Zach Dean

zach.dean@news-jrnl.com

DAYTONA BEACH — Sitting in an office overlooking one of the two full-length basketball courts at DME Sports Academy, former Father Lopez star Lexi Duckett glances at the scene below.

On the court closest to her, there’s a mid-afternoon practice taking place for one of the boys basketball teams. On the court at the far end of the complex, there are more than 100 aspiring volleyball players finishing up a session. On the other side of that court is the weight room, where some dozen players get in an afternoon lift, and next to that is the dining area, which is open all day, every day.

For Duckett and the rest of the DME regulars, it’s just a normal day. However, it’s a far cry from what the inside of this academy looked like just four years ago.

“It was a warehouse, just shelves and boxes. It was a mess,” laughed Duckett, who signed a basketball scholarship with the University of North Carolina in November. “This was all concrete right here with one stand-up hoop. It was just duct tape for lines and that was it.

“When I got here, there was nobody here.”

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Four years later, DME has turned into a multi-million dollar sports training giant, aimed at attracting some of the best athletes around the world and churning out the next wave of college superstars — who will play their high school years in Daytona Beach without most people even knowing it.

“I didn’t think it would be this,” Duckett admitted.

‘That’s why this started’

Neither did Mike and Dan Panaggio, the two brothers who own, operate, and run DME Academy.

Mike, 66, has lived in the Daytona area for more than 30 years, and founded the original DME (Direct Mail Express) in 1984. Dan, 63, moved to the area just a few years ago after spending nearly a decade in the NBA coaching ranks.

The two have always shared one common interest: basketball.

“We shared the same bedroom growing up, played on the same college basketball team (Brockport State, near Rochester, New York), and we’re both sports guys,” said Dan, who was an assistant for both the Portland Trailblazers and Los Angeles Lakers in the mid-2000s. “Since I got done with college I’ve been in basketball. Mike hasn’t, but I think he likes it more than I do right now.”

In 2012, Dan was named the head coach of the Shanghai Sharks, former NBA star Yao Ming’s one-time Chinese team. Two years later, he was fired with one year remaining on his contract and moved to the area to be closer to his brother.

It was around that same time that Mike and DME Marketing began to transition everything to the digital world, leaving a once crowded warehouse empty.

“We’re sitting in the back (at DME) and we have a couple baskets up and just a cement floor,” Mike remembered. “(Dan) says, ‘Why don’t we turn this place into a basketball training facility and I’ll run it.’ I had my hands full with DME Marketing and told him I didn’t really have any time to do it. He said he’d do it all. He designed the entire place like an NBA facility. Got NBA contractors, put up NBA baskets, put up cameras. He built an NBA training facility like he had when he was in Portland.

“There’s a lack of facilities (in this area). Take DME out of the equation, where do you go? DME provides that. That’s why this started. That’s why we wanted to build this facility.”

‘Now I’m on top’

Four years later, that facility — which is located behind Daytona Beach International Airport on Bellevue Extension Avenue — includes two full-sized NBA courts, five youth courts, seven regulation volleyball courts, and two weight rooms.

And that’s only the beginning.

Last spring, the Panaggios purchased a 30-year lease on what used to be known as Municipal Stadium (since renamed Daytona Stadium), as well as leasing the Daytona Ice Arena in South Daytona.

“It’s not just about basketball,” Mike said. “Sports are just a stepping stone. Parents seeing their kids into college, that’s the dream. How do you do that? One of the best ways is athletics. That’s become the pathway.”

With that in mind, the brothers have expanded their reach over the past four years. While basketball is still the main artery of DME, on both a domestic and global scale — there are 19 international athletes on the various DME basketball teams this year — the academy also has soccer, hockey and lacrosse, along with a slew of coaches for each sport.

Volleyball is perhaps the most popular training the academy provides, and the program is led by Father Lopez coach Dawn Moses, who took over as club director in 2015.

“When we started we had eight teams,” Moses said. “Now it’s grown to 15, 16 teams. As far as club volleyball goes, it’s really grown, and it’s a good thing for our sport because we need more kids in this area playing the sport more often, not just during the high school season.”

