D.J. Steward is one of the most dynamic scorers in the country, regardless of class, and dominated the competition with Mean Streets (Chicago) this past summer on the Nike EYBL. As a result, Steward, a senior combo guard at Whitney Young (Chicago), has everyone from Duke to Kentucky to North Carolina to Texas and many more all giving chase. Now he’s agreed to give USA TODAY exclusive access into his world by chronicling everything from his intimate thoughts to his everyday life in a blog.
What’s up guys it’s D.J. Steward from Whitney Young High School and now a Mean Streets alum, and I want to welcome you to my blog “Steward of the Game!”
It’s still crazy to me that I even just said “alum” because I feel like I just started, but I’ve been with Mean Streets program since seventh grade and it’s been a fantastic time!
Life has been pretty crazy since Peach Jam!
It’s just such a great event; you get to play against the best competition in front of all of the top coaches. If you go out there and just focus on playing your best then everything else will take care of itself.
That’s what I did and it worked out.
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A day after Peach Jam I got an offer from Duke and a couple days later North Carolina offered too. Kentucky is on my pretty hard. I’ve been talking to Coach Payne and he told me that I’m a priority, and I have to get on the call with Coach Cal pretty soon.
I feel like I’ll get an offer from them soon. I know I’m looking forward to talk to him.
It’s wild.
This is definitely what I wanted to happen, but now that it’s here it just feels surreal.
I can’t say that I saw it coming, but I did know that I was gonna work hard.
Before Peach Jam I had offers from Louisville, Iowa, Iowa State, Texas, DePaul, Notre Dame and a lot of other schools.
It’s all a blessing for me! I’ve just been letting it all sink in.
When I think back, I think it was the game I had against AOT at Peach Jam that really got me on the radar of the new schools. AOT has Brandon Boston and Sharife Cooper so all of the coaches were there. It was a fun matchup, but I played well.
I’m thinking about cutting my list pretty soon, maybe between 10-15 schools, but we’ll see.
My social media following has gone up by around 3,000 since the new offers started coming so that’s been cool.
I’m getting a lot of messages from fans telling me to go to their school. I like a passionate fan base so that’s fun to see.
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I’ve had players hit me too; Jalen Johnson and Jeremy Roach have been in my ear a lot lately trying to get me to join The Brotherhood.
I’ll look to start taking visits once I get the list down.
For the rest of the summer all I have is the Nike Skills Academy in August.
I start school in early September.
I can’t believe I’m actually a senior! Wow.
OK, so stepping away from that, I have to tell you guys that I recently watched a show called “Shooter” on Netflix and I would recommend that one.
Musically, I’ve been listening to Da Baby a lot; he’s got a good album so check that out.
OK, well that’s it for my first blog guys. I want to give all the glory to God for this opportunity and I want to again thank the Mean Streets program and the Nike EYBL.
Check back in with me soon and I’ll give you guys another update.
Don’t forget to follow D.J. Steward
Twitter: @swipasnipa
