His best delivery of the summer, however, had to be his recent performance on the ACT — the American College Test. You might say that Scooter, the budding florist, rose to the occasion. He turned in a test score strong enough to qualify him to play basketball as a freshman at N.C. State University.

Sherrill got the good news from Wolfpack coach Herb Sendek on Wednesday morning. Sendek came by McCallum’s in person to give Sherrill the word.

“My boss at the florist said it was the biggest smile he’s seen in five years,” said Sherrill.

Sherrill didn’t specify if the smile belonged to him — or the usually stoic Sendek.

Probably both.

Sherrill, a McDonald’s All-American is the prize recruit among Sendek’s incoming freshmen and for obvious reasons the coach was delirious when Sherrill obtained a qualifying test score.

For Sherrill there is both elation and relief — feelings shared by West coach Mike Gurley, Sherrill’s family, teammates and supporters of West and the Wolfpack.

“It really is a big weight off of me,” said Sherrill. “Because this was the last time I could take a qualifying test. If I didn’t make it this time, I couldn’t play. And I really wanted to play.”

Sherrill, a 6-3 scoring machine, projects as the backup to Wolfpack starter Anthony Grundy for the upcoming season.

The chain of smiles apparently started with the U.S. mail. Sherrill’s mother received the much anticipated score and called Sendek. Sendek then spread the news to Sherrill and was probably in a good enough mood to buy his wife a bouquet of something expensive before he left McCallum’s.

Sherrill’s test score puts to rest months of rumor and speculation.

Daily — sometimes hourly — calls to the Post wondered what road Sherrill would travel after word spread like the measles that he had come up short of a qualifying test score on a couple of occasions.

Prep school? Junior college? Admission to State as a partial qualifier who would be ineligible as a freshman?

Sherrill’s answer — to employ a favorite response from those standardized multiple choice tests — was a resounding none of the above.

“I had a chance to focus and really buckled down on that last test,” Sherrill told Sherrod Blakely of the News and Observer. “I felt good about it right away.”

Sherrill likes his job in the flower shop, but don’t expect floral arrangements to replace basketball as his career choice anytime soon.

“But it really is a good job,” says Sherrill. “I got lucky. We were just going through the want ads and callin’ around looking for work. I make deliveries and put prices on stuff.”

After the flowers are delivered, Sherrill gets a steady diet of roundball. He’s playing in the highly competitive Chavis League at St. Augustine’s College.

“It’s packed every night,” says Sherrill. “There are some pretty good players in the league.”

That’s putting it mildly. Among Sherrill’s teammates and opponents are NBA luminaries Vince Carter and Jerry Stackhouse, UNC’s Brendan Haywood and future Wolfpack teammate Damon Thornton.

All in all, this has to be a great time to be Rowan’s most famous flower child.