Most stories about high-profile basketball recruits unfold in a similar manner. The kid falls in love with the sport at an early age, grows up dribbling a ball wherever he goes, dominates at both the high school level and on the AAU circuit, and then signs with a big-time college program.
Antelope Valley Junior College freshman DeWayne Dedmon’s story isn’t exactly following that same path. In fact, Dedmon may just edit that story down to two simple steps: pick up a basketball, sign with any college in the country.
Antelope Valley head coach Dieter Horton said Dedmon’s tale is “a really crazy story” (And after hearing it, I’m wondering if I should retell it or buy the rights to the movie).
Dedmon was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, which precluded him from playing sports. But during his senior year at Lancaster High School (Lancaster, CA), in December 2007, Dedmon’s situation changed, and he told his high school coach that he wanted to play basketball.
As a 6-9 senior, joining the team was the easy part. But figuring out how to play basketball, a sport he had absolutely no familiarity with, was nearly impossible. Dedmon sat on the bench for the rest of the season, appearing in a handful of games, only when the outcome was already determined.
According to Horton, news of a 6-9 center at Lancaster made its way across the mile separating the high school and junior college. And that following spring, while preparing to put his players through a workout, there was Dedmon, making his way across the Antelope Valley gym.
“He said, ‘Coach, my name’s DeWayne,’” Horton said. “He wanted to play basketball.”
Again, no coach in his right mind simply turns down a willing big man without first taking a look, so Horton gave Dedmon a shot.
“It was a five-minute workout,” Horton said. “He couldn’t do anything. He had a hard time running, catching and shooting. There were zero fundamentals.”
As a result, Horton offered to take Dedmon as a greyshirt. Dedmon would enroll at Antelope Valley as a part-time student, delaying his college eligibility and still allowing him to work out at the school.
(In the script for Dedmon’s movie, this is where it reads: cue workout-footage montage.)
Looking back 18 months later, you can hear the incredulity in Horton’s voice as he talks about what he’s witnessed over the past year and a half.
“Son of a gun,” he said. “In that period of time, the kid grew three inches and put on 30 pounds of muscle. And during that period, I’ve never seen a kid improve like that kid improved. It’s like he was born to play basketball.”
It wasn’t just that Dedmon didn’t know how to play basketball. It’s that the sport itself was completely foreign to him.
“The kid didn’t have TV in his house,” Horton said. “When he got here, he didn’t know the difference between Duke and North Carolina.”
Now standing seven-feet tall and weighing 225 pounds, Dedmon is set to take the college basketball recruiting world by storm. Already there are whispers about Dedmon that he could end up being the No. 1 overall pick of a future NBA draft.
“The weird thing about him is that he has no bad habits,” Horton said. “Because he came in with no habits at all. All of his tendencies are things we taught him to do. Everything we taught him stuck like glue. He didn’t know how to shoot the ball when he got here. Now, his shot looks almost perfect because it’s exactly what we taught him.”
Horton said that during Dedmon’s year spent learning the game, the coaching staff would be routinely floored as they’d explain concepts and formations to Dedmon and five minutes later he’d be jumping into practice and performing them better than the players who’d been learning them for years.
“His upside is mind-blowing,” Horton said. “He has unbelievable feet. He has a 7-6 wingspan and his hands are massive. We can do whatever we want with the kid – bring him to the high post or put him on the block. He runs the floor like a deer and is unbelievably athletic. And he can hit the 15-16 foot jumpshot. And defensively, he’ll block shots with his left and right hand.”
Dedmon has been wowing college coaches from across the country this summer. In fact, Horton said that once word got out about this 7-0 phenom, coaches were swarming the campus.
“It takes them about ten minutes and they say, ‘Yeah. We’re offering,’” Horton said. “It doesn’t take very long.
“I’ve been doing this for 14 years,” Horton continued, “and you really don’t see a lot of major D-1 schools start to recruit junior college freshmen this early. We’ve had some big-time players go through this program, but this is kind of new for me.”
Horton said that college coaches are looking for Dedmon to commit at this point in time. At first glance, it’s not all that surprising – there are several 2011 recruits who have already given verbal commitment to colleges – until you realize that Dedmon’s first regular-season game as a junior college player doesn’t take place until November 13.
Thus far, Horton said that he has never seen a school pursue a player as hard as head coach Kevin O’Neill and the USC Trojan coaching staff have been recruiting Dedmon.
“He (Dedmon) loves KO (Kevin O’Neill),” Horton said. “He’s been down there twice and very much enjoys it down there. He hasn’t made a decision yet, but I know he likes ‘SC.”
Though the Trojans have been on Dedmon for several months, they may have their hands full when word gets out nationally about him. Horton said that at this point, only about 40 schools have seen Dedmon in action, though he said of that list, “Everybody wants him.”
Horton said that at this point in time, Dedmon hasn’t begun narrowing down his college choices. He will need to earn is AA degree at Antelope Valley, so he won’t be eligible to sign with a college until November 2010. But that hasn’t stopped Horton’s phone from ringing.
“I’ve never had a freshman pursued with so many offers this early,” he said, adding that he’s been handling the calls in an effort to keep Dedmon away from the bustle of recruiting. “I felt like it would be a little overwhelming for the kid, so I kind of kept it off his plate.
“Besides,” Horton added. “He’d have the most expensive phone bill on the planet.”
