Sports
Former Dodger Steve Sax sets out to honor the Marine pilot he calls 'my hero'
ROSEVILLE, Calif. – There is only a smattering of baseball memorabilia on display in Steve Sax’s home office, a show of restraint considering he was a five-time All-Star.
His Rookie of the Year trophy is nowhere to be found. There is no Silver Slugger Award on a shelf. Neither World Series ring resides on a finger.
Instead, Sax’s most cherished possessions abound just out of sight. And on a rainy afternoon in this Sacramento suburb, he is in a nostalgic mood.
“Oh, I wanted to show you something,’’ Sax said.
The Los Angeles Dodgers sparkplug rises from behind his desk and returns with a treasure. He lifts a delicate glass cover to unveil one of his favorite art pieces.
It’s a misshapen model airplane with all the hallmarks of a grade-school project. The lumpy black body is made of clay. Two red marbles serve as the jet’s afterburners while one green one represents the landing gear.
“So, he made that for me,’’ Sax, 64, said. “He was in the fourth or fifth grade. And he said, ‘Dad, I’m gonna be an aviator someday.’’’
John was 8 years old when a friend of the family, a former Navy pilot, took him up in a single-engine World War II Soviet fighter called the Yakovlev Yak. They tooled around skyways above Northwest Oregon and for John, it was love at first flight. After that, the only place he wanted to be was in the sky.
Rich Ward, the pilot that day, had seen this phenomenon before. “There are some unusual people where you take them up one time and it’s over,” he said by phone. “Flying is what they’re going to do. I think they were reincarnated: they used to be birds.”
John Sax was so obsessed with flying that other youthful pursuits, such as baseball, barely registered. A ball once sailed over John’s head as if undetected during a Little League game. Oddly, the kid looked skyward the whole time but never budged.
More baffled than angry, Sax asked little Johnny after the game why he didn’t, you know, try to catch it.
“I saw the ball,’’ the kid protested, “but, Dad, did you see the C-130 going by? Each one of those engines costs 7 million dollars!”
Sax, a second baseman who played for the Yankees, White Sox and A’s as well as the Dodgers in a 14-year major league career, laughed as he recounted that story. Soon he was out of his seat again, this time reaching into a display case. He pulled down a poem encased in a silver frame.
It’s called “My Dad: by John Sax.” The outdated font suggests it rolled out of a home printer in the early 1990s. It reads, in part:
My dad was with me
when I was born
I know he’ll be beside me
through every storm
“Johnny wrote that for me when he was a little boy,’’ Sax said. “He won first prize in a contest.”
Another item in Sax’s collection, however, remained undisturbed. He does not rise to get it. He merely glowers in the direction of an adjoining room, where an autopsy report sits banished to a drawer for eternity.
“I haven’t looked at it. I can’t look at it,’’ Sax said. “And that’s forever. I just don’t want to see it.”
John became an aviator, just as he told his dad he would. He was a star pilot in the military, tapped for the Marine Corps version of “Top Gun” and heralded by his commanding officer as “a natural in the cockpit, just leaps and bounds above his peers in terms of his progression.”
Capt John J. Sax died with four other Marines when the aircraft he was co-piloting malfunctioned and crashed into a remote Southern California desert on June 8, 2022.
The reason Steve Sax has now parted with so many of his baseball treasures is that he had dreamed of one day giving them to his son. Instead, he holds tight only to all the gifts John gave him.
“He was my hero,’’ Sax said.
That is why Sax is here now, alternating between tears and laughter, between happy memories and debilitating grief, as he embarks on his mission to honor John’s life.
John Sax’s elementary school project was one of many early signs of his love for flying. (Courtesy of Steve Sax)
If the military operated like the major leagues, John Sax might have won Rookie of the Year, too.
“He walked into the room and was just larger than life,’’ Lt. Col. John Miller recalled by phone. “I see a lot of Marine officers check in. He was just different right from the get-go. His personality, his ability to communicate, his motivation, his excitement – full of energy.”
Miller serves as the commanding officer for the “Purple Foxes,” a squadron based at the Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton (San Diego County).
