The clip was already on my homepage. The article was not. Episode 70 of Dunk Talk is the day I said it out loud: I signed with Shaquille O’Neal’s DunkMan League.
I Signed With Shaq’s DunkMan League (World’s Youngest Pro Dunker) – Dylan Haugen | Dunk Talk #70
Twenty-four dunkers. A $500,000 grand prize. TNT, TBS, truTV, and HBO Max. I am the youngest professional dunker in the league. Piotr Zawiślak in Poland is two days younger than I am and dunks like a veteran — I said his name on the episode because that is the standard now, not a rumor.
I started on a mini hoop around 11 or 12. I did not know professional dunking existed. The first dunker I really watched was Chris Staples, through a Josh Horton video, and then Jordan Kilganon. First dunk at 13. Sophomore year I dropped high school basketball and went all-in. That still feels like the first time “God’s plan” was not a slogan — it was a direction I did not fully want, and it worked.
Hide-and-seek. Underboth at 17 and 5’11”. Six wins in seven or eight contests, including two in Maryland. Last year’s DunkMan TV show did not work out, mostly because of age. Chuck called later in the year about this league. I was 18. They took the risk.
Chuck Milan built Team Flight Brothers, one of the first sports channels to get paid on YouTube, then became the NBA dunk coach, then folded TFB’s 1.2 million Instagram into DunkMan. Congrats to him is not filler. He put decades into a sport that did not have a career path. This league is the path.
Advice I actually gave on the episode, not a caption: bet on yourself, go to Dunk Camp, fly to sessions, and do not skip the unglamorous infrastructure — YouTube long-form, the podcast, a personal brand website almost nobody in dunking has. Get better at dunking while you do it. Both.
Related on this site: why I started Dunk Talk, FOX 5 Atlanta, KARE 11, and the write-up on Dunk Talks.
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