Simone Evans

A small town ball boy for the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, turned into a successful young man as he worked his way towards finishing his MBA this December.

Justin Saunders grew up in Athens, TX, just an hour and a half from southeast of Dallas. In 2003, while just a sophomore in high school, Saunders had the opportunity to become the ball boy for the Dallas Mavericks basketball team.  On game days, Saunders would shoot the basketball with the players during their warms ups. Saunders would also run and sweep the floor anytime a player got hurt or injured to prevent moisture from staying on the floor. Saunders said that they did this so other players wouldn’t slip or injury themselves because of the moisture left on the ground from another player.

 From his ball boy status, Saunders went to work at basketball camps. Saunders said, “When I graduated from high school, I was a big a athletic and knew the man who was in charge of their basketball camps in Dallas. I got a job as a basketball coach. I started doing this in 2006 and kept doing it up until last year.” Saunders said that being a basketball coach opened up many opportunities for him.

Saunders got to go to quite a few All-Star games and MBA Final games.  He grew to have a close bond with the mascot of the Dallas Mavericks who was in charge of a Street Marketing Team.  Saunders said, “So what they do is, on game days they will go and set up, creating kind of like a fan experience. “ Saunders said that they would have a slam dunk area for fans and different interactive games.

, Saunders shared an experience he got to have a few years later while working for the Dallas Mavericks Team.

One experience Saunders shared was working with the R&B singer Usher. Usher was getting ready to perform at a pre-game show and Saunders had arrived to work early that day. Saunders said while Usher was on stage, preparing for his performance, the stage manager approached him and told him that Usher wanted a black basketball for his performance. Saunders said, “The stage manager said that he didn’t care how the ball got black, but Usher needed a black basketball for his performance.”

Less than an hour before Usher’s performance, Saunders ran around the Cowboy Stadium collecting as many black Sharpies as he could find to color the orange basketball black.  Saunders spent an hour coloring the basketball black.  He said, “Usher got on stage and is literally holding the basketball for a half a second and throws it off stage into the crowd.” He chuckled and said, “I did all this work for a half a second. It was pretty funny.”

While as a student at Stephen F. Austin State University, Saunders was involved on campus[LB2] . He was awarded the Presidential Volunteer Award in 2009, along with being a member of the Driving Jacks Review board. Not stopping there, Saunders also added his commitment to the Jack Walkers program, Safe Ride Programs United Committee, along with being an active member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon organization.

Saunders graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in 2010 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Economics. Despite being accepted into the Master of Business Administration program at Ole Miss and Tule University, Saunders decided to continue his education at SFA.

Today, Saunders has achieved a variety of altitudes in a short amount of time. Along with achieving and experiencing life from a ball boy and gaining a journalistic point of view, Saunders is pressing his way through the MBA program at Stephen F. Austin State University. Saunders will graduate in December 2012 and is currently looking for a job in the finance industry.