Eli Yofan, Fox Chapel Area’s all-time leading boys basketball scorer, continues to make his mark at Miami University as a member of the RedHawks. The rising junior achieved a significant career milestone in May when he was awarded a full athletic scholarship – an especially impressive honor, given that he started his freshman year as a preferred walk-on with no guarantees.
Speaking from the Oxford, Ohio, campus amid eight weeks of team workouts, Eli reflected upon his experience joining his college team. Despite being one of the best boys basketball players in Fox Chapel Area history, he kept his expectations realistic as a college freshman.
“I knew I was going to have to work very hard, and I knew what I was getting into,” Eli says. “As a freshman, it’s a rarity to get much playing time. But I did get to play, and I think I played decently; it wasn’t garbage time. We played at some really high levels. It’s just been nice to see all of my hard work pay off. Every aspect of my whole life has been working toward where I am today, and I’m really happy with where I’m at.”
Unbeknownst to him, Eli ended up playing almost all of his entire freshman year with a broken wrist. Though he has been healed for a while, the injury set him back and required hard work on his part to get into top shape for his sophomore year. While he didn’t play as much as he had as a rookie, he made the best of the situation.
“I knew what my role was, and that was to help get the guys in shape for games,” says Eli, whose leadership skills have always been one of his most important traits.
The words of his Fox Chapel Area coach, Zach Skrinjar, come to mind – “Eli always makes the best of every situation.”
He did, and it paid off.
Reflecting on the Journey
Coach Skrinjar was in his classroom at North Hills Middle School when his phone rang in the spring. Seeing it was his former star, he answered it.
“Eli never calls me, so I took the call,” he says. “He said, ‘I want you to be one of the first to know I got a scholarship.’ His college journey tells a lot about him. He stuck it out and continued to work hard. His competitive drive is just one of the things that makes him special. Eli is a winner. Ninety-nine percent of kids would have looked for excuses or transferred.”
Coach Skrinjar has known Eli since he was in middle school. That’s when his future coach first noticed him at a Fox Chapel Area youth camp.
“I heard a bunch of kids saying Eli had just dunked, so I asked some of them who he was,” the coach recalls. “I kept my eye on him and watched him doing drills, especially because he’s a left-handed player. Then, I introduced myself and talked with him about going to (the high school) open gyms.”
As a high school freshman, his coach didn’t start him on the varsity team for the first few games, although he did get minutes on the court. However, by the third game, Coach Skrinjar knew he needed to start him.
The rest is history.
Throughout his four years on the high school team, Eli and his fellow Foxes recorded many accomplishments.
- He scored 1,600 points.
- He played 100 games, and the team lost just 16, nine of them in his freshman year.
- He averaged 19.3 points and 5.9 rebounds as a senior.
- He was a Post-Gazette Fab 5 selection and the Tribune-Review Male Athlete of the Year.
- The team had four winning seasons during his high school career and went to the playoffs as many times. The team went 27-2 in Eli’s senior year in 2022 and won the WPIAL Class 6A championship for the first time since 1977.
- The Foxes advanced to the PIAA semifinals, dropping a narrow 56-54 decision to Archbishop Wood.
Eli says that his high school days, playing with his longtime friends and winning the WPIAL crown, remain among his top memories.
Winning Mentality
Throughout his high school career, whether playing golf, soccer, basketball, or volleyball, Eli learned what it takes to succeed as an individual and as part of a team.
“No matter if it’s high school or college, if you want to succeed, you need to get to open gyms often and always work as hard as you can,” the finance major says.
“One thing that has really helped is getting into the weight room regularly, something I didn’t do a very good job at in high school,” Eli says. “Since then, I’ve gained 15 to 20 pounds of muscle. Athleticism is important, and the difference between high school and college is astronomical.
Now, going into his junior year at Miami of Ohio, the 6’3″, 190-pound Fox Chapel native has set his sights on another lofty goal.
“I just want to win a MAC championship by the end of it all.”