The unit’s colorful history dates back to the Vietnam War when, Miller said, an infantry battalion was under heavy fire during the battle for Khe Sanh in 1968 and needed an emergency resupply. The Purple Foxes heard the distress calls and immediately launched, resupplying the Marines and prompting one of the grateful men to reply: “You were the only ones that gave a s— about us.”
The line became an enduring motto. “Give a s—” lives on in the Purple Foxes culture. It’s painted onto aircraft and imprinted on shoulder patches.
It was in this rough-and-tumble culture that John Sax, the failed Little League outfielder, became a franchise player. He was especially adept at maneuvering the MV-22B Osprey, an aircraft that combines the agility of a helicopter with the speed of a turboprop. The Marines use the Osprey as an assault support aircraft.
It was John Sax’s favorite mode of travel.
“He loved it,’’ Miller said. “It was designed to take off and land like a helicopter, so you don’t really need a runway, but to fly in airplane mode at higher altitudes and much faster air speeds than a typical helicopter.”
Flying in the military had long been John’s goal, but it took a while for Uncle Sam to welcome him aboard. The Navy rejected John because of a shattered elbow suffered during a skimboarding accident (Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the famed Dodgers surgeon, handled the repairs.) John was later derailed by astigmatism, which also required surgery.
But John never considered a Plan B.
“Whatever it took, it didn’t matter,’’ Steve said. “It was amazing to me how driven he just was, even as a young boy. Nothing was going to get in his way. Nothing.”
Along the way, John earned a degree in aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle and amassed flying experience. Once he had the hang of things, he even took his mom for a spin. Debbie and Steve split when John was young, but they remain on good terms. They have an older daughter, Lauren Ashley, who is 37.
John took Debbie up in 2015 in a Cessna-172, a single-engine plane known as the Skyhawk.
Once they reached cruising altitude, John turned to her and said, “Mom, do you want to see what I’ve learned?” She was thrown by the question. They were already flying. This was what he’d learned, right?
Then her John stalled the plane, nose-dived for a spell and calmly pulled out of the stall. “Then he looks over at me and he goes, ‘Don’t tell my instructor I just did that,’” Debbie said with a laugh.
Steve Sax (right) with his son John. (Courtesy of Steve Sax)
Steve Sax had a much different relationship with his own father. John Thomas Sax was a Montana-born truck driver who lived life as if on a word count. He didn’t say much of anything. Specific phrases such as “I’m sorry” or “I love you” never escaped his larynx.
“He was like John Wayne,” Sax said. “My dad was not a talker. He was a doer.”
But his dad’s no-nonsense gruffness pulled Sax from the abyss during the lowest point of his career. In 1983, the infielder suddenly found himself incapable of making routine throws to first base. His version of the baseball yips became so bad that it’s now known as “Steve Sax Syndrome.” He made 30 errors that season, and his throws were so wildly errant that some smart-aleck fans along the first-base line at Dodger Stadium started wearing helmets.
“I had 26 errors at the break,’’ Sax recalled. “People make that in a career. I had 26 at the break.”
Less remembered is that Sax worked his way out of it. He overcame his throwing woes and finished in the National League’s top five for fielding percentage every year from 1986-1988, then led the American League in ’89 with the Yankees.
“I did! Thank you for remembering!’’ Sax said, laughing. “But I was going to tell you anyway.”
What was the cure for Steve Sax Syndrome? His stern father, John, told Steve that the only escape was to get his confidence back, and the only way to do that was to practice manically until he felt like himself again.
Then, in a rare moment of vulnerability for John Sax, he confided to Steve that he had the exact same issue as a young player, and that’s how he got out of it once upon a time.
“So I thought, ‘Wow! If Dad can go through this, then, of course, it will work,’’ Sax said. “So I took his advice, went through practice and got my confidence back one day at a time. Eventually, I took that confidence into the game – and the thing was gone.”
That tough-love lesson was the last conversation Sax ever had with his father. John died on June 10, 1983 at age 47.
It was several more years before Steve learned, to his delight, that Dad had conned him. Steve was reminiscing with his mom, Nancy, about how Dad’s willingness to open up about his throwing struggles saved his career. “And my mom whispers, ‘Your dad never had a throwing problem,’’’ Sax said.