Last year, DME’s 18-and-under club volleyball team featured some of the best players in the area, including New Smyrna Beach stars Sarah Luoma (2016 News-Journal Player of the Year) and Kamari Potter, and Spruce Creek’s Anna Giannini, among others.

“The facilities are great, but it’s also the equipment,” said Moses, adding that private lessons range from $40 to $60 per hour. “Dan and Mike aren’t stingy when it comes to putting equipment on the floor for our kids to get better. Unfortunately, here in Florida, I feel like so many of the high schools are missing that. I come from Ohio, we had all of it. Here, I feel like we don’t.”

While there are more than a dozen club volleyball teams (ranging from 10-and-under to 18-and-under) with at least eight players on each, there are also a handful of boys and girls basketball programs at the academy — both high school and post-grad.

One of the coaches on the boys teams is Mike’s son, Matt, who was a star at Father Lopez in 2012 before attending Mercer University. Former Embry-Riddle men’s basketball captain Daniel Mondragon (2009-13) is the director of player development and the head coach of DME’s boys national team.

Dan’s son, Michael, is the head coach on the girls team. The 27-year-old played in college at both Valdosta State and Lander University and also played professionally in Italy and Latvia.

“Wherever (dad) had a job, I lived,” Michael laughed. “I went to high school in L.A. when he was coaching the Lakers and have ties to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Indiana, Oregon and Iowa.”

During one of his summer off-seasons between college and playing overseas, Michael helped ERAU head coach Steve Ridder work one of his basketball camps. It was there that he first met Duckett, and the two have trained together ever since.

“I took about 12 kids from that camp and started training them here (DME) on the concrete floor,” he said. “I kept telling my uncle (Mike) that this could be something.”

Last year it was, as Panaggio’s DME girls team consisted of a slew of Division I recruits, including Duckett and a pair of Apopka High School transfers in junior guards Mary McMillan and Hilani Cantone.

The reason those two decided to leave Apopka for DME was simple: better practice, better competition and better exposure.

“We just decided it was the best thing for us to do to get to next level,” said McMillan, who trains every day, both with her team and individually, from 8 a.m. to 11. “The competition (we play) has really helped (my game). You go to different tournaments out of state, get more looks … there’s just more opportunity here.”

Michael said both McMillan and Duckett received Division I offers following a national tournament last year in Washington, D.C.

“We have a lot of freedom,” he added. “There were four top-25 teams in the country in the Washington tournament. We played the No. 1 team in the country and got spanked, but it’s not about (just winning). They’re playing teams that have a 6-foot-7, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2, and 6-1 player in their starting lineup, teams with five McDonalds All-Americans with players going to Mississippi State, Georgia Tech, Tennessee. We got beat by 40, but there were a ton of coaches at that event.”

Since coming to DME, McMillan said she’s received 14 college offers, including offers from North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida International University and Eastern Michigan. Duckett, meanwhile, has become one of the most coveted shooting guards in the state, recently choosing “dream school” North Carolina over programs like Wisconsin, Boston College, Wake Forest and Illinois.

Duckett made the signing official earlier this month during a ceremony at DME. She was one of eight players to sign during the early national signing period that began on Nov. 14, along with six volleyball players, and one boys basketball player — senior Malcolm Farrington, who transferred to DME last summer from Tennessee.

“I wasn’t the best athlete my freshman year, so coming here and growing so quickly, now I’m on top,” the 5-foot-10 Duckett said. “Having the offers that everyone dreams of, I think people will start to see (coming to DME) was a good decision.”

Duckett’s mom, Kim Amadon, said very few people saw it that way at first.

“Oh, people thought we were crazy,” she laughed. “It was a big risk. It was going into the unknown. It was hard all the way around, because we had great relationships (at Father Lopez), but ultimately she wanted to play at the next level and go to a great college. North Carolina was her goal. Now that it’s a reality, it’s surreal.”

‘The dream’

Athletics may be the backbone, but both brothers insist that the bigger picture for DME Academy is academics, something they started focusing on last year.

“I went to (Massachusetts prep school) Deerfield Academy, and we benefited from great competition, but the focus was always on the academic side,” Mike said. “I remember my headmaster telling me that most athletic careers are over by 22, and that’s a great athletic career. You’re going to live to be 90. What are you going to do?

