![]() “It’s crazy watching my dad and grandpa play in high school because just to see them in the same situation I am, playing for Camden High, it’s just crazy,” DJ said. He eventually saw tapes of the older Wagner’s putting in work with the Camden moniker stitched in gold on their jerseys.ĭJ studied those tapes. We told him we’re going to do what we got to do to give him the best chance to fulfill his dream.”ĭJ indeed grew up hearing all the stories from around the neighborhood about who his dad and grandpa were. Once he got old enough to hear stories and know that his family-we play basketball-he said he wanted to play basketball. That was the thing about letting play football. “When I was coming up, because my dad played too, at the time I didn’t think it was pressure. “You have most of these parents, they live through their kids,” Dajuan Sr. DJ initially took a liking for football and so the family spent evenings and weekends on the gridiron instead, until his passion for basketball eventually surpassed all other sports. He knew the family name held a lot of weight in the sport, especially in Camden. wanted to be careful when it came to introducing basketball to his kids. He came in the front room, ‘Dad, I got practice today?’ That’s when I knew he wasn’t no p-y! They were hitting him and they weren’t taking it easy on him either.”ĭajuan Sr. “The next day, we’re in the house around five or six o’clock. These kids were three years older than him.” The coach told me he didn’t want to let him hit, I’m like, ‘ Let him hit!’” Dejuan Sr. “When they got to their first day of equipment, they were contact hitting. ![]() Yet, Dajuan Sr felt like DJ had that extra edge to his step. Their football coach was a little uneasy with letting DJ participate in all of the activities with such a big age gap. DJ was only 4 years old at the time, while his sibling was 7. remembers when DJ wanted to play on a football team with his older brother. 1 recruit in the Class of 2023.ĭJ is ready to write his own story, to make his version of the Wagner legacy one for the books.ĭajuan Sr. Only a sophomore, DJ is ranked as the No. His professional career, though, was cut short due to a series of injuries and health issues, including a battle with ulcerative colitis.Īlmost two decades after the Dajuan days at Camden, his son, DJ, is now rocking the same purple and gold threads that his father and grandfather once did-all while being labeled next heir to the city’s throne. After one season at Memphis under John Calipari, Dajuan would get selected with the sixth pick in the 2002 NBA Draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers. The career points and three-digit single-game performance are still-standing state records. The All-American graduated Camden as New Jersey’s all-time leading scorer with 3,462 points. He led the Panthers to a state title as a junior (which included an 80-point performance) and famously dropped 100 points in a game against Camden County Tech as a senior. He averaged 27.3 points as a freshman and 35.3 points as a sophomore. (above), donned Camden’s purple and gold almost two decades later and instantly became one of the Garden State’s all-time greats. They are currently the only teammate duo in history to win titles together at all three levels. Together, they won an NBA championship two years later. Milt was then drafted in the second round of the 1986 NBA Draft, and ultimately reunited with Thompson while playing with the Los Angeles Lakers. He and Camden teammate Billy Thompson went on to Louisville, where together they won an NCAA national title in 1986. In the old building, the Wagner family’s imprints were four decades deep, where each hoop star helped propel Camden onto the national stage.įirst, it was Milt Wagner, who led the Panthers to a state championship in 1979 and was a McDonald’s All-American in 1981. The site was home to the century old Camden High School, whose classic castle tower structure was demolished a couple of years ago to make way for a state-of-the-art $133 million new facility that is expected to be ready for students next fall (classes have since gone virtual due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic). They repeatedly glance over at the image and then turn their attention right back to the construction site. To the left of them is a cardboard rendering poster of what the final product will look like once it’s completed in September of 2021. There’s a plethora of iron beams standing in front of them, as the new building’s façade begins to take shape. A cold drizzle is coming down on a late October afternoon while DJ Wagner and his father, Dajuan, are standing in front of a construction site located on Park Boulevard.
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