Why did Rukawa join Shohoku?


At the start of the manga, Rukawa was already a legend and contender for "No.
1 High School Ace", but he enrolled at the extremely weak Shohoku, which at
the time only had Akagi as a strong player.

Why did he join such a weak team, when he could have had his pick of great
schools? One might initially think that he would risk being overshadowed in a
strong team, for example by Sendoh if he were to join Ryonan. However, we know
later in the story that he had very lofty ambitions - of even entering the NBA
- and with such a goal, it wouldn't matter if he were the ace of a single team
or not, since he had to outperform all the other aces.

Did Rukawa give any indication why he picked Shohoku in particular? Was it
simply because, as a teenager, he made bad choices? Was there something
special about Shohoku that I missed? Did the ambition come later, as the
character evolved? Or did it make some sense from Rukawa's perspective?




A picture is worth a thousand words...

This is from page 12, chapter 150.

![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SPKv1.jpg)




A picture is worth a thousand words...

This is from page 12, chapter 150.

![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SPKv1.jpg)