“That’s what we want to do at DME — take that passion you have for your sport and transfer it to the academic side. I saw it done at my prep school in 1970 and I know we can do it here today.”

Last school year, the Panaggios introduced Florida Virtual School to the academy, giving an academic option to any domestic student-athlete who wanted to transfer to DME, where tuition is $10,000 a year. That’s comparable to local private schools — Warner Christian costs around $8,500, while Father Lopez is about $11,000 — and far less than the academies best-known for producing top college talent, like Bradenton’s IMG Academy ($68,000) and Montverde Academy ($51,000).

Because the academy doesn’t have approval to issue student visas, international athletes attend Warner Christian Academy for their education through an agreement with DME.

“They have definitely built their name pretty quickly in last four or five years,” said Warner Christian Assistant Athletic Director Tammy Young. “Even though Mike has been very successful, he’s kind of done it quietly behind scenes.”

While DME athletes also played on the Warner Christian basketball team for the past two years, that will no longer be the case this year after DME joined the Independent League. Young acknowledged the lack of local athletes on the Warner basketball team the past two seasons played a role in that decision.

“We didn’t get blowback, but obviously we didn’t get the local response,” Young said. “Last year we had two local kids playing on the the two teams, and the rest of the kids were either DME kids or international kids. From a Warner standpoint, it wasn’t opening an opportunity for some of our kids that aren’t necessarily going to college to play but can still compete at high school level and enjoy it.”

Senior Vadim Clanet has been at DME since 2016, and originally came to the academy from France just to train for the summer. When the deal with Warner Christian was finalized, the 6-foot-7 forward decided to enroll at DME, and, in effect, Warner, full-time.

“For French people, coming to the USA is the dream, especially in basketball,” said Clanet. “When you get here, it’s a big step. LeBron, Kevin Durant, all the big NBA players, we’re all fans of them and they’re all in the USA, so coming here is a big deal for us. This place has grown a lot. When I first got here, the staff had two coaches, maybe six high school kids. Now we have like 20 high school kids, like 30 post-grads, six coaches and a trainer.”

Clanet isn’t the only French player, either.

In August, 6-foot-10 forward Moussa Diabate transferred to DME from Florida Prep Academy in Arcadia, saying that the facilities and the competition helped make his decision.

Diabate is the seventh-rated player in the country in the 2021 recruiting class according 247sports.com and has offers from Georgia Tech, Illinois and Miami. The ultra-talented sophomore started at Warner Christian in September.

Along with the two French players, DME also has athletes from Senegal, Serbia, Australia, Brazil, Switzerland and China on the roster.

“We played against (DME) last year,” said Diabate, who was born and raised in Paris. “Basketball-wise, there’s more stuff here. A weight room, which we didn’t have last year, the gym is always open. It’s pretty cool. Their first goal isn’t to win, but to improve players. What I’m trying to do this year is improve my game and get to the next level. I think DME can do that.”

‘A good fit’

While those international students attend Warner Christian, the domestic athletes enroll in Florida Virtual School. However, the two brothers have upped the ante this year, striking a deal with Daytona State College in August that allows DME to use DSC facilities for all its schooling.

“Daytona State is really undiscovered, there are so many great assets there,” Mike said. “(President) Tom (LoBasso) is so strong a leader. Florida Virtual is great, it allows you go at your own pace, and we’re still going to be using that, but we don’t think it’s enough. We’re going to have teachers as well (this year) in the classroom, and have some dual enrollment opportunities.”

LoBasso, who was named the school’s president in 2015, said Panaggio approached him earlier this year about the partnership.

“In talking to Mike, and understanding their philosophy, it was a good fit,” he said.

LoBasso said that the school had some classroom space available, and that DME will pay rent to utilize them for the next year. While students will still be taking class through the virtual school, teachers, provided by DME, will be in the classroom with them now. Daytona State will also provide a tutoring service and use of the library and cafeteria.

DME students can also dual enroll with Daytona State — something LoBasso said has doubled in growth since he took over.

“I have a daughter who’s in high school, and she still takes classes, but also takes some dual enrollment,” he said. “She’s used to a college level course — the rigor, the pace — so that when she goes onto a university I think she’ll have a leg up.”

