He is from Sante Fe HS in Edmond, Oklahoma. Interesting how all of the sudden we have some Oklahoma interest.
He is 6-8/230 and is listed as a Center. We are the only school to offer so far, and his list of other schools interested include: Charlotte, Illinois, Louisiana-Lafayette, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, and Valparaiso.
With a last name like Haymaker, he may come in real handy when we play Cincy.
[b]Mountain Drew: 14-year-old phenom Monday, Nov 26, 2001 By Bob NighDrew Haymaker - Photo by Outside Source
EDMOND, Okla. (BP)âAt 6-foot-8, 236-pounds, Drew Haymaker of Edmond, Okla. is a potential franchise player who has college basketball coaches across the United States drooling and scrambling for pens and letters-of-intent.
Considered by some experts to be among the top five players in his age group in the country, Mountain Haymaker, as he is affectionately called, is projected to be a middle- to high-NCAA Division I player, and an odds-on pick to run up and down NBA hardwood in the not so distant future.
Still a boy at heart in a big manâs body, Haymaker, the son of Judy and Rex Haymaker, pastor of Seward Road Baptist Church near Guthrie, Okla. has caused commotion virtually since the day he was born, when he weighed in at 10 pounds, four ounces and measured 23 inches long. One might say he has grown more than a tad since then, as he now wears size 18 shoes. And by the way, did I mention that he is only 14 years old and in the 8th grade at Edmonds Summit Middle School?
Itâs not often that one uses the words: gentle, humble and compassionate to describe an athlete as dominating as Haymaker is on the court, but thatâs how those who know him best, his family, a former Sunday School teacher and lifelong friend, a pastor and a talent scout refer to him.
âDrew is such a humble kid; thatâs what is amazing about him,â said Greg Swaim, who tracks and rates upcoming players for college coaches. âThere are kids with one-tenth of his talent who have 10 times the ego that he does.
âDrew and his family know that God is No. 1, and the Lord has given him his talent for a reason. I think its real neat you can find a kid like that.â
âWith all the things he has going for him, he is really concerned that he doesnât get the big head,â added Robin Stinchcomb, who was Haymakerâs Sunday School teacher when he was 3-years-old and has been his prayer partner ever since. âHe doesnât brag about what he does; he just gets out there and does his best, and whatever happens is fine with him.
âHe has a tender heart; he wouldnât do anything that would hurt someone elseâs feelings. He has to learn to be more aggressive when he plays; heâs not really timid, but he doesnât want to hurt anyone.â
Don Rogers, pastor at Beaver Church in Panhandle Baptist Association, who watched Haymaker grow up when the family lived in Hennessey, Okla. said, âDrew is a boy in a manâs body who has a sweet spirit and loves Jesus. He is a genuine Christian who just happens to play basketball. He always stood out to me during programs such as Vacation Bible School. He just loves to be in church.â
To the rest of the Haymakers Rex, Judy, Abby, 22, and Doug, 20, Drew is just a son or brother. âWe know God has blessed him,â his father said, âbut he is going to be a person long after he is a ballplayer. He can have a big basketball game, but he still has to come home and mow the yard.â
As things are, Mountain Drew probably will be able to pay someone to mow his yards for him in years to come. Swaim says he has the tools to play at the very top level of Division I NCAA basketball and is a viable NBA prospect. âHe is a major prospect at the highest level in the country,â Swaim said. âThere is a fine line sometimes between a mid-major and a Duke-type player, and the one thing that makes me think Haymaker will be a high major is because he works hard. And, to be honest, there just arenât that many good big men out there and coaches are always looking for them.â
He obviously has the one thing that a lot of kids would like to have and donât have: height,â Swaim said. âHe has that size which has made a lot of college coaches take an early interest in him. There arenât many like him. He is a very strong kid. A player can make himself stronger, but he canât make himself taller.â
Among those high profile college programs that already have shown interest in Haymaker are North Carolina, Illinois, Kansas, Purdue, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. He and his family also have visited the campuses of Louisiana State University, Baylor and the University of Southern Louisiana in Lafayette during various vacations.
Because the Haymakers are a close-knit family both Abby, who is a teacher at Harding Middle School in Oklahoma City and Doug, a sophomore at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, still live at home Haymaker is drawn to OSU, a place he feels has that family atmosphere.
âThatâs the place I really want to go because its so close to home and all of the coaches are really nice,â Haymaker said. âCoach (Eddie) Sutton treats his team like a family, and that appeals to me. I like Sean (Suttonâs son, an OSU assistant coach and heir apparent to the Cowboys helm) too.â
That family image has been burned into the Haymakersâ minds even more so since two players and eight others associated with the OSU basketball program were killed Jan. 27 while flying back to Stillwater after a Big XII game at Colorado. They watched how well the Cowboys program, and Sutton in particular, handled the tragedy.
Overcoming obstacles
Life has not always been easy for Haymaker, who was diagnosed as having a learning disability when he was going into the first grade in Hennessey.
âThat was very devastating,â Rex said soberly. âWe didnât think there was anything wrong with him.â
In the first, second and third grade, Haymaker was placed in the learning disabled class. He finally tested out of that group, and has been on the honor roll in school every year since the fifth grade. He posted five As and two Bs on his last report card at Hennessey Middle School, finishing with a 3.71 grade point average.
âHe was able to do it because of a lot of hard work,â his father said.
