Courtesy of Dunkman.
Jordan Southerland learned how to fly from his mother.
He was born and raised in Marietta, but his mother comes from Chicago. She’s a Bulls fan, and she named her son after Michael Jordan. In the early 1990s, she owned a VHS of “Michael Jordan: Come Fly With Me,” MJ’s classic sports documentary, and Southerland vividly remembers the first time he saw the superstar’s iconic dunk from the free-throw line. Southerland was two years old.
“You usually don’t remember stuff from when you’re two,” he says. “And I was just in awe.”
From his first jam on the plastic Fisher Price basketball hoop to hardwoods of Cobb County’s Ron Anderson Recreation Center to the adjustable rim his dad installed in their Marietta driveway, Southerland has soared to heights of professional dunking. And on Tuesday, August 25, he’ll come home to Atlanta, to Overtime Elite Arena at Atlantic Station, to compete in the Dunkman World Championship.
Courtesy Authentic Brands Group
Founded by Atlanta-based, Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal last April, Dunkman is the first professional league dedicated solely to the sport of competitive dunking. More than just a competition, the league holds a full two-month season of group-stage events in which athletes perform self-designed dunks and are judged by a five-person panel on execution, difficulty, originality, power, and vertical ability.
Southerland is known throughout the league as the “1 Foot God” due to his unique approach to launching himself from one foot. His signature dunks are the Reverse 360 Windmill and the Inverter. He earned his spot in the Championship at the Group Stage D event on August 11 with an alley-oop to himself off the shot clock and an inverted between-the-legs reverse dunk.
“I’m an artist first,” says Southerland. “My first love before basketball was art. Every tattoo I’ve had, I’ve drawn out myself. I paint. I look at dunking as an extension of my art. Because when I would watch Michael Jordan in slow motion, it would be the same as looking at a gymnast or ballet dancer or figure skater. I want people to see my dunks and say, ‘What did he just do?’”
Courtesy of Dunkman.
Even though the 6-foot-3 Southerland could dunk on a regulation rim by age 14, he, like his hero Jordan, was cut from his high school basketball team. So he instead channeled his athleticism into track and field, where he became an all-state high jumper at Marietta High School. This is where he learned to generate power and explosiveness lifting off on just one foot.
Then his mom was suddenly diagnosed with breast cancer.
“If she was going to leave this Earth, I wanted to make her proud by doing something I love to do,” he says.
Southerland started watching videos and hitting the gym. He found a dunk competition in Indiana and packed up his 2004 Honda Civic for the trip. He’s been a professional dunker ever since.
But for years, all that was available to dunkers like Southerland were one-off competitions. So, when he heard that O’Neal was starting Dunkman as a league with a defined pathway for athletes to compete at the highest level, official season standings, guaranteed contracts, and record-level prize money, he jumped at the chance.
Now Southerland will be competing in the first-ever Dunkman World Championship, a single-elimination, head-to-head tournament. Professional dunkers compete for the top prize of $500,000 as the world watches live on TNT, HBO Max, and TruTV. He’ll also be live in front of his hometown crowd in Atlanta. Hopefully, he says, the crowd will include his mother, who survived her brush with cancer. Whether his mother is there in person or watching on television, Southerland hopes he can fly for her.