Still, as Duckett and McMillan admitted, the accelerated pace isn’t for everyone.

“I think it really depends on the type of kid you are,” Duckett said. “I do think you need to be organized and push yourself to get the work done. We have teachers that will push you, but, at the same time, you need to be responsible enough to want to get it done, because it is all at your own pace.”

While McMillan is full-time at DME, she still lives in Orlando with her family and commutes back and forth every day.

“I wake up at 6, leave at 6:45, and get here around eight,” she said. “Then we lift weights, practice, shower, eat lunch, and then go to Daytona State for school. I get home around 5. We’re doing more than regular high school kids, so it gets a little hard. You just have to push through.

“I do like it more, the schedule, when you want to do stuff. I don’t have to be sitting in a classroom all day. Today, if I wanted to I could work more, get ahead and then tomorrow I can do less work. You just have to be good with time management.”

McMillan, who visited Marquette last month, said that colleges have been impressed with her schedule.

“A lot places I’ve visited, I tell them about DME, how it is, and they like it,” she added. “They like how ready I’m going to be (for college). A lot of kids have to go through a transition. I won’t.”

Perhaps not in the classroom, but on the court, in front of rowdy crowds? Maybe.

Home games at DME are not your typical high school atmosphere. There are no cheerleaders, no student sections, and most of the parents, especially on the boys side, are on the other side of the world. Instead, webcams to live-stream games, and college recruiters and coaches make up most of the cheering section during a typical game or tournament.

‘Difficult to do’

Losing that high school atmosphere — the Atlantic-Spruce Creek boys basketball game two years ago, for example, featured a standing room only crowd — is one of the bigger drawbacks of this new era of academy and prep school basketball.

Still, Stetson men’s head coach Corey Williams, who was a star for Oklahoma State from 1989-92 and spent six years recruiting on Florida State University’s staff, said that the recruiting trend of the past few years has started to lean more toward post-grad athletes who go to prep schools.

“They feel like that’s a means to get to a higher-level school,” he said. “But the truth of the matter is you still have those kids in public schools that are just as good as those guys.”

Former Mainland standout Joe Giddens, who played with Vince Carter during the Bucs’ championship runs in the ’90s and returned to the school last year to coach, said if you’re good enough to play at the next level, college coaches will find you, no matter who you play, or where you play.

“When I was a kid, even if there was an academy or something like that, my ties, and my family is Mainland High School,” said Giddens, who helped train at DME when it first started before leaving for Mainland. “A lot of counties and places are going to academies and stuff like that, and I don’t know if it’s good or not. I guess, in a way, it can take away from the tradition of what school they go to.”

So far, DME’s rise hasn’t taken much away from the local scene. Along with Duckett, only six of the 30 high school athletes on both DME teams are from the area. The numbers are slowly rising, however.

Last season, DME’s girls high school team had just six players on the roster. This year, that number has grown to 10, including the addition of former Mainland star Isys Grady, who joined DME a few months ago.

“If you can play, you’re going to get an opportunity to play (at the next level) wherever you’re at,” Giddens said. “Mainland football has proven that. I have a kid this year who’s going to Long Beach State. He’s a Mainland guy. Never been to an academy. If you’re good, they’re gonna come get you.”

‘Leap of faith’

While McMillan makes the nearly two-hour commute back and forth each day, not all DME students do. All the international athletes are housed in Daytona, as are a handful of the domestic ones.

The Panaggios own a handful of two-bedroom condos in Georgetown Lake Condominiums in South Daytona and also house students in the historic Live Oak Inn — a bed and breakfast off of Beach Street that the brothers purchased last year.

“We have three houses there,” Mike said. “We’re redoing the whole bed and breakfast, and that’s where the parents stay when they come.”

One of those parents, Kristen Miller, doesn’t need to book a room when she visits because she’s a full-time resident. Miller moved to the area last year with her daughter, Kyani Moore, and now rents out an apartment from the Panaggios that also houses a few of the girls on the basketball team.

“I’m the house mom,” she laughed. “I’ve gone from being the parent of an only child to having almost an entire team.”

