin brother, basketball playing backcourt tandem of Ahmad and Ibraheem Shamseldin are in the midst of deciding what school to attend following their graduation from Lawrence High School.

The sibling guards and Inwood residents, who helped Lawrence to a berth in the Nassau County basketball championship for the first time in 20 years, are at the crossroads about whether to go to a prep school for another year of academic and athletic seasoning or begin their college careers at a two- or four-year school. “I plan on playing basketball at a prep school or a college,” said Ahmad. “I don’t need prep school, but I want the extra year to get my grades up a little bit and build my body up.”

Ibraheem is also mulling the prep school route, but also said a few colleges are interested such as Broome and Herkimer, upstate community colleges, SUNY schools Delhi and Farmingdale, Chaffey College, a two-year school in California, and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Both prefer to remain close to home regarding junior college, but want to go away to a four-year school. “Basically, I just want to get a good four years of education and do as much as I can with basketball,” Ibraheem said.

Both athletic as youngsters, the brothers played all the sports, but began to concentrate heavily on basketball in middle school. They started in organized hoops as fifth graders with the Hard Knox basketball organization that is overseen by another Inwood resident, Nicole Di Iorio. Hoop It Up three-on-three tournaments and travelling to play basketball in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Florida and Texas became part of their lives and they learned from it. “It was a lot of fun, a good experience and lot of memories, it teaches you Ahmad said. “You are seeing something different than the town you live in; different people, different environment,” Ibraheem said.

After having attended Lawrence schools through the ninth grade, the Shamseldins had their own odyssey attending Bishop Ford High School in Brooklyn as sophomores and going to Bayside High School as juniors before returning to Lawrence for their final year of high school.

“I felt if we stayed at Bayside we wouldn’t have done as well, there were a lot of distractions,” Ahmad said. “It’s good to be back home,” Ibraheem said.

Home gives the brothers their foundation. “They do everything they can possibly do, because the community builds you up and it makes who you are,” said Di Iorio, who noted Hard Knox’s involvement in the Inwood 5K Run and the local Relay for Life event that celebrates cancer survivors and remembers those who died of cancer.

“Coach Nicole is not just a basketball coach, she is more like a life coach,” the brothers said. “She talks to us about every issue you can imagine. She teaches use that life is about choices. She is more like our second mother.”

Noting that male role models are lacking in the community, Di Iorio pushes the Shamseldins to give back to the community, including coaching younger players and officiating their games.

“We play basketball with the young kids, we coach them, we ref their games,” said Ahmad, who played with older players at Number Two School as a youngster. “Every generation of older dudes are supposed look out for the younger dudes,” Ibraheem said. “We realize we are the older guys and we have to look out for the younger dudes.”

When the community rallied behind the team during the playoff run that helped them grasp that “anything is possible” as Ibraheem said. Ahmad wants to be a personal trainer and Ibraheem, who recently produced a mixed tape, a musical engineer.

“If everyone puts their heads together and works hard you can do it,” said Ibraheem, as the brothers said the last four words in unison.