Daon Merritt scoffs when asked if he has spoken to his old coach at St. Raymond HS, Gary DeCesare, lately.
“I spoke to him on Father’s Day,” Merritt said.
That speaks to the impact DeCesare and St. Ray’s had on the former Richmond and South Alabama star. Merritt will be forever grateful to DeCesare for taking him out of South Jamaica and giving him the opportunity to start on one of the city’s elite high-school basketball teams. He helped repay the longtime coach by helping lead the Ravens to a New York State Federation championship in 2001.
“Gary D was a real father influence,” Merritt said of the coach, who left St. Ray’s in 2002. “He’s been real influential in my life. I really owe him a lot.”
Now, he wants to give back. And Merritt has all kinds of plans to do just that.
Merritt, who played basketball in Slovakia last season, is now a special education teacher at MS 72 in Jamaica, Queens. But that’s just the start. Merritt is currently in talks with Denver Nuggets superstar Carmelo Anthony to start an AAU team for middle school kids that would focus on education and fundamentals. He is currently working with a non-profit organization called Sports in Arts and wants to expand that to a travel basketball team.
“That’s something we’re looking to do real big in the future,” said Merritt, who is playing for the Sean Bell All-Stars this summer in streetball tournaments throughout the city.
Merritt says he has observed the AAU circuit – especially nowadays – and feels there’s a void. He thinks that pre-high school players aren’t getting the kind of teaching they need to excel later on and hopes to start a program in the city called Real Skills Development to “bring back fundamentals to the game.”
“That’s something our younger youth is not seeing right now,” Merritt said. “They’re playing a lot of games in the summer, but nobody is teaching the game anymore.”
The 5-foot-8 sharpshooting guard, who is also known for his tenacious defense, feels like he has the experience to hand down to the younger generation. In addition to the CHSAA intersectional and state Federation titles at St. Ray’s, Merritt competed in the NCAA tournament three times – once at Richmond and two more times after transferring to South Alabama.
“He’s a winner,” Sean Bell coach Raheem Wiggins said. “He knows how to play the game.”
Merritt, 25, averaged 11.5 points and 5.5 assists per game as South Alabama’s starting point guard in 2007-08. He said he’s not sure if he’ll play pro overseas again, especially after having a son, Damare, just four weeks ago.
“Everything is up in the air,” Merritt said. “It’s something I’ll think about in the future.”
But he seems to have plenty on his plate. The city’s youth will be the beneficiaries.
“I feel like that’s my give back,” Merritt said. “I really get a chance to work with kids every day, which is a blessing. … When you put sports and education together and get these kids to be student-athletes, that’s tremendous.”