âPerhaps the main reason he was thought of as learning disabled was because of slow development of speech. Stinchcomb confirmed that Haymaker was hard to understand all through elementary school.
Still, that didnât prevent the youngster from doing something Stinchcomb would never forget.
âHe was 3-years-old when the Haymakers first came to our church, and I was teaching in the nursery,â she laughed. âWe had an old podium in the room and Haymaker climbed up on a chair behind it and jabbered and jabbered and pounded on that podium and ended up shouting âAmen!â He was preaching to the congregation, just like his dad!â
Since then, Mountain Drew has preached a message of gentleness and common sense.
âYou have to keep your head straight; you canât buy into something or someone who doesnât do right,â he stressed. âYou have to trust in the Lord to help you.â
He knows that an injury could end his basketball career at any time, and he has a backup plan in place. He plans to major in history in college and even if he has a professional career, return to his native state and become a coach, first on the high school level and then collegiately.
He has a love of United States and of Oklahoma history. âHistory is really the only thing that interests me,â he said.
Haymaker not only tested out of the learning disabled class in the third grade, he also accepted Christ as his Savior. A few years later, his salvation was confirmed at Falls Creek when he stayed up late one night and discussed it with his youth pastor.
Frightening free throws?
Mountain Drew has only been playing basketball for three full years. His favorite sport as a youngster was football, much the same as his brother Doug, a talented athlete in his own right. The athletic genes run in the family; Rex was a football star at Hennessey and was recruited by OU, OSU and Missouri. However, he chose to attend Oklahoma Baptist University and fulfill his calling from God as a preacher.
Haymaker played in his first organized basketball game as a member of the Enid AAU team in a state tournament. âHe had never shot a free throw in a game, of course, and as we drove to the gym, his mother asked him what he was going to do when he got fouled and had to shoot a free throw,â Rex recalled. âHe just bowed his head and began reciting, âOur Father which art in HeavenâŚâ
âHeâs stuck with it, too. The other day, I caught him reciting the Lords Prayer again when he was at the line.â
Virtually the first time he touched a basketball, Haymaker showed amazing ability. At the end of his sixth grade year, a group of Hennessey high schoolers were messing around with a ball and challenged Haymaker to try to dunk it.
âThey were all bragging that they could do it, and asked me to try,â Haymaker said. âI donât think they thought I could do it, but I did, and everybody went crazy.â
Family Ties
Doug, and especially Haymakerâs sister, Abby, are very protective of their baby brother.
âDoug and Haymaker are very competitive,â Rex said. âDoug is going to do his best to see that Haymaker keeps his head on straight.â
Meanwhile, you better not mess with Mountain Drew unless you want to deal with his very-protective sister.
âAfter he was born, Abby (8 years older) carried him everywhere on her hip,â Rex said. âToday, she still carries him on her hip; not physically, but if you bad mouth her brother in the stands, sheâs going to be after you.â
Rogers said he always admired the Haymaker family as he watched Rex in bivocational ministry. âHere is a family that was called into ministry as a whole and they love church,â he said. âThey were always driving to either Marshall or Seward Road 40 miles one way each time and it was a team effort; they are proud to serve together in ministry as a family.â
That influence has helped forge Haymaker into an effective witness for Christ.
âI think Drew has been a real good influence on the other kids around him,â Stinchcomb said. âItâs not so much what he says he is very careful about saying anything at all and chooses his words wisely its more the way he acts. He has a very gentle spirit; heâs like a gentle giant.â
Movinâ on
Earlier this year, Rex and his family decided to move to Edmond to be closer to both his secular job with an oilfield supply company and to the congregation of Seward Road church.
Although the family doesnât live in the Summit district, the school district approved a transfer so Haymaker could attend school with friends on his AAU team, the Oklahoma Red Hawks, including Chance Hardaker, son of Santa Fe High School basketball coach Guy Hardaker, and Andy Shaw, the son of an assistant Santa Fe coach who also attend that school. Hardaker also coaches the Red Hawks, who have posted a 37-5 record in national AAU competition over the past four summers, and won a national title this year.
âHaymaker will be in a great high school program at Santa Fe,â said Swaim, who conducts regular shootouts to assess players progress and ability. âThere are also a couple of other kids heâs played AAU ball with there, and that group will be very good over the next few years, no doubt.â
Haymaker matches up well with anyone, and has outplayed several other nationally known high school players in AAU ball. He has held his own against some of the nationâs best players, Swaim said.
Still, it may be whatâs inside this gentle giant that really makes him stand out from others.
Stinchcomb, who continues to be a surrogate mom to Haymaker at times, and prays with him regularly when a big game or other challenge is coming up, paid him perhaps the highest compliment any mother can make.
âHeâs a great kid,â she said. âI could only hope that my daughter would marry so lucky.â[/b]
any update on this guy since we are looking for big men?
He donât grow any in the last 4 years???
i was just kinda curious if something happened with him or not. Or if we are even remotely thinking about getting him to come here.
I looked him up online and there were some stats on the guy from a couple of AAU tourneys. He doesnât sound too impressive. He averaged 4.8 ppg and had only one rebound(in five games)in his most recent tourney. In another, he only played three of five games (DNPCD?). sounds like Tyler Best.
ummâŚCentral Arkansas
we are apparently the only school still to have offered him anything.
According pconâs post he orally committed to Central Arkanasas. I bet if you check the schoolâs site itâll say he signed an LOI. A lot of the services stop following players when they committ to mid majors or especially lows.