There are several states that come to mind when the subject of basketball hotbeds is discussed. New York, Ohio and California would be at the top of most people's list ,while of late, states like Texas and Georgia have made equally strong moves toward significance. Those states count on strong programs like the NY Panthers, D1 Greyhounds, TX Bluechips and others to supply their next generation of stars.  Quietly there is another state slowly stepping into the mainstream consciousness of basketball aficionados in this discussion. That state is North Carolina and the team leading the way is D-ONE SPORTS.

D-ONE SPORTS was founded by Brian Clifton in 2000. Brian was invited to ABCD Camp in 1999 by Sonny Vacarro and staff to watch his younger brother Dwon Clifton. Dwon was competing in his final year of camp after having previously been selected to play in the camps 1998 edition where he earned the honor of playing in the Underclassman All-Star Game. While at the camp Brian was introduced to a whole new world of basketball that inspired him to return to North Carolina and endeavor to build his own organization. "Camp was like nothing that I had seen before", says Clifton, "I was watching this gym full of kids that were going at each other like their lives depended on it."  'Camp' as it is called is a different animal. You truly get a sense of who and what you are when you go head to head against the best players from all over the country (and sometimes the world) and you do it in front of a who's who of onlookers. College coaches, media, NBA players/coaches past and present all made their way to watch these high school players and it was clear to Brian that there was much more to youth basketball than playing for tournament trophies. "I met guys there that took this thing way more than seriously. Chris Rivers, Gary Charles, Mitch Malone, Curtis Malone, Jimmy Salmon, Darren 'Mats' Matsabura and the late Wallace Prather were all guys that reached out to me to offer advice or assistance. These guys opened up and shared stories with me about how their programs were changing the lives of kids who in many cases had little if any chance of being anything different than what they had seen."

North Carolina isn't known for having as dire of circumstances that exist in other places, inspiring the hunger that kids from these other places have, however Brian felt as if there was something missing nonetheless. "In North Carolina our kids weren't really fussed over and they more so played to play which has its place. There was a huge AAU presence in our area with the NC Gaters run by Vic Sapp and they were the unquestioned leader of non high school basketball in our state. They ran a top notch program that garnered national attention and everyone either played for them or wanted to. What they were doing was awesome, but I just felt that we could get more out of our guys and attract a higher quality player if we had something more to offer them." The thing that D-ONE SPORTS would later establish as their "something more" would be national exposure and an opportunity to be recruited by college programs all over the country. "With our program we teach our guys that their athletic talent should be taken seriously just like any other talent. If you are a student that is gifted in math it is inexcusable to sit in a general math class if you are blessed enough to understand the principles of calculus. We try to run our program under the same guidelines. "