Spotlight shines on talented 8th-grader

Northwood student has decision to make

By Greg Jones

High school sports editor

Clint Keller/The Journal Gazette

 

Deshaun Thomas is a 6-foot-7 eighth-grader at Northwood Middle School who faces a decision on which high school to attend. His coach says ?he has the whole game.?

 

The question doesn?t seem to be if Deshaun Thomas is the next big-time basketball player in Fort Wayne. It is more where will he set the records, score the points and win the championships?

 

At no time has there ever been more talk, more hype and more interest around these parts surrounding a boys basketball player who hasn?t even enrolled in a high school.

 

A 6-foot-7 left-handed, smooth-shooting eighth-grader at Northwood Middle School, Thomas has already generated a significant amount of buzz in Fort Wayne. Lofty comparisons, albeit premature, have been the norm for this kid.

 

?He has the whole game, the whole package,? said Les Howard, Thomas? coach at Northwood. ?He is maybe the next LeBron James, the next Michael Jordan. He is that good.?

 

Some of the numbers and statistics for Thomas have been equally high. This season, he averaged 24 points and 23 rebounds. He also has led Northwood (31-1 the last two years) to back-to-back middle school championships.

 

In one game, actually only three quarters, he scored a school-record 44 points and grabbed 31 rebounds. In another game, also in three quarters, he just missed a ?quinti-double,? double figures in five categories: points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals. He had eight steals.

 

?As talent goes, he is the whole deal,? North Side boys basketball coach Mike Novell said. ?He has no weaknesses. He just has to hone up his skills to another level each year.?

 

Thomas is ranked as the seventh-best eighth-grader in the nation by some Internet sites, and Howard thinks it could have been higher, maybe No. 1 or No. 2, if they had more of his stats.

 

?Of all the players I have watched, he encompasses a lot of their abilities,? said Howard, who has been coaching basketball for 33 years. ?And for an eighth-grader to be 6-7 and that coordinated, it is really incredible.?

 

With this kind of attention, however, Thomas now has to make a decision. He?s had coaches calling him and offering different things in an attempt to get them to come to their school. But this isn?t college. This is high school.

 

?He has been approached by so many different people from so many schools,? Howard said. ?Even (Allen) county schools, there have been people asking about maybe adopting him into their family. The parochial schools have tried to lure him their way. He kind of feels there are too many people who he likes and respects that are tugging on him in different directions.

 

?He also could have gone to any prep school in the country, but he wanted to stay in town.?

 

Thomas has been in the North Side feeder system since at Northcrest Elementary and now at Northwood.

 

He said he will make the decision with his grandmother and legal guardian, Lady Mae Jackson, this summer. Thomas has lived with his grandmother for the past six years. His parents have both been in and out of trouble, as well as in and out of Thomas? life.

 

?It is a lot of stress,? Thomas said of picking a high school. ?I am just going to pick the best school for me.

 

?(Jackson) was like it is ?up to you boy, choose your own school.? ?

 

Thomas said he has narrowed it to North Side and Bishop Luers.

 

?I will look at the schools and see how their academics are,? Thomas said. ?They shouldn?t just let a player come play basketball. They have to help them with academics.?

 

Because of the intra-district transfer rule at Fort Wayne Community Schools and the presence of private schools in the city, it has made what is normally a no-brainer for a student-athlete to a complicated process.

 

?There is not a lot of internal pressure from the school system,? Northwood principal Matt Shiebel said. ?I think there is a lot of external pressure. There are a lot of people coming to see him play, both inside and outside the school corporation.

 

?Our superintendent (Dr. Wendy Robinson) has made it abundantly clear, especially after the whole Marques Johnson thing, that we are to not be recruiting within our own school system.?

 

Novell knows what Thomas is going through because of his experience with Redskins junior guard Eshaunte Jones, who also had a lot of hype, and interest, as an eighth-grader.

 

?It is a lot of burden on a young man,? Novell said. ?But he has to make the right choice for the right reasons. We just tell him this is a great place to play and let it ride with that. We aren?t offering the things other schools are doing.?

 

In regard to his next school, academics are an important part of the mix for Thomas, who made the honor roll for the first time in middle school after the first semester, because of the influences from family members, coaches, mentors and school administrators.

 

?One of the things we spent a lot of time with him on his academics,? Shiebel said. ?To me, that has been the real story is his evolution from sixth grade until now. We knew in sixth grade that he was going to be successful on the court. We didn?t know so much about the support and safety nets he would have academically.

 

?We have been working with Deshaun the whole time on the big picture because when he came in as a sixth-grader, he was not focused on academics and it was plain to see, and his leadership was not always positive. The longer he has been with us, the more his character has developed (positively).?

 

The basketball talent has been developed in elementary and middle school as well as AAU basketball with the SAC All-Stars. But the foundation was laid at the Old Fort YMCA, working with one of his many mentors on and off the court, James Whitaker.

 

Whitaker said he remembers Thomas as a second-grader and seeing something special even then.

 

?He was an average kid wanting to play, and he had unusual talent,? Whitaker said. ?He molded his game and character. I am just glad to be part of that process.?

 

Thomas said he owed a lot to Whitaker.

 

?I have developed a lot with Mr. Whitaker at the YMCA,? he said. ?He has taught me a lot. He showed me how to shoot, pass and dribble, everything.?

 

gjones@jg.net

Deshaun Thomas

 

Height: 6-foot-7

 

Position: Guard, forward and center

 

School: Northwood Middle School eighth-grader

 

Averages per game: 24 points; 23 rebounds, 7 assists, 6 blocks, 5 steals

 

Accomplishments: Named MVP as AAU team won fifth-grade national championship ? Scored school-record 44 points ? Led Northwood to two straight middle school championships

Thats a big kid

That big at that age and coordinated? Damn. He has all the makings...

6'7 and in 8th grade? omg. i'm in 8th grade and am 6'2 and i like tower over everyone else.....can't imagine how much he'd stand out