Kaylee Hodge

“Working for a professional team is not as glamorous as it looks,” said graduate student Justin Saunders who worked for the Dallas Mavericks after graduating high school.

            Saunders grew up in Athens, Texas, a town about an hour southeast of Dallas.  He graduated from LaPoynor High School in 2006 where he was a very accomplished student as well as athlete.  He played in two state all-star basketball teams, named First Team All-Henderson County, First Team All-Region, and All-East Basketball teams. In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Saunders was also named to the Academic All-State Team as a senior and the salutatorian of his class.

            After high school Saunders played basketball at LeTourneau University in Longview. “I just didn’t like it. LeTourneau wasn’t for me,” Saunders said. He transferred to Stephen F. Austin State University his sophomore year where he graduated with his Bachelors of Arts in Economics and decided to stay to continue his education. 

            At SFA, Saunders was awarded the Presidential Volunteer Service Award, and he was an active member in Sigma Alpha Epsilon and numerous other organizations.

            As well as going to school full-time Saunders also worked for the Dallas Mavericks where he coached about 20 basketball camps a year as part of the Mavericks out reach programs, and a member of the Mavericks Street Marketing Team that set up fan experience events.

             “Through doing that I met a lot of players, had a lot of really cool experiences, got to work the NBA all-star game in 2010, and went to two NBA finals,” said Saunders

            While working with the Mavericks, Saunders had the opportunity to meet many famous celebrities such as Eva Longoria, Shakira, Usher, Gretchen Wilson, Lil Wayne, as well as many professional basketball players. He even became friends with a few of the Mavericks players he would see at work.

            During the All-Star game, Saunders was called in to work for the entire all-star weekend which included slam dunk contest, 3-point contest, rookie/sophomore game, and the celebrity game. He was at half-court during the slam dunk contest, and was also a rebounder for the players during the 3-point contest.

            He also remembers seeing big name basketball players like LeBron James, and Dwight Howard. During one of the practices Howard set a record and Saunders remembers all the news cameras that were there to capture the moment that Saunders was there to witness first-hand.

He recalled at the All-Star game Usher was one of the artists to perform and at the beginning of his performance he was supposed to throw out a basketball into the crowd and begin his song. Saunders said that Usher was in all black and wanted to basketball to be black as well, and Saunders was told to make it happen. So he raced around Cowboys stadium to find enough Sharpies to color the entire basketball black for Usher to throw out into the crowd. 

            He also remembers being invited to Erick Dampier’s birthday party. “But it sounded kind of sketchy, so I didn’t end up going,” said Saunders.

            Saunders remembers his experience with the Mavericks and all the celebrities as almost becoming numb to all the celebrities because he saw them so often that it just was any other day to him. But Saunders holds the most respect for the players and their dedication to the game.

“On one hand these guys have all the money in the world, but on the other hand they work so hard to get it and they work so hard to get to where they are now,” Saunders said.