Deontay Young is an unlikely star, on or off the basketball court.
On it he defers to his more heralded Lincoln Park teammates. Off it he is a Cabrini-Green product his grandmother has raised alone.
This sounds like a recipe for anonymity and failure, but to expect either would be to underestimate the 5-foot-9-inch Young. In games and in life, he plays hungry.
Young hungers to show others a Cabrini kid can amount to something because he realizes few expect it.
“A lot of people think if you’re from this area you won’t be anything, that you won’t do the right things, that you’re bad,” he said Monday before practice. “I want to prove it’s not all true, that I can do something in life.”
He has done plenty already. The senior guard is a B student and an underrated defensive stopper for his No. 7-ranked team.
“He’s exactly what you would want your son to turn out to be like in every way,” Lincoln Park coach Tom Livatino said. “He’s respectful, kind, hardworking and a tough competitor.”
Young has spent virtually his entire life in the Cabrini area. His father died of bronchial pneumonia years ago. His mother and four siblings moved to Memphis when he was in 3rd grade, but he didn’t like it there and moved back a month later to live with his paternal grandmother, Euggine Johnson.
It was probably the best move of his life. Johnson is a no-holds-barred disciplinarian who has worked–and talked–tirelessly to keep him away from the gangs, drugs and violence that permeated the housing project.
“I raised him strict, not to be running the streets, not to be running with bad kids,” said Johnson, who is retired after 33 years as a lunchroom worker in the Chicago Public Schools. “It wasn’t easy; it’s still not easy. You’re still talking every day.”
Her competition, after all, has a powerful message, too, especially the drug dealers with their wads of cash.
“You’d see all the money they had and you’d want that money too,” Young said. “On the other hand you’d think of the consequences if you were caught, but on the other hand there was all that money.”
He wasn’t perfect, occasionally incurring his grandmother’s considerable wrath by sliding past his 9 p.m. curfew; but he also developed a knack for splitting when it looked as though his friends were up to no good.
Credit some of that to his sense of right and wrong. Credit a lot of it to a little voice in his head that sounded a lot like Johnson.
“Some kids would and some wouldn’t,” he said of getting into trouble. “I always wouldn’t. I don’t know why I wouldn’t.
“Maybe I was scared of the consequences and scared my grandma would find out. I didn’t want to disappoint her, that’s the main reason.”
Young, who is quiet but has an almost perpetual smile, brings that mature approach to the gym. He is an excellent shooter, but his team doesn’t need him to score when it has Northwestern-bound guard Michael Thompson, Wisconsin-Green Bay-bound forward J.J. Henley and the Montgomery brothers, senior forward Jonathan and junior guard Jeremy, each a Division I prospect.
Instead he does the dirty work it takes to win, especially on defense. In the Big Dipper holiday tournament, he shut down Thornton standout Mustapha Farrakhan in the semifinals and Leo standout Antonio Topps the next night as Lincoln Park won the title.
“That’s not because he’s stronger than everyone else or quicker than everyone else,” Livatino said. “He’s just competitive and feisty and hungry.
“Every great team needs a Deontay Young. Others get all the accolades, but he’s the glue of the team.”
Young isn’t allergic to the spotlight, but he understands his role and accepts it because he believes that will help Lincoln Park win a state title or at least reach the Class AA Elite Eight.
“You always want to be the offensive player scoring all the points,” said Young, who also plays baseball for Lincoln Park. “I still want to be that, but I realize there’s a lot of scorers and it’s better for me to help in other ways.”
Johnson has taken a somewhat dim view of sports and the time her grandson puts into it, but she has come to appreciate not only its role in helping keep him away from trouble but also in teaching such virtues as discipline and responsibility.
Young will use basketball to get a college education. It will likely come at a Division III school, but he’s smart enough not to care.
Unlike many athletes, he harbors no unrealistic dreams of playing in a Division I Final Four or cashing a fat pro paycheck.
“I’m not trying to get to the NBA or anything like that,” he said. “I’m trying to get to college, get a degree and a nice-paying job.
“I don’t want to live off other people, live off a government check. I just want to be somebody.”
He is already way more than that to his coaches and teammates.
“He’s a star in my eyes,” Jonathan Montgomery said. “He’s going to the top. He’s going the right way.”
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btemkin@tribune.com
