Ryan says he gave serious thought to the Division I free rides he was offered before opting to ask his parents to pay $50,000 a year for him to study marketing and play ball at Yeshiva. By choosing Yeshiva, though, he wasn’t abandoning his dream of being the first Orthodox Jew in the NBA. Rather, he was leaning into it. “I want to show kids like me it could be done,” Ryan says. “I want to be a Jewish sports hero.”