Exclusive Interview with Brayon Blake

 

Had a chance to do an email interview with Brayon Blake of the Federal Way basketball team.  From all reports Blake had a great spring and summer on the AAU circuit and received a couple of offers from Division One programs.  He also told us that he may not be returning to the Eagles next season in a surprising development.

Fedtown Sports (FTS): It sounds like you had a great summer on the AAU circuit.  Give us a recap of how it went and where you played.

Brayon Blake (BB): It was nice playing with Rotary for my last AAU circuit. I love my teammates and it was very fun and a learning experience.  We got to play in the EYBL. It’s like an NBA league for high school. The EYBL helped me be a better player on the court and off the court and taught me how to take my time.

FTS:  You tweeted recently that you received an offer from Pacific.  Congratulations.  How excited were you for that?

 BB: I was very excited to get the offer from Pacific. I’ve been working so hard lately it’s good to see how hard work pays off.

FTS: Terrell Smith, a former Eagle basketball player went to Pacific.  Maybe they are trying to make inroads into the program?

BB: Yeah I know Terrell.  He is good player and maybe they are lol who knows.

FTS: What other offers and interest have you received?

BB: I have offers from Seattle U, Pacific, Portland State and Oregon State. I have received interest from the University of California, Eastern Washington, UW, Idaho, Boise State, University of Dallas, Loyola Marymount, Montana State, San Diego State, WSU and Western Washington.

FTS: Do you see yourself as a three at the next level?  Seems like now you play a kind of hybrid 3/4.

BB: Yeah I’ve been playing the three and two lately. I can see myself playing those two positions at the next level.

FTS: What do you need to improve upon to make an impact at the next level?

BB:  I think need to improve on a lot of things: my defense, shooting and just being a smarter player on the court.

FTS: You came to Federal Way from Cleveland High School (Seattle) your sophomore year.  How have you enjoyed your experience at FW?

BB: Playing for Federal Way was a great experience.  Coach Collins is the best coach in my eyes just because he knows the game of basketball and he teaches it so well. But for my senior year I might not be an eagle because of my living situation.

FTS: That is pretty big news.  What are your goals for next season, regardless of where you are playing?

BB: My goals are to win a state ring wherever I end up going. Or if I stay at Federal Way.

FTS: What are some goals for after your high school career is over?

BB: Get a chance to make an impact at the next level and after that hopefully get drafted in the NBA.

FTS: Last question: When we watch you play we can’t but help notice how loud you are.  And we don’t mean that in a bad way.  It seems like you are always trying to direct the team.  Where does that come from?

BB: Me being loud on the court is just something that just happens.  When I play basketball it’s my passion so I do whatever it takes to get the win.

 

Sort of a bombshell delivered there by Mr. Blake about him possibly not returning to Federal Way for his senior year.  That would be a massive hit to the Eagle’s hopes of returning to the state tournament next year.   They will still have a ton of talent, but with Mr. Blake they could be considered one of the favorites in 4A next year.  WIthout him they will have an awfully big hole to fill.

FTS will keep you posted with further news as it develops.

-Fedtown Sports

 

Some links from around the city

• Sometimes the FW Mirror does a nice job. I think Casey is a good writer.  Here is something they do well:  sixth graders still not allowed to play middle school sports.  This is wildly dumb in our opinion.  Why not allow the kids in sixth grade to feel more a part of the school by competing in all the sports?  I fear that we will lose middle school sports in the next 5-10 years.
• Another good article from the Mirror.  This one about a total badass from TJ.  Don’t mess with this kid.
• And here is a look at the SPSL 4A Football schedule. We are very excited for the year on the gridiron to kick off again.  The TJ-KL game should be interesting.  Hearing good things about TJ this year.  The FW- Rogers game should also be interesting if just in the fact that we can see what the Eagles have back and whether the Blue Mamba can run for 300 yards in his first game of the year.

 

Let’s start with a basketball rumor

 

Let’s be honest: there is nothing in terms of high school sports that gets this town going more than basketball.  We love rumors in this town, especially about our high school basketball teams/players.  Well we have a dandy for you.

FTS has learned that a former middle school phenom is possibly moving back to the area. Jalen Jenkins, a former Totem Middle School player, moved to Arizona after his 8th grade year at Totem.  He has been playing at Mesa High School and is regarded as one of the best players in all of Arizona.  He apparently already has an offer from ASU and lots of interest from other Pac 12 programs.

According to this report Jalen could be coming back home.  While we haven’t been able to verify this yet we have tried to find anything about Jalen this summer on the AAU circuit and have come up with nothing.

Sources have told us though that Jalen’s father helps coach basketball at Beamer.  And that Jalen’s best friend is Trey Burch Manning- a rising senior at Beamer.

FTS is trying to find out if Jenkins is actually coming back to Washington state and if he does where he will play his high school ball at.  If it is in the Federal Way area you would have to think that Beamer would be where he would end up.

Beamer was already going to have a strong team next year.  With the addition of Jenkins you would have to think they would be one of the favorites to bring home the championship trophy in March.

We will keep investigating the story and alert you to anything we find.

-FTS

Welcome to Fedtown Sports Blog

Hello and welcome to the Fedtown Sports blog.  Here at FTS we want to provide a service that we think is sorely missing in our city.  While sports in our city continue to grow and teams continue to do extraordinary things the coverage in media seems to have curtailed just as fast.  In the past we had a couple of newspapers that covered the sports scene in town, but now we are down to only one and even then it seems we only get the bare bones coverage from the Federal Way Mirror.

While the Mirror does the best they can- I’m guessing like every other newspaper in the country the lack of coverage is due to lack of funds- it is obvious they are missing lots and lots of stories.

We want to rectify that. FTS is run by a three person team.  Two old guys and a young guy.  The young guy has just graduated from college (Go Dawgs!) and is interested in getting into writing.  The old guys have been following Federal Way sports for 30 plus years.  The young guy played two sports in high school at one of the local schools.

What the old guys lack in tech skills the young guy will hopefully make up for.  While the blog may not be the most fashionable looking thing in the world at the beginning we hope that the content will more than make up for that shortcoming.

We will mostly focus on high school sports, at least at the beginning.  And while we have love for all sports we will probably focus on the big ones: football and basketball.  However, we will go out of our way to at least give some coverage to all of the sports at the high school level.

We also need your help.  Do you know of a story that we should be covering?  Did your youth team win a tournament?  Did you sign a scholarship?  Did someone have a huge game in a middle school football game?  We want to know about it.

We can be contacted in two ways:

Email: fedtownsports@gmail.com

Twitter: @fedtownsports

As with all endeavors we have the highest hopes and are doing this as a service to the community.  We love sports, we love Federal Way and we want to share that love.  So do us a favor and pass the word.  Follow us on Twitter.  RT our links.  Send us story ideas.  Be involved in the comments section.  Help us bring publicity to the amazing athletes/teams in our city.

See you at the games!

-FTS