Tuesday, October 20, 2009
D.J. Stephens shown with the Texas D-1 Ambassadors, doing what he does best. Throwing it down!
Wow! How quickly things can change. The 3rd week of August D.J. Stephens of Killeen Harker Heights and the Texas D-1 Ambassadors (an unsigned senior) had still not signed scholarship papers, and school was starting in less than a week. It's been chronicled here that the Pride of Killeen, TX signed on the 24th of August with perennial powerhouse Memphis Tigers and will play as a freshman.
Fast forward less than 2 months. I spoke to D.J. a couple of weeks ago on the phone and there was a heck of a racket in the background. I asked him where he was..."At a party?" He said, "No Coach, I am signing autographs at the football game." A few days after that and his mom forwarded me a link with D.J. doing a solo 4 minute interview on Fox Sports. He's growing up QUICKLY...lol
This morning I spoke with Memphis 1st year Head Coach Josh Pastner and he told me D.J. is improving daily. He's already put on 13 lbs of muscle and is up to 183 lbs. The freakish 43" standing vertical stands out, even amongst great athletes like the Tigers have. It was great feedback from Coach.
I finally had a chance to go watch the video from last Friday night's Memphis Midnight Madness. There were 18,500 in attendance and the Fire Marshall turned away 1000's more. In the dunk contest, D.J. had what most people considered the dunk of the night. He scored perfect 10's from the judges. Now get a load of this. The 3 judges were: Penny Hardaway, Rudy Gay and Allen Iverson. In fact, his between the legs windmill dunk from the wing was so impressive that Iverson "bowed down" to Stephens. The fans went nuts.
The link to this event is: http://www.gotigersgo.com/multimedia/mem-multimedia.html
Once you get there, click on "Launch All Access" then go to "Free Events" and then click on basketball. The ladies take up the first half of the event, with the men's introductions starting at the 45 minute mark for those of you who want to fast forward. The dunk contest starts at approximately 1 hour 15 minute mark.
Enjoy! Coach Max
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