Lil’ Romeo To Lace ‘Em Up For USC?

LOS ANGELES (April 21, 2007) — Lil’ Romeo says he’s bound for the University of Southern California, where, if all goes according to plan, the teenage hip-hop star would become Romeo Miller, basketball player.

The high-school junior has committed to playing basketball for the Trojans in 2008, Dave Lindsay, a spokesman for Lil’ Romeo’s online label, UrbanDigital Records, said Friday.

USC spokesman Dave Tuttle declined to confirm or deny the report, but said the university hasn’t received a signed letter of intent from the young rapper.

“We can’t comment on any recruits or potential recruits until we have a signed letter. That’s an NCAA rule,” Tuttle said.

Lil’ Romeo, whose full name is Percy Romeo Miller, is currently a guard on his Beverly Hills High School team.

“Basketball has run in the family,” Lindsay said, noting that the rapper’s father, hip-hop mogul Master P, had tryouts with two NBA teams in the 1990s.

“In the future, I want to be an NBA player. That’s my goal,” Lil’ Romeo told The Associated Press in a 2003 interview.

At the time he was 14 and just 5-feet-6 inches tall. He acknowledged then that his goal might go unrealized if he didn’t add another 12 inches of height.

He’s 17 now and 6-feet-1, a little more than halfway toward that goal.