Photo by Jacqui South. Marcel Boyd, a Howard University recruit, leads Gwynn Park.

Published on: Friday, January 06, 2012

By Brandy L. Simms

At 6-foot-9 inches tall and weighing 230 pounds, Gwynn Park High senior center Marcel Boyd stands out on the hardwood.

Boyd has helped lead the Yellow Jackets to a 4-4 record through the team’s first eight games and has registered four double-doubles in the process.

The graduation of players such as Tion Barnes, Brandon Ford and Daniel Henry has forced Boyd to take more of a leadership role this season.

Described by Gwynn Park head coach Mike Glick as “athletic with a tremendous upside,” Boyd will take his skills to the District of Columbia next season when he suits up for the Howard University Bison.

“Howard’s a great fit because it’s close to home,” said Boyd, who signed with the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference school during the November early signing period.

The Bison are coached by Kevin Nickelberry, a 47-year-old District native who began his coaching career as an assistant at Takoma Park’s Columbia Union College (now Washington Adventist University) in the early 1990s.

Nickelberry held assistant coaching positions at various Division I programs including Charlotte and Clemson but got his big break when Hampton University hired him to be their head coach in 2006. After a three-year stint at Hampton, Nickelberry spent a season coaching the Libyan national team before he was hired by Howard in 2010.

“Coach Nickelberry, he’s a great coach,” Boyd said. “He told me when I come there he’s going to teach me a lot of stuff that I don’t know, he’s going to develop me.”

The Bison roster is littered with Prince George’s County products including Prince Okoroh (Eleanor Roosevelt), Brandon Bailey (Largo) and Ford, Boyd’s former high school teammate.

“I’ve been playing with them guys since tenth grade so it (will be) fun to play with them again,” Boyd said. “That just made the deal even sweeter.”

In the meantime, however, Boyd has his sights set on helping Gwynn Park get back to the state tournament and capturing the Brandywine school’s first Maryland state title since 1988.