KARE 11 set up in the Spring Lake Park High School gym to film a senior who had already quit the basketball team.
The story they ran is High school YouTuber wins local and national contests as pro dunker. I was 17. I was 5’11”. I had walked away from organized basketball after my sophomore year so I could treat dunking like the job. They did not come to watch a tryout. They came because I was already winning contests for prize money and building the content around it.
That clip is the KARE 11 segment.
Read the original KARE 11 story. KARE 11 also keeps the station video page for the segment. That is the source. This page is my side of that day.
That day in the Spring Lake Park gym
The dateline on their story is Spring Lake Park, Minnesota. They filmed in the school gym I already knew.
KARE 11 wrote that I was not preparing for basketball tryouts. That line is the whole setup. A local crew walked into a high school gym and found a kid working on dunks instead of a team offense.
I went to school in that building and I played basketball there. By the time the cameras showed up, the gym was a place to train, film, and talk about a career with no Friday-night roster spot. I still list this hit on my About page and on my Pro Dunking page. It is the first local TV story.
Why I quit basketball after sophomore year
KARE 11 said it plainly: I quit playing organized basketball to focus on dunk contests and content creation.
Basketball is a team sport with a season, a coach, and a role. Dunking is an individual sport hiding inside that game. I wanted the second one enough to leave the first one.
I had already been dunking for years by then. I had already been posting. I had already seen that contests paid, that clips traveled, and that the work I wanted sat closer to a rim and a camera than to a playbook.
The KARE 11 crew gave that choice a local news frame: a 17-year-old senior, 5’11”, who left the team after sophomore year because the contest circuit and the content were the actual plan.
First dunk at 13, then five contest wins
KARE 11 used the first dunk as the origin point, and they got the numbers right. I first dunked at 13, at 5’8″. I am 5’11” now. At my height, a regulation dunk is not a casual milestone. It is the thing that hooks you and keeps you in the gym.
They also wrote that dunk contests used to live as a halftime attraction, and that I was now entering them for prize money, local and national. On the day they filmed, they said I already had five contest wins against some of the best team basketball players my age.
That five is the number for that story. My site now lists six contest wins. That sixth one is later. When I describe the KARE 11 day, I keep their count.
They used my latest win at the time as the picture of the job. In Waconia I put my brother on a chair, turned him into a 7-foot assistant, and jumped over him to take first prize. KARE 11 called it a viral moment I was prepared for, because I was already a content creator, already earning money from videos, and already getting brand inquiries.
I told them what that dunk felt like in the room:
And you could immediately see the energy in the crowd shift. It’s the best feeling in the world. I mean I plan these things out for weeks, maybe even months.
That is still how I build a contest dunk. I do not invent it on the floor. I plan it, I rep it, and I save it for the right night.
The two lines I still stand behind
KARE 11 let me talk about the business side, not only the bounce. Those are the lines I still mean.
I’ve got a podcast, I’ve got YouTube, Instagram, you name it. All the social medias. I feel like I’m very entrepreneurial and I’ve kind of realized that to get to where I want to be, I have to do a ton of different things.
That was true at 17 in a school gym. It is true now. Dunking is the sport. The career is the sport plus the shows, the podcast, the posts, and the brand work that keeps the sport visible.
The second line is the goal I was willing to say on local TV:
I do want to, and think I have a chance to be the best dunker in the world, at some point in time.
I did not say I was the best dunker in the world that afternoon. I said I want it, and I think I have a chance, later. That is the honest version. You do not get there by winning one high school contest. You get there by stacking years of dunks, nights, and work that does not fit in a single highlight.
KARE 11 also noted that I started by sharing trick shots from the driveway as a kid, and that I now share tips and training for other kids plus the highlight reels. The driveway clips came first. The contests came next. The TV crew showed up after both were already real.
The content stack I was already running
When I said podcast, YouTube, and Instagram, I was not listing hobbies. I was listing the job.
I host the Dunk Talk podcast with Hunter Castona. I started it to put other dunkers on a mic, not only myself. The show has passed 70 episodes. Guests have included Jordan Kilganon, Isaiah Rivera, Jordan Southerland, and Donovan Hawkins. On the KARE 11 day, the podcast was already part of the sentence I gave them.
I also founded the Minnesota Dunk Squad. That is the crew at home: sessions, shows, contests, and the people who train beside me. KARE 11 did not need the whole roster. They needed the fact that I was already building something around dunking in Minnesota, not only collecting personal clips.
The YouTube and Instagram side started as driveway trick shots and training tapes. By the time the crew arrived, those channels were paying and brands had started to write. That is why they framed me as a high school YouTuber and a pro dunker in the same headline.
I told them I had realized I had to do a ton of different things to get where I wanted to be. That stack is what I meant. Dunk the ball. Film the work. Talk to the people in the sport. Put the crew on a schedule.
What changed after that hit
I keep KARE 11 on the site because it was the first time a Minnesota newsroom wrote the career down in public.
After that day I kept competing. The site now lists six contest wins, one more than the five KARE 11 had on the night they filmed. I kept hosting Dunk Talk. I kept running the Minnesota Dunk Squad. I started speaking with my mentor Dennis Yu, and I put those talks on my Speaking page. Off the court I co-founded Local Service Spotlight with him. His company is the BlitzMetrics site.
I also went back to The Dunk Camp. I first walked into that camp at 14. In 2026 I taught there. I wrote that night in my Dunk Camp recap.
KARE 11 wrote that I planned to continue marketing and brand-building after high school, with my focus remaining on my favorite skill. That is what I did. The dunks are the center. The rest of the work is how people find them.
The next TV hit was FOX 5 Atlanta
The next time a news camera pointed at me for dunking, it was not in Spring Lake Park. It was the FOX 5 Atlanta hit on August 7, 2026.
Eric Perry had me on the Friday 3pm hour to talk about Shaq’s DunkMan League. I was 18. I was the youngest person in the league. I took the same career KARE 11 had filmed in a high school gym and I explained it to Atlanta, where the league actually plays.
KARE 11 is the local story of the choice. FOX 5 is the league story of where the choice went. Both hits live on the News page.
Read the original KARE 11 story, then watch the FOX 5 clip on the sister post. Both hits have a video on my site. They live together on the News page.
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