Here's a tale of two athletes: Jence Rhoads and Herb Pope.

Both have been stellar basketball players all their lives. Both received full scholarships to Division I universities. Both will leave behind a legacy as the best to lace up a pair of sneakers at their respective high schools.

Rhoads is on the girls roster for the Ken Durrett Memorial Basketball Classic at Gateway High School this weekend.

Aliquippa's Pope is laying in a hospital bed, recovering from four gunshot wounds.

It's easy to write off what happened to Pope as a blown opportunity on his part, just another thug being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In reality, it goes much deeper than that.

It's not just who you are, but where you are and where you come from that dictates a young athlete's chances of succeeding.

Rhoads grew up in Slippery Rock, a small rural community, with loving parents who had success in athletics.

Pope grew up in Beaver Falls, but never made it to Beaver Falls High School. He never had a stable home life, moved from guardian to guardian, and his father was released from prison last summer.

Rhoads came up through Slippery Rock's system, her father Posey Rhoads being Slippery Rock's boys basketball coach. Her mother, Melinda Rhoads, was a standout basketball player and an Olympic handball player.

She learned from her parents and developed her skills with younger sisters Karly and Kourtney year after year.

Pope went from the Beaver Falls School District to Montrose Academy in Rockville, Md. He attended school at Hopewell for a while before winding up at Aliquippa for the past three seasons.

He lived with foster parents for a while, with his mother for a while, with his grandmother, with his aunt as he bounced from one household to another.

Always tall for his age, he learned basketball as a street kid and got better with the help of various coaches here and there.

A national recruit, Rhoads opted for Vanderbilt University because she likes the area and the competition.

A national recruit, Pope opted for New Mexico State University because Reggie Theus is the coach there and he played wing in the NBAfor 14 years. Pope wants to play wing in the NBAhimself.

At 3 a.m. on a Saturday, Pope engaged in a fight at a party. It's not the first time he'd been in a fight. It's not the first time he was someplace he shouldn't have been.

It was the first time he was shot — twice in the abdomen, once in the thigh, once in the arm.

Pope's basketball future now looks cloudy. Before the shooting, he was considered the 17th best prospect in the country by scout.com.

Rhoads is thankful for her world and to her community for supporting it.

Pope is battling through his world and is praying his community didn't destroy it.

In life, it's where you are at the finish line that counts.

But we sure don't begin from the same starting line.