He smiled. His parents had known each other since the fifth grade.
“He just told me that because he knew how much I revered his power and strength. And I got over it because I thought, ‘Well if he went through it …’ But he never went through it!”
The rest of Sax’s career was more fun, especially in 1988. He kicked off that magical year by belting a homer as the Dodgers’ first batter of the season. And by October, he was in the on-deck circle for Kirk Gibson’s classic home run against the A’s Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the World Series.
Lesser remembered, except for in this room, is that the biggest highlight for Sax that season happened in that sweet spot between Opening Day and the Fall Classic.
On Aug. 15 of that year, John Sax was born.
Steve Sax (right) with Tommy Lasorda during the 1988 World Series against the Oakland A’s. (Lennox McLendon / Associated Press)
On the worst day of their lives, the news came in ominous trickles.
Lauren invited her mom and dad over for dinner. Debbie got there first, just in time to read a text from Rich Ward, the family friend who had taken John on that life-changing flight. The message was something about a military mishap at Camp Pendleton.
“He didn’t say crash,” Debbie said. ‘He said, ‘There was an incident with an Osprey.’”
Debbie called John’s cellphone and it went straight to voicemail. She checked with John’s wife, Amber, who hadn’t heard from him. Rich told them not to worry about the silence, noting that the military often goes into a communication lockdown if something goes haywire.
Debbie wasn’t yet worried, though by the time Steve’s car rolled up to the house, she at least fretted over the rest of the squadron. Steve was also unfazed; military pilots are hardly the most reachable people. Unreturned phone calls and texts were the norm.
He recalls going to bed at 9 p.m. Ten minutes later he heard a knock at the door.
There was a Marine in full dress on his doorstep.
“I knew right away,’’ Sax said.
Recounting this part of the story, Sax went quiet for several moments. This is the pattern. When talking about the crash, Sax’s words often trailed off. He would start sentences with a full head of steam before running into a wall of grief.
Then, after a few beats of silence, he would push through. He did not fight tears; he embraced them. Among the few worthwhile condolences Sax received after the accident was when a nun told him: “Grief is the price you pay for loving someone.’’’
It took a full military investigation over the next 10 months, but the family got a full accounting of what happened that day. Capt. John Sax and four other Marines were returning from a training mission at low altitude on a clear and sunny afternoon. John had a lunch date scheduled with his wife within the hour. He and Amber had a 2-year-old daughter, and a second child would be born on Sept. 22.
What happened next would later be categorized as “a catastrophic mechanical failure.” The Osprey suffered “a hard clutch engagement,’’ which is when the clutch that connects the Osprey’s rotor gearbox to its engine slips. As detailed by the Defense News, the Osprey should immediately transfer the power load from the damaged engine to a second operational one. In this case, though, the power transfer blew out that engine, too. There is no third engine.
“It fell,” Steve Sax said, “like a rock out of the sky.” He even knows the moment of impact, 12:14 p.m. “and 18 seconds.”
The four other service members who perished that day were Cpl. Nathan E. Carlson, 21, of Winnebago, Ill.; Capt. Nicholas P. Losapio, 31, of Rockingham, N.H.; Cpl. Seth D. Rasmuson, 21, of Buffalo, Wyo.; and Lance Cpl. Evan A. Strickland, 19, of Valencia, N.M.
The official report following the military investigation stated, “There was nothing the crew of the SWIFT 11 could have done to anticipate or prevent this aviation mishap.”
This is one of the calamities that put John Sax’s favorite aircraft under increased scrutiny. From March 2022 to November 2023, 20 service members died in four fatal Osprey crashes, as noted in a recent NBC story. The U.S. military grounded its entire fleet of about 400 V-22 Ospreys after the crash of an Air Force Special Operations Command Osprey off Japan last November killed eight airmen.
In the case of the Purple Foxes, the fallen crew members remain a familiar presence at Camp Pendleton, where the new generation of Marine pilots wear patches bearing their names.
“We talk about them all the time,’’ Miller said. “When we walk into the squadron, we have a huge plaque with all their pictures above the entranceway.
