Ball is Life
Auston was 2 years old when he first bounced a basketball. His family did not think anything of it. Fifteen years later he became a local basketball star.
Auston said he worked really hard to get there.
“I practice every single day,” he said. “If I don’t go to the gym, I go to the courts outside my house.”
His brothers agreed.
“Nobody works harder than this man,” Juston Bailey, 19, said. “It does not matter if it’s 100 degrees out or 2 degrees, he’ll be at the courts all day. My mom has to force him to come home.”
“He’s the only teenager I know that doesn’t play video games or want to party,” Langston Bailey, 13, said. “He’d rather play ball.”
Basketball was not Auston’s first sport of choice.
“I wanted to play football like my brother Juston,” he said. “But I couldn’t play contact sports.”
His mother Michele explained that he could not play due to his TSC diagnosis.
“I was advised to stray him away from contact sports because if he got hit too hard it could cause renal (relating to the kidneys) bleeding,” she said.
Auston decided to try basketball instead.
He played on his first team, the Greenbelt Boys and Girls Club Raiders, when he was 5 years old.
“I ended up liking it a lot,” he said. “I was good at it too.”
After playing for Greenbelt for two years, he went to a different local team called Kettering, Largo and Mitchellville (KLM).
He spent a few years on KLM’s team before he was scouted by an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) coach for the Maryland Pride.
“I was balling on that team,” Auston said. “Everybody knew me for making 3-pointers.”
He continued to play on AAU teams and traveled all over the country.
He was noticed by scouts when he was in the 8th grade.
“People called me the sharp shooter, because I always made shots,” he said. “Scouts and coaches were asking me to join their team.”
Auston attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School for his freshman, sophomore and junior year, until he was scouted by Springdale Preparatory School.
He said most people do not transfer during their senior year, but felt it was the right move to make.
“Roose was dogging me,” he said. “They were not giving me play time. When Springdale called me, I wanted to go so I could have a better chance of playing college ball.”
Left: Auston, age 6, with Greenbelt Raiders
Right: Auston, age 8 with KLM
His goal is to play in college and then go pro.
“I want to go to the NBA or play overseas,” he said.
Despite Auston’s TSC diagnosis, he believes he was destined to be who and where he is.
“I’m not even supposed to be walking, but God made another way for me.”
Auston does not think his conditions affect his ablility to play basketball physically, but it does mentally.
“ADHD affects me because I get angry very fast on the court, and I start talking trash” he said. “Tuberous Sclerosis does not have an affect on me playing basketball.”
His ADHD also made it difficult for him to learn the play book in the past.
“Last season with my old school it was very hard for me to remember the plays because I lose focus,” he said.
Auston still has difficulty with plays, but his new coach, Tyrone Johnson, makes a better effort in helping him.
“This year since I am in a better (school) sitution the plays are easier to learn,” he said. “I have a great coach. He stops practice all the time to teach me the plays.”
Auston believes he can be an advocate for people with TSC.
He wants to encourage others like him that they can still do great things, despite having medical complications.
“I believe you can do anything, if you put your mind to it,” he said.
Auston has won numerous basketball awards for Most Improved Player and Most Valuable Player.
He became a Maryland State Champion last year with his former team at Roosevelt.
Locally, he placed first two times at the AAU Dunk Contests. One was hosted by the popular sponsor Triple Threat.
Auston is two games into his senior season. As of now he averages 11 points and 4 rebounds. He has one college offer to East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania.