The first day he came home from the hospital, I put a ball in his hand,” says Justin Tatum of his son, Jayson, a 17-year-old junior at Chaminade College Preparatory School who is currently ranked the No. 1 high school basketball player for the class of 2016 not just in St. Louis, not just in Missouri, but in the entire country.
Jayson has worked hard to get to the top. His impressive national ranking by ESPN is based on “the four P’s”: performance, production, potential, and projection. Here’s how he got there.
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Certainly, playing basketball his entire life has helped—Justin started playing basketball with his son as soon as Jayson could walk. But you can’t deny great athletic genes, either. Doctors told Justin and his wife early on that Jayson would be very tall, so when he started showing a natural-born talent on a YMCA league team of 4-year-olds, Justin began to coach his son.
It’s hard to know whom to ask questions about first because when you meet Justin, head basketball coach at Christian Brothers College High School (CBC), you just want to know everything. What it’s like getting calls every day from recruiters begging for his son’s time, how he comes up with strategies for his team to win against his son’s school, and what it is that makes him have such an infectious smile. And with Jayson, well, he could be the next LeBron James.
“We never knew it could reach this point. I always remind him we are not going to stop right here, this is not all there is,” Justin says of his son’s success.
The Tatum family’s hard work and dedication is paying off. When he’s not playing small forward on the high-school courts, Jayson’s playing with the St. Louis Eagles in Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League. Justin tells us Jayson has narrowed his college choices to 10 schools, and several of them wouldn’t be too far of a drive for the family (Jayson has a younger brother and a baby sister).
Until then, there’s that friendly family rivalry. CBC had two games scheduled already this season against Chaminade. Neither Tatum looked forward to those games. “It’s weird playing each other,” says Justin. “We really don’t like it, but it’s something we’ve got to do and just get it done.” Chaminade defeated CBC in both games, with Jayson scoring 24 of the winning points in the most recent victory.
If you still think a mixtape is something you make for a friend in high school, do an Internet search for “Jayson Tatum mixtape.” The results are mind-blowing.
STATS
Jayson Christopher Tatum
Age: 17
Height: 6 feet 9 inches
Weight: 190 pounds
Position: Small Forward
College Offers:
Duke University
Saint Louis University
University of Arizona
University of Connecticut
University of Illinois
University of Kansas
University of Kentucky
University of Missouri
University of North Carolina
Wake Forest University
Justin Tatum’s Tips for Coaching a Family Member
– 1 –
Stay positive and supportive.
– 2 –
Find someone who can help foster the child’s drive, which will lead to success.
– 3 –
Make sure the sport is something the child enjoys.
– 4 –
Don’t make practice a punishment.
– 5 –
Remember that when the child puts time and effort into a sport, his or her health and fitness will improve, and those are life lessons that can be used down the road.