Miller, who is a Quality Assurance Manager for Arizona State University, is able to work remotely and moved from Orlando to Daytona last summer after Kyani decided to leave West Orange High School to join DME.

“It was a leap of faith,” said Miller, who gets a stipend from the brothers each month to help with the extra costs (electricity, water, cable/internet) of essentially taking in four new children. “When we came down and first met with Dan, I just fell in love with the program and the player development and realizing that they knew what they were doing. They cared about the girls, helping them get noticed, contacting coaches on their behalf.

“I went to college on an academic scholarship to run track because the athletic scholarship was on a lower level, and that’s why I wanted to give my child the opportunity to play at the next level. I didn’t have this luxury growing up, so to pay tuition to send her to (DME), it was a sacrifice. I could’ve been doing a lot of things with this money, but I used it to pay tuition because I really believe in her.”

Even though this year is DME’s first true high school recruiting class, Michael Panaggio expects that belief to pay off, especially if DME’s post-grad success is any indication.

“Between the boys and the girls, I’d say we’ve sent close to 50 (to play basketball in college),” he said. “I’d say we’ve sent around 20 (to Division I). This is our fourth year of post-grad, so it’s getting up there.”

‘A tombstone’

Of course, there’s been plenty of sacrificing from everyone over the past few years, because purchasing houses and leasing stadiums and ice arenas isn’t cheap. The marketing side of DME still makes plenty of money — nearly $30 million a year — and that goes toward much of the expenses on the sports side.

“We’re not making big bucks here,” Mike laughed. “This isn’t being driven by economics. I don’t believe there’s any money to be made in youth sports. Not if you’re doing it at the level DME is doing. You see the quality we have here. You can’t expect to have that kind of quality and turn a profit, it’s not possible.”

That quality is expected to be upgraded in the coming years, too.

The plan right now is to put $2 million into the stadium over the next two years, along with around $500,000 into the ice arena. The goal is to eventually have dorm rooms on the main campus as well and discussions have already begun to have that completed by next summer.

Still, while the numbers are improving — last year the academy lost $1.2 million compared with just an expected $400,000 this year, according to Mike — the brothers say that the academy may never be profitable.

“The profit isn’t what’s driving us,” Dan admitted. “Neither one of us needs to do this; we’re doing it for fun. We’re doing it as a service to young people.”

And the ultimate goal is to one day hand a few of those young people the keys to the academy — namely the two sons — and walk away once and for all.

However, that ride off into the sunset may still be a few years off.

“What’s retirement? Retirement is a tombstone,” laughed Mike. “This is very addictive. I’m here seven days a week and it’s for one reason: because I love being here. I love the kids, I love the job, and I’m having a blast. Every day is exciting for me. Very few people can say I want to go into work every day, but I can because it’s not work. I don’t work. This is just a blast.”

WORCESTER — After concluding his basketball career and studies in sociology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in 2015, Anthony Barbosa headed to New York City.

The Worcester native, who captained MCLA’s Trailblazers, was vice president of the multicultural club and started an assistance program for North Adams area youth, spent time that summer checking out the basketball scene at courts across the city.

Suddenly, he was a man with a plan.

“I saw the power of community and basketball, and I really wanted to build that in Worcester,” Barbosa, 32, said. “The Worcester basketball platform at that time, there really wasn’t one.”

That led to the debut of the Worcester Summer Jam Classic in late August 2016.

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The inaugural event was, blacktop notwithstanding, a grassroots event.

There were three sponsors, six teams and maybe 200 attendees, who munched on chicken and fruit Barbosa, his mom and a family friend prepared that morning. With the start of school approaching, some 25 or 30 backpacks were distributed to kids.

“I had $60 to my name, (but) I just did it,” Barbosa said. “I saw how such a small sample size made such a big impact. I was like, ‘Wow, first time doing this. No money, no budget, just community and family and fun.’

“There had never been an event like that in Worcester during my era. And it just continued to grow.”

Summer Jam, which Barbosa estimated drew more than 4,000 attendees last summer, will be held for the ninth time on Saturday, Aug. 9, at Crompton Park. So mark your wall calendar or add a reminder to your mobile device.

The rain date is Aug. 16.

