East Orange High School (NJ) head coach Rae Oliver spoke with The Knight Report for a question-and-answer about his running back and the newest 2021 Rutgers Football commit Al-Shadee Salaam. Oliver answers everything there is to know about Salaam.

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Richard Schnyderite: From your perspective, what led to Salaam committing to Rutgers and what made the Scarlet Knights the right fit?

Rae Oliver: “First of all Al-Shadee is a soft spoken young man, he learned early to speak whenever spoken to or you have something to off. He has a cousin that played at Iowa (Ihmirr Smith-Marsette) and he is a very local kid, loves New Jersey. It’s interesting that he told to gave a verbal now, because his stock is rising so fast. We’ve had so many people come in and offer in the past week and from what I understand there were more coming, but I’m not sure if they will be now, but he didn’t want to focus on it. He wanted to focus on his craft. He’s a very good student, a pretty fast kid on the track and he’s a really good football player. So I think he felt that with Rutgers being local, his parents could see him more. He wants to be a part of something that is growing. He was telling me that there are schools like Purdue and Minnesota have a lot of kids that produce in their system, but there are not a lot of guys from New Jersey. His think was always coach, if we just kept half of the kids in New Jersey we would be fine. So with that being said, he believes in what coach Schiano has been telling him, he’s been around Rutgers for the past two-three years with Nasir Montgomery and he just felt comfortable with the direction they are going in. If they continue to do what they have to do, I think they got a good one in Salaam. He’s a generational player.”