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USC basketball: Getting to know Trojans’ 7-footer Dewayne Dedmon

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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

In Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times, I chronicle the unlikely journey of Dewayne Dedmon, a 7-foot, 250-pound, 22-year-old red-shirt sophomore forward for USC’s men’s basketball team.

If you don’t know his background, it’s because he doesn’t have much of one when it comes to basketball. He only began playing the organized game at 18 and even then scored only two points in high school.

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I’ll leave most of the details for you to find in the story, but as with any in-depth profile, many details them were left out because of space issues. So here are just a few extra interesting tidbits about Dedmon:

  • Eighteen NBA teams have sent scouts just to watch him practice in the last three weeks.
  • Dedmon is noted for his athleticism, but Shaun Brown, USC’s strength and conditioning coach, said it’s Dedmon’s ability to stop mid-sprint, plant his foot, turn around and reaccelerate to full speed in seconds that’s truly special. ‘You just don’t see it that often,’ said Brown, a former NBA strength coach.
  • Dedmon is a visual learner with, he said, a near-photographic memory, which helped him learn the game at a remarkably fast pace considering the point at which he started playing it. ‘He’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,’ said Brad Wiggs, a former Antelope Valley College assistant coach who said he’s coached basketball for 30 years -- 10 in high school, 20 at the two-year college level. In fact, all of his coaches call him a ‘sponge’ when it comes to learning. But that he lacked experience wasn’t all bad: He had no bad habits to un-learn, his coaches say.
  • And lastly, Dedmon’s favorite player is Boston Celtics forward Kevin Garnett, and besides them being fairly equal in height (Garnett is listed at 6-11, 253 pounds), their backgrounds are similar: Their mothers are Jehovah’s Witnesses; they didn’t begin playing organized basketball until high school; they grew up largely without their biological fathers.

Dedmon’s father, Thomas, committed suicide when Dedmon was very young.

Dedmon remembers little about his father, but he does remember his uncles sharing stories about his father’s prowess on basketball courts. They told him that ‘T-Willy,’ as he was known on the playground, was a very good basketball player.

‘I would never wish that any child grow up without their father,’ said Dedmon, who grew up with his mother and two sisters. ‘It’s, like, the hardest, the hardest thing.’

Teilden McKissic, a teammate of Dedmon’s when he played Lancaster High, shared his opinion on how growing up without a father has affected Dedmon as a basketball player.

‘When a male role model comes into his life,’ McKissic said, ‘he becomes really attached to him, and that’s the way it’s been with his coaches.’

Dedmon said he really thought about that, but one of his coaches agreed, adding that Dedmon paid attention, followed instructions and worked as hard as anyone he’d ever seen.

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