This Q&A was originally published in Dime #71. Check your local newsstand now to see the feature in its entirety…
Grayson Boucher, aka The Professor, has been a fixture on the streetball scene since he joined the AND1 Mixtape tour in 2003. Known for his slick handle and long distance shooting, The Professor is now part of the Ball Up team and is continuing to spread the gospel of streetball by touring all over the country this summer. Although he has been injured for the majority of this year’s Ball Up tour, which is being televised on Fox Sports, he was in high spirits before the Boston tour stop when he sat down to talk to us about his career thus far and his future.
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Dime: For those that may not have followed your career since AND1, what have you been up to and what does the future look like for The Professor?
The Professor: I really haven’t stopped touring since my AND1 days ended. AND1 went off ESPN in 2008 and that point I think the show got bought out three or four times. I actually think it got bought out for a fifth time recently. It kept getting into the hands of people who didn’t know anything about basketball. It wasn’t like there was no market for it but it was just off ESPN. So I stayed touring for AND1, mainly internationally but there was no TV show.
So in 2011, I joined Ball Up because back in 2009, I met the Ball Up’s CEO Demetrius Spencer, and stayed in touch with him. We had a good discussion about how he wanted to do something similar to AND1 but wanted the business side of things to be right and wanted to make the tour the main entity, instead of the merchandising like it was with AND1. Its been going great so far.
I have been doing some acting and have been doing ballhanding clinics for kids for the last couple of years and am looking to expand on that. I am just trying to keep all doors open and see where God takes me.
Dime: From growing up in Oregon…
The Professor: I’m from Keiser, Oregon. It is about an hour south of Portland.
Dime: …Gotta represent. How has the whole experience of traveling internationally and basically being able to play basketball for a living been like coming from a small town like Keiser?
The Professor: It’s been awesome man. It gave me a new perspective on life and I got to see how different cultures around the world get down. I think I have been to 40 different countries or something like that. Being able to do something that I love and live is just great.
[RELATED: Video – The Professor & Bone Collector’s “Life On The Road”]
Dime: Are you able to predict how an opponent will play because of where they are from? Do you able to gameplan beforehand knowing how a geographical area usually plays?
The Professor: The West Coast always has good shooters and I think it’s because there are a lot of gyms. It is not as streetball-driven. In the South, there are a lot of good hoopers but they are more known for their athleticism, like they usually got a lot of hops. The Midwest are known for being hard-nosed streetball players. The East Coast is known for ballhandling because streetball is big.
I know all of this because it reflects directly in whom we play. Even on our team, take a look at Springs, who’s from the Midwest. He’s a super hard-nosed player, got ton of heart and can pretty much do anything he wants on the court. Pat the Roc is from the East Coast; he’s all handle. It’s crazy how it directly reflects. Let’s take me for example; I’m from the Northwest. I got handle but I can shoot as well.
Dime: How do you think streetball is viewed presently, compared to when AND1 was in their hey day?
The Professor: Streetball was really popular, I would say from 2002 to 2007. It was on ESPN every day. But since it’s been off, the exposure has lessened and I think it flowed into becoming more like regular ball. I don’t know if that’s because the generation that is coming up now has just been watching the NBA, which could be the case since the NBA is at an all-time high popularity-wise. But I think now since Ball Up started, last year and this year, it has started to come back. Things go in waves, you know? I really believe that in two years it will be right back to where it was with AND1. I don’t know if it will get as much as exposure as being on ESPN every day but if it continues to grow at the pace we think it’s going to grow it will get there.
Dime: Are people still gunning for you guys on the court?
The Professor: They still are man. But that’s the nature of ballplayers. Everyone thinks they are great and a lot of times there are a lot of great ballplayers. But everyone thinks they are better than us for some reason. Sometimes if you are a star in your hometown, you become accustomed to playing with players that are just in your hometown. If you can make a name there, you think you can make a name anywhere… when realistically there are a lot of other high-caliber ballplayers out there.
When people look at streetball, it’s not the NBA, so people may not think we are on a high-caliber level. Even me, when I went to AND1 the first time, I had a lot of respect for it because I was fan but I didn’t really understand how high the level of play was. I was amazed that dudes were really hooping. It was a basketball game first and those highlights just happen organically. But when you look at everyone’s resumes like AO played in the D-League, Sik Wit It played Division I, and others, they all have played at a high level and people overlook that, and I was one of them.
Who is the world’s most exciting playground player?
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