“They are kind of a driving force for us to always do the right thing.”
Steve Sax started a foundation to help other kids who share John’s passion for flight achieve their goals. (Courtesy of Debbie Sax)
The first fundraiser for the Capt. John J. Sax Family Foundation took place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Los Angeles on Nov. 7, 2023. More than a thousand Marines attended, according to one estimate. Miller, who was John Sax’s commanding officer and closest confidante, wrote Steve Sax a letter in the aftermath of the tragedy:
“John spoke of you often and about how great his childhood was. What is most amazing to me is that he never once mentioned that you were a professional baseball player. Humility was his most impressive character trait. He loved you, Deborah, Lauren and his family dearly. … His life and legacy are a direct testament to how you raised John and for that, you should be proud.”
For all of the baseball memorabilia he’s given away, there’s one notable doozy in Sax’s home office. It’s a 4-foot by 6-foot painting called “Babe and the Kids,” based on a famous 1922 photo of Babe Ruth surrounded by schoolchildren. Sports artist Opie Otterstadt reimagined the photo by painting all the “kids” as Hall of Famers. There are baby-faced versions of Roberto Clemente and Sandy Koufax and George Brett.
“I look at this painting every day,” Sax said.
Now, the image is at the heart of the biggest fundraiser to date for the nascent John J. Sax Family Foundation. Interactive digital versions of the painting are for sale, and the proceeds will fund grants for young people who dreamed, as John Sax once did, of taking flight. “Honestly, there’s no way you can ever put a lid on that much light and energy,” Debbie Sax said. “So we want to just keep it going.”
Steve Sax said the foundation has already given away $10,000 in grant money to aspiring aviators. The funding got a boost when Sax auctioned off all that hardware from his baseball career.
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be the military,’’ Sax said. “It could be somebody who wants to become an astronaut. It’s pretty broad. But if they’ve got a passion for flight, that’s what we’re gonna help them with.”
Steve Sax hopes the foundation will keep John’s memory alive. More practically, it gives him something else to hold onto, right alongside the clay fighter jet and the poem.
One of the stages of grief is acceptance, but Sax is nowhere near that territory, and finds it hard to believe such a stage exists.
“Because I just don’t understand it,” he said. “I know John’s not here. But I just …”
He hits that wall again.
“… I can’t grab it, still. You’re moving forward but you’re not moving on. … I try to think about what John would want. But the one line I heard that really summed up losing a child was: ‘The pain never goes away until you’ve taken your last breath. It won’t go away until your heart stops beating.’
“But I believe in heaven. And I believe I’ll see him again.”
(Top image: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photo: Daniel Brown / The Athletic)
BROCKTON, Mass. — The first time AJ Dybantsa got paid for basketball, he didn’t want the money.
When the nation’s top recruit was named Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year as a high school freshman, it came with a cash prize: $1,000. That was a lot of money for a 14-year-old who insists he didn’t even get good at basketball until a year before.
For a teenager, that can go toward video games, shoes or even his future. But Dybantsa didn’t want it for himself. Instead, he thought about Brazzaville.
He first visited his father Ace’s hometown, the capital of Congo, when he was 4. Ace and his wife, Chelsea, used the trip to give their son perspective on their life back in Brockton and the importance of giving back to the community.
So, when the Gatorade check arrived, Dybantsa didn’t know what to do with it. Keeping it didn’t feel right.
“Do it for your heart,” Ace told his son. “Don’t take the money. That will come later.”
Ever since then, the 17-year-old Dybantsa has done things differently.
“Don’t take anything for granted,” Dybantsa told The Athletic recently. “People are less fortunate and don’t have what we have. If I continue this route, I’m going to get a lot more money than that. So, I might as well just donate (that check) back to the community.”
Name, image and likeness (NIL) rights have transformed American amateur sports, and Dybantsa has been Poseidon riding this financial wave. He was the third male basketball player to sign a sneaker deal with Nike while still playing in high school and then became the newest face of Red Bull soon thereafter. Dybantsa rose toward the top of his class at St. Sebastian’s, a Boston-area school, and then became the hottest teenage free agent in the sport when he signed lucrative deals with Prolific Prep (Calif.) as a junior and then Utah Prep as a senior.