The basketball component is highlighted by a 10-team, five-on-five pro-am tournament that draws players and teams from near and far. This year’s field will include a squad from Maryland.

“I would say we’ve had every elite athlete in Worcester play in this tournament to this day,” said Barbosa, who played for Worcester Tech, from which he graduated in 2010, and joined coach Sean Lynch’s staff at his alma mater in 2018.

There were two openings remaining in the pro-am event as of May 1.

The basketball platform also includes showcase games for college women and high school girls — both of which are going on Year 4 — elite high school boys and middle school boys. Each 40-minute game consists of two teams of 10 players, all of whom receive custom-designed uniforms.

Basketball is the centerpiece of a day filled with something for everyone.

“It’s a diverse, community day where people from all walks of life can attend and enjoy basketball, food, music, art, activities,” Barbosa said. “Just one day for our community to come together through the power of basketball.”

The tradition of distributing backpacks has continued since the inaugural event.

More than 1,000 filled with school supplies were given out last year, and with the event now held on the second Saturday in August — ensuring the pro-am players can participate before they head back to college or overseas — coupons for free, back-to-school haircuts will be available.

Michaelangelo’s Barbershop & Nails is on board, but Barbosa is looking for three more like-minded businesses to volunteer their time and services to help ease the workload.

There also is a vendor showcase, where small businesses can present and sell their merchandise and network with another, and a resource section.

“We work with Worcester resources like the DTA (Department of Transitional Assistance), MassHealth, DCF (Department of Children and Families), and a bunch of therapeutic services,” Barbosa said.

Organizing Summer Jam is a yearlong labor of love for Barbosa, who puts it on through his company, Bosa Sports and Community.

And it’s an event made possible year after year due to the generosity and goodwill of numerous and diverse sponsors.

It’s around this time of year when sponsors, which have various tiers from which to select to pledge their support, begin to be confirmed.

Already on board are ATS Autism Therapeutic Services, Braiders Block, Divine Brows and Beauty, Major Bloom, Priceless Memories Scholarship Foundation, Wireless Xperts, and clothing companies Misguided, My Tipz, Preference, and Tear.

“Over the years, I would say 90% are small businesses and the other 10% are like Quinsigamond (Community College) or the Leominster Credit Union or UMass Chan (Medical School),” Barbosa said. “They’ve all invested in Summer Jam.

“It’s just been a dope event. There has never been a fight or an arrest. People have called it a day of peace in Worcester where people from all over can come together.”

For more information on registering a team or becoming a sponsor for or a vendor at the ninth annual Worcester Summer Jam Classic, visit https://worcestersummerjam.com/ or contact Anthony Barbosa at americanpyramidsap@gmail.com.

—Contact Rich Garven at rgarven@telegram.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @RichGarvenTG.

Here’s a little secret Ivy League schools don’t want you to know, lest the influence of their alumni networks be diminished: In Hollywood, it’s not just who you know, it’s where you went to summer camp. Industry people who attended elite East Coast summer camps — many of them Jewish camps, where Shabbat service is as common as Capture the Flag — believe they’ve been invaluable when it comes to networking.

Lorne Michaels (Ontario’s Camp Timberlane), Ben Affleck (Massachusetts’ Crossroads for Kids), Clive Davis (Pennsylvania’s Camp Equinunk), Larry David (New York’s All-American Basketball Camp), Joel and Ethan Coen (Wisconsin’s Camp Herzl, also attended by Bob Dylan and Seth Rogen), Felicity Huffman (Interlochen, where Josh Groban also went), Andy Cohen (Wisconsin’s Camp Nebagamon), Lena Dunham (Maine’s Fernwood Cove) as well as Judd Apatow and Jeff Zucker: They’re all among the heavy-hitters who have spent their childhood summers at ritzy camps, where they developed skills they use today.

