Rose basketball highlights
FRI.| 4-12-24 | ENTERTAINMENT
Farmer paints his future purple and gold
TUES.| 2-21-23 | SPORTS
Rose senior Ajani Farmer is a part of the 2% of student-athletes that go on to play their sport at a division one (D1) school. Farmer committed to East Carolina University (ECU) for football this past January. Not only is Farmer different from most for being a part of the small percentage of student-athletes to go on to play D1, but he also plays on both sides of the ball: defensive end and offensive tackle.
Farmer spent his freshman and sophomore years at South Central where he started playing varsity football his sophomore year. After his sophomore year, he transferred to Rose for the Athletic department, especially our football coaching staff.
“I didn’t want to play football at first, I just wanted to
Photo by Elliot Flinchbaugh
play baseball, but then I fell in love with football,” Farmer said.
Farmer started playing football and baseball at the age of eight years old. From ages eight to twelve, he played football for Pitt Lightning, a recreational team in Pitt County. He continued to play both sports until middle school when he decided that football was what he wanted to pursue and began to take it more seriously.
He had to begin posting highlight videos to Hudl, a platform for coaches and players to post stats and highlight videos for recruiters to see. He also had to spend his summers at camps to improve his skills, reaching out to coaches on Twitter and have his coaches here at Rose help reach out to colleges.
“The recruitment process was very stressful,” Farmer said.
Farmer received offers from many schools, including North Carolina State University, Livingstone College, Wake Forest University and ECU. Farmer accepted ECU’s offer and officially signed on Feb. 8.
“Just like a dream come true, I’ve always wanted to sign in front of my friends and family,” Farmer said.
Pre-season workouts begin for ECU on June 26. Until then, Farmer will continue lifting and working on fieldwork to stay in shape to be strong mentally and physically for pre-season workouts.
“Your freshman year [in college] is the foundation of everything else,” Farmer said.
Farmer has received lots of advice from former coaches, current coaches, family and friends. He hasn’t taken any of it lightly as he hopes to keep himself accountable to be able to reach his overall goal of being drafted into the National Football League (NFL).