Ace had a plan for his kids, AJ, Jasmyn and Samarra, before they were even born, getting a job as a police officer at Boston University so they could get free tuition. But when they turned out to be promising athletes, their plans changed.
“AJ, when he was in sixth grade, he said, ‘Dad, I’m not going to BU,’ ” Ace recalled with a laugh. “I said, ‘God dammit!’ ”
AJ expected to use the majority of this season to study all his college options and make a decision before March Madness. He had blue bloods Kansas and North Carolina in his final four, but Alabama and BYU were right there with them. Then, just before Thanksgiving, Dybantsa told his parents it was time. He was ready to commit after catching a BYU game in person Nov. 16.
Dybantsa will likely arrive in Provo, Utah, as the presumptive No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, unequivocally the biggest star in college basketball for a year.
“He’s what the NBA is looking for,” said a NBA front-office executive, who was granted anonymity so they could speak freely. “Wings with legitimate size that understand the game, can create offense and then, in theory, can guard multiple guys.”
When Dybantsa donated the Gatorade check to the local Boys & Girls Club as a high school freshman, he presumed that money coming later would be once he shook NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s hand on draft night. But NIL exploded overnight, and Dybantsa was the star of the bidding war that has defined this new era of college basketball.
AJ Dybantsa meets a young fan at a school in his hometown of Brockton, MA. (Jared Weiss / The Athletic)
The irony was he had no idea how much he was making. Ace’s job was to handle the business side; AJ’s job was books and ball.
“People just gonna talk, but I (didn’t) even know how much I’m getting. They just tell my dad all of that,” Dybantsa said. “I’m trying to make it to the NBA, so wherever they can get me the fastest there with the best development, there’s a whole lot of pillars that come with it. Money’s going to come if I do the work, so I’m not worried about the money in a year.”
‘Ain’t no Plan B’
One day early in Dybantsa’s junior season, he was towering over a group of elementary school students while visiting a class in his hometown. The children are in awe of this gigantic kid who isn’t that much older than them.
Most of them don’t exactly know who he is, but they know he is somebody. Dybantsa used to be the one looking up to people, but now they look up to him.
“It’s a good feeling. Basketball was funner when there was nothing going on when we were all 10 years old,” Dybantsa said. “Nobody got skill, everybody’s the same. It was way more fun. But now people judge you for who you are. The same people who hate on you are the same people in the stands trying to ask for a picture. The game’s still fun, but it’s different now.”
Once he’s walking back to his dad’s car, the dynamic shifts back to normal. Ace tells AJ he needs to go home, do his homework and make some lunch. He has to clean his room, even if he only visits for a few days a month.
“I tell AJ all the time, you may be No. 1 in the country, but in my house, you ain’t No. 1,” Ace says with a big smile. “When the coach yells at him, I say, ‘AJ, I love you, don’t I?’ He says, ‘Yes, you do.’ When the coach yells at you, he loves you. He wants you to correct what you’re doing wrong.”
Ace’s favorite stories to recall are of all the times he called his son’s coaches and told them to “bench his ass” because AJ did not uphold his parents’ lofty standards. In sixth grade, AJ didn’t make the honor roll. Ace told the coach they were driving to New Jersey for a tournament, but his son was not playing in either of their games.
“The coach looked at me and said, ‘You’re really gonna drive six hours?’ ” Ace said. “I told him, ‘You heard what I said.’ ”
When they arrived at the gym, Dybantsa went to warm up just as he always does, but then his coach approached and whispered something in his ear. Dybantsa spent the game watching from the sideline. But for the second game, the coach decided the punishment was enough.
Lesson learned, at least by his standard. But not Ace’s.
“So, on the drive home, I (told AJ), ‘Next time, I won’t even bother bringing you to the tournament,’ ” Ace said. “Ever since then, honor roll.”
AJ (left) and Ace Dybantsa (right) together in January 2024. (Jared Weiss / The Athletic)
The younger Dybantsa brings up the phrase “sugarcoating” often. He is criticized by his dad every day, so criticism from his coaches and the public doesn’t phase him.
“If you get sugarcoated your whole life, you ain’t ever gonna get better,” Dybantsa said. “(My dad) being tough on me and my sisters has impacted us in a way. Everybody wants something handed to them, but we know life is not gonna work like that.”
He has an aversion to sweets now. Tell him like it is, and he can work with that. Ask anyone who has been around Dybantsa about what makes him special, and it will take a while before you hear about his game.
“AJ is the total package on and off the floor,” said Ryan Bernardi, his coach at Prolific Prep. “He is extremely respectful, he’s charismatic, great personality. … I believe these traits were instilled in him by his parents.”
Passing always came naturally to Dybantsa, as he claims that he’s just now learning how to be a true scorer. Bernardi and Ace were constantly on him for not being aggressive enough in pursuing his shot while at Prolific. The younger Dybantsa always maintains the last thing he wants is to be known as a ball hog.
“My mindset will never be just scoring. I’m always going to pass,” Dybantsa said. “There’s never going to be a game where I have zero assists. I like making sure that everybody eats.”
What makes Dybantsa such a tantalizing prospect is that he is already such a complete player, a former center turned playmaking wing. His blend of balance, IQ, skill and explosiveness make him one of the most promising players to enter college this century. Dybantsa was measured during his September visit to Kansas at 6-foot-8 1/2 in socks with a 7-1 wingspan, according to Ace. His height is up half an inch from the beginning of the year.
He’s a gazelle attacking the rim and can pull up over anyone from every spot on the floor, levitating to a height where contests are merely suggestions that luck should intervene on the defense’s behalf. Dybantsa’s passing reads out of pick-and-rolls are some of the best at his position. He’s a brick wall on defense, flipping his hips to steer drivers more smoothly than players half his size. There is much room for improvement, but the holes in his game are measured at a molecular level.
When Boston-area skill trainer Brandon Ball first started shaping Dybantsa’s game, most of his pupils worked out twice a day during the summer. But Dybantsa, then 14, was different. It reminded Ball of his star client Terrence Clarke, who was one of the top players in the nation at the time, before dying in a car accident.
Dybantsa would arrive at the gym at 6 a.m., and they would work on building his skill set. He would lift weights at 9 a.m. and then return to the gym to work on his jumper at noon. He would have a game at 6 p.m., which should be the end of it. But no, one more workout on the floor postgame.
“Most kids can’t do three times a day, but he has great body language at every single stop,” Ball said. “He understood the mission early, and Terrence was the same way. The kid’s work ethic is different.”
Most kids that age have lives outside the gym. Not Dybantsa. He proudly claims he doesn’t do anything outside of ball and school. Ask him what his hobbies are, they’re basketball and basketball. There’s a reason BYU’s more buttoned-up campus culture wasn’t a deterrent for him.
There’s a commonality to most players who maximize their careers in the NBA. They were the ones who were getting in extra work while their peers were playing video games or going to the movies. They were taught something on the court once and then can do it an hour later as if they’ve known it their whole life.
As Dybantsa grew and quickly became one of the best players in the country, it cemented his unwavering belief that basketball was going to be his future, not that anyone who knew him was questioning it at that point.
“My life motto is ‘Ain’t no Plan B. I plan who I’m supposed to be,’ ” Dybantsa said. “People always ask me if I have a Plan B. Nah, I don’t.”
Prince of the NIL revolution
A year ago, Dybantsa had never heard of Utah Prep. Few people had.
It’s a reclamation project of a defunct school that relocated to Hurricane, Utah, but it’s not pronounced hurricane. Ask a local to explain its Scouse roots for you to understand.
Shortly after joining a star-studded roster at Prolific Prep, an Adidas school, Dybantsa signed a deal with Nike that ends before his college career begins. Now that NIL has made every high school offseason a free-agency period, Prolific knew there was a good chance Dybantsa was heading off to a Nike program for his senior year. Enter Utah Prep.
“For everyone involved, this was a first of its kind,” Bernardi said. “A new precedent had been set, and we are all trying to figure it out as it goes. I think the mindset of ‘What’s your offer’ has been the biggest change and you have to make quicker decisions.”
BYU donors facilitated an April visit to the school for Ace and Chelsea before they took a trip down to Provo to see the college’s campus. That was when they first met incoming BYU coach Kevin Young, who was then the top assistant for the Phoenix Suns but traveled out of Arizona in the middle of a playoff series to host the visit.
Dybantsa cheers with BYU student fans during a recent game in Provo, Utah. (Chris Gardner / Getty Images)
Utah Prep reportedly offered Ace $600,000 and an ownership stake in the fledgling program, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. Done deal. AJ visited, saw the mountains in the distance and signed up for the move. There was nothing else to do there, which is just how he liked it.
When Dybantsa was asked why he didn’t attend one of the iconic high school programs like Montverde Academy in Florida — which reportedly offered $1 million for AJ’s senior season — he explained how he wanted to do things differently.
“Montverde, we can use them as an example, I’m trying to show people you don’t have to go to a school like that to accomplish certain things,” AJ said. “They’re a great school, and they’ve got the most league guys from high school. So, there’s no knock going there. But you don’t have to go to a school like that.”
Just about every major NBA agent recruited AJ, but Ace decided to continue to manage his career while bringing on Shaquille O’Neal’s former agent, Leonard Armato, as an adviser.
Ace negotiates offers, goes to Armato for his input, comes to AJ for his decision, and a choice is then made. Agencies have been capitalizing on the NIL gold rush but often charge fees upwards of 20 percent, significantly more than their cut on NBA contracts. Ace has become a master schmooze and thrives in this new gig.
Reports have pegged Dybantsa’s NIL package to be worth around $7 million, though people with knowledge of the negotiations said the amount coming directly from BYU’s NIL collective is closer to $5 million. In the early stages of the NIL era, there is some ambiguity as to what defines an actual deal with the school.
The NCAA does not directly regulate NIL as the market has been shaped by court decisions over the past several years. The proposed House v. NCAA settlement in October has cleared the way for a revenue-sharing model from the schools to the players that could go into effect as soon as July 2025. But the players are not employees and there’s no union, so there is no collective bargaining to establish an agreed-upon system.
Dybantsa’s role in the recruitment was to get the answers he needed for his career. He asked coaches for their vision of building an offense through him and how he would bring winning to their team. He didn’t just want to know how the head coach operates, but what his recovery and nutritional program would look like. He wants to be a pro before he’s technically a pro.
The call that sealed the deal was from Kevin Durant, who played for Young in Phoenix. All Dybantsa wanted was to emulate Durant’s path to greatness, so he was sold on Young being his guide.
“You don’t want to just sign with somebody. You want to be partners with them,” Dybantsa said. “There’s a lot more to an offer than just money. People only see the money part of it, but it’s not just about money.”
In the late stages of his recruitment, AJ and Young were speaking directly while Ace was handling negotiations with the schools. In the end, Alabama and North Carolina matched BYU’s offer, unbeknownst to AJ.
Even when Dybantsa first informed his father in late November he was ready to commit to BYU, Ace kept the focus on basketball and didn’t reveal the price tag. Ace told his son to think it over while the elder Dybantsa paid one last visit to UNC.
When Ace returned, AJ was fully locked in on BYU. They called the school and signed the paperwork before Ace finally told AJ how much the NIL market determined he was worth.
AJ’s response?
“Wow.”
‘I’m not gonna change’
At Dybantsa’s games, the baseline under the opposing team’s basket is lined shoulder to shoulder with every young photographer and videographer trying to break into the big leagues, just like him. When the teams switch baskets at halftime, there is a mad rush of swinging tripods to get the best spot on the other side of the gym.
The days of walking the streets in solitude are coming to an end. He is already becoming instantly recognizable.
“(He’s) trying to navigate being the main character and understanding how much people look up to him and will follow him,” Bernardi said. “I think his consistent vocal presence will be a big key for him as he turns into a great leader.”
When he returned to Boston for a game with his new school, Utah Prep, every set of eyes is carefully careening his way. His aura captures the whole arena now. Aside from the blinged-out chain around his neck, he still carries himself like nobody is watching.
“I’m not gonna change. They might,” Dybantsa said. “There are some people I know that become famous and change their whole personality. They want to have this lavish lifestyle, but I just stick to who I am, and I think people mess with that.”
Dybantsa plans to return to Boston in January to see family, and they’ve already scheduled a shoe giveaway to a local high school. He never comes home empty-handed.
He’ll return as one of the highest-paid amateur basketball players in American history. Ace has been running the show while his son focuses on basketball and being a kid. Eventually, AJ can build his empire as he climbs the ladder to NBA stardom.
Getting to the big stage isn’t the hard part. Separating yourself is. Ace knows he won’t have much luck telling a nationally renowned college coach to bench his son because he didn’t get back on defense. Those days are over.
That’s why AJ joined a program where he’ll be treated the same way since he was little. Ace has no choice but to give it a break and trust his son is ready, as long as AJ still cleans his room when he comes home. Some things might never change.
“He’s probably going to correct me, but he’s not going to be yelling at me,” AJ said. “Well … he might.”
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; top photos: Barry Chin / The Boston Globe via Getty Images; Jim Poorten, Altan Gocher, Hans Lucas, Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
During his decade-long NFL career, Martin Gramatica kicked for four different teams.
Gramatica last appeared in an NFL game in 2008, the second year of his two-year stint with the New Orleans Saints.
Now 49, Gramatica opened up about his past during a sitdown with TMZ to discuss his memoir, “Beyond The Uprights: The Intimate Memoir Of Martin Gramatica.”
Gramatica opened up about what he experienced during his childhood, particularly the tense relationship he had with his father.
Retired kicker Martin Gramatica of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers watches pregame ceremonies during a game against the San Francisco 49ers Dec. 15, 2013, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images))
The Super Bowl-winning kicker described his father as “abusive”
“I had a very abusive father that I speak about,’ Gramatica told the outlet.
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But he stressed he didn’t talk or write about his past, seeking sympathy.
“I want to make sure people don’t read the book and say, ‘Feel sorry for me,’ because everything that I lived, it made me a better person and made me a better father,” Gramatica said.
Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Martin Gramatica runs out of the tunnel before a game against the Cleveland Browns at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., Aug. 29, 2015. (Kim Klement/USA Today Sports)
Gramatica said his father provided an example of the type of relationship he did not want to have with his own children.
“It made me know what not to do with my kids. I want to make sure that if somebody reads the book and realizes, ‘I need to break this,’ and I want somebody to realize it sooner than when I did. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I had my first son when Nico was born.”
Nico Gramatica is a placekicker for the South Florida Bulls.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Martin Gramatica follows through on a first-quarter, 24-yard field goal Aug. 23, 2003, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)
Martin’s challenging relationship with his father led to an agreement between Martin and his siblings.
“I love that kid so much that you’re thinking, ‘How can I ever do what my father did to me?’ So, that’s what I feel. I talked to my brothers, and we made a pact. We got to break this,” Martin noted.
“We haven’t spoken [to our dad] since because we just don’t want that type of abuse around our families. I have three kids. My brother Santiago has two kids. So, we don’t want that around our kids. That’s what the book’s about.”
Gramatica kicked for Kansas State before making the leap to the NFL in 1999. He spent the first six seasons of his NFL career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, winning the Super Bowl with the Bucs in 2002.
He ended his professional football career with a 76.4% career field goal percentage.
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Kawhi Leonard took part in a five-on-five practice Thursday, and Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said his star forward is making progress in recovering from a right knee injury but there is still no timetable for his season debut.
“He has to play some more five on five,” Lue said. “So we got to get all the days we got to get him in, keep stacking the days and see how he fares after that.”
Leonard will not play against the Golden State Warriors on Friday, nor will he join the team on a three-game trip that starts Monday in New Orleans, Lue said.
While the team is away, Leonard will practice with the San Diego Clippers, the Clippers’ G League team. That will give Leonard more time to play five on five and get the “right amount of reps,” Lue said.
“Making sure he’s doing everything so this doesn’t occur again so we can kind of monitor the fluid and see how it’s working,” Lue said. “So far it’s been really good and we just want to continue to keep progressing.”
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