“I’ll tell anyone who will listen that I learned everything I needed to know at camp,” says Doug Herzog, president of Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, who attended Camp Scatico, a non-religious camp in the Upper Hudson Valley, as a camper for eight years and a counselor for three. “When young people say, ‘I would love to be an executive,’ I say being a camp counselor helps.” The following East Coast camps have hosted future Hollywood denizens:

By the 2000s, Nike, which has always maintained a stranglehold on the pros, found itself playing catch-up in the youth market. So in 2010, the company spent millions to create a league modeled on the N.B.A. Within a year, the E.Y.B.L. championship was being broadcast on ESPN, and competing in the emerging copycat leagues — the Adidas Gauntlet, the Under Armour Association — became the equivalent of attending a safety school. A whiff of corruption, however, remained throughout the grass-roots world: Earlier this year, the head coach and co-founder of the D.C. Assault, a top youth team, pleaded guilty to running a drug ring that spanned the East Coast. “They’re known as D.C. Premier now, and nobody really cares,” one Scan coach told me. “The head of your program turns out to be a drug dealer, but you change your name and you still keep your contract.”

Williams had joined the E.Y.B.L. in an attempt to exploit an exploitative system. A former Teach for America member, he recruited his Wesleyan friends not only to help him build his program but also to avoid mission creep. “If that pressure comes,” he said, “someone here is gonna say, ‘Hey, listen, you gotta slow down, that’s not what we’re about.’ ” Scan was preparing to send its first group of high-school seniors to college, and while one committed to Syracuse, another was headed to Sarah Lawrence. Among Williams’s favorite players was Joel Villa, who arrived at Scan from the Dominican Republic five years ago barely able to speak English but recently graduated from Proctor Academy, a boarding school in New Hampshire, and is going on to play at Endicott College in Massachusetts. Williams, whose affinity for junk food earned him the nickname Munch, has expanded his program to 100 players on eight teams, starting them as young as fourth grade. “Munch is basically the ‘hood pope,” said Andre Charles, one of Williams’s Wesleyan friends. “He’s constantly trying to do good deeds.”

When Nike first offered Scan a contract in 2012, Williams and his three friends spent a long night at Applebee’s debating the merits of accepting it. On the plus side, the program needed money: The coaches had full-time jobs but couldn’t afford to pay for dozens of boys to travel to tournaments around the country. Taking the deal, however, would put them in the uncomfortable position of running an educational nonprofit that leaned on some of the seedier elements of youth sports. Contending at the Peach Jam would require recruiting more high-caliber players at the expense of some of the local kids the program was built to serve. And recruiting could be a dirty game: Many people in the grass-roots basketball world told me that some programs were willing to make under-the-table payments in the low five figures for a highly coveted player.

Williams initially entered the recruiting circuit with some misgivings, but he soon developed a natural talent. Scan’s best player, Cheick Diallo, was spotted playing a pickup game in Bamako by Tidiane Dramé, a Malian-American, who had started a venture importing players from Mali. After hearing about Diallo, who was 6-foot-8 and still in middle school, Williams agreed to pay for his plane ticket to New York sight unseen. According to one of the numerous websites that rank teenage athletes, Diallo came into the E.Y.B.L. season as the second-ranked high-school basketball player in the country. When one reporter asked Diallo what he liked about living in the United States, he revealed both his still-maturing English and single-mindedness. “I love here because — N.B.A.!” he said. “My goal is to go to N.B.A. That was the only one thing I’m looking for is N.B.A.”

Williams had also landed Devonte Green, a sophomore guard from Long Island, who is the younger brother of the Spurs’ Danny Green; and Thomas Bryant, a highly ranked forward, who had recently left his home in Rochester to spend his junior year at Huntington Prep, a basketball factory in West Virginia with a student body of 12, the same size as its varsity team (Wiggins is an alumnus). This year, Williams signed Tyus Battle, a 6-6 guard from New Jersey who has been nationally ranked since sixth grade. Battle played the previous season for an E.Y.B.L. team in Philadelphia and was coveted by the New Jersey Playaz, a rival squad. But he agreed to join Team Scan, in part, after Williams promised Battle’s father, Gary, that his son, a natural shooting guard, would start at the point. Putting Battle at the position wasn’t necessarily best for the team, which already had several point guards, but it would make him more desirable in the eyes of college coaches and professional scouts. At every stop on the E.Y.B.L. circuit, Williams seemed to seize the chance to build new relationships. “I heard you’re changing addresses?” he said to an opposing player he heard might be switching teams. “Get out your phone, I’ll give you my number.” A B-team, meanwhile, had to be created for players like Joel Villa.