Middletown, R.I. — Admittedly, it sounds a tough sell, your institution located at 372 Purgatory Rd.

Purgatory? Can’t be. Not this. Not with the ornate architecture and wondrous water views, a surely different take on any old notions of purgatory as a sort of Holiday Inn between upstairs and otherwise.

Put it this way: If purgatory truly rests in the middle, St. George’s School — 372 Purgatory Rd., Middletown, R.I. — redefines it as a heavenly vista with one hell of a view.

Just ask Tayeshawn Cunningham-Pemberton. He pretty much runs the place now. A New London kid, Taye has found his way in the shadows of Newport, amid an academic climate that F. Scott Fitzgerald mentioned in “This Side of Paradise” and has produced poet Ogden Nash, actress Julie Bowen (Modern Family), two John Jacob Astors and Prescott Bush, father (and then grandfather) of two U.S. presidents.

St. George’s basketball team isn’t so bad either, sending recent graduate Tyler Kolek to Marquette and opening doors for Cunningham-Pemberton, whose recruitment list features Lehigh, Iona, High Point, Texas A&M Commerce and others.

“I've probably been watching him play for three, maybe four years collectively, including his time at New London,” said St. George’s coach Dwayne Pina, who played under Al Skinner at Boston College. “And he's a dynamic player. He's got great size, great physical attributes. He's 195 pounds, can score in the paint, make threes, drives the ball. Nice mid-range game. A really mature game with a great physical stature.

“To me, he's a scholarship player. The climate of college basketball, the transfer portal, it hurts kids like Tayeshawn. But wherever he ends up, I personally still believe he's a scholarship level kid. We’ll keep working to get him the exposure he needs.”

Cunningham-Pemberton was faced with Frost’s metaphorical road not taken a few years back. Leave New London High, the place that fosters undying loyalty, for this prep school by the ocean?

“I was playing on an AAU team and everybody was reclassified. All the top players in the country,” Cunningham-Pemberton was saying Wednesday night, after his team played a home game with Milton Academy.

The term “reclassified” alludes to the practice of holding a child back a year in high school or middle school, so he or she would presumably have an edge athletically by being taller, stronger or more skilled than his or her peer group.

“I (was) 14. Everybody else was 16. So I was already two years behind,” Cunningham-Pemberton said. “We had a practice here at St. George’s one day and I’d already been thinking about reclassification. My grades were good. We took a tour and I talked to my parents. Sophomore year came (2019) and that’s when (Pina) started recruiting me. I applied. I mean, why would anybody not want to go here?”

Except that old thing about the best laid plans …

“I didn't get in the first year,” Cunningham-Pemberton said. “So I went back to New London and now there’s the COVID year, junior year. Literally we played 10 games. Then I applied again. I didn't fit anywhere else. And I got in.”

He’s not kidding. He’s IN. The basketball thing, as Pina said, will work in any of the aforementioned places. But Cunningham-Pemberton’s academic acumen and the friends/contacts he’s made will last his lifetime.

“The schoolwork is pretty hard,” he said. “But once you figure it out, you can transition. Coming from New London, it was definitely hard. The work there doesn't compare to here. The workload here is different because you're here every day. There are expectations. This is a prestigious school known for its academics.”

To reiterate: There is a palpable tug to the green and gold. Especially when Cunningham-Pemberton’s dad, Lydell, is a behavioral specialist at the high school and an assistant football coach. And it’s not like Whaler basketball hasn’t produced Tyson Wheeler, Kris Dunn … you get the idea.

But then, well, Pina was in a great place, too, in the Ivies as an assistant to Mike Martin at Brown. He saw what Cunningham-Pemberton did.

“I wanted to be a head coach,” Pina said. “I came on campus, and I was like, ‘why would someone not want to come here and play basketball?’”

Cunningham-Pemberton: “It was a pretty hard decision to leave New London. I was thinking about it for a while. Leaving my family and friends, not able to see them every day. I really don't see them at all. But as soon as I came the first day, everybody was together. I’ve never felt out of place. There's so many things going on.”

Like this little nugget: The St. George’s boys’ team played its game Wednesday after the girls’ game. Before the boys’ game began, members of the Milton Academy girls’ team sought their coach in the bleachers.

“Coach,” one of the kids said, “before the boys’ game begins can we go watch the sunset on the water?”

The sunset on the water.

Roaming the same grounds as Ogden Nash.

Division I basketball soon.

Taye has found his way.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro