![]() "In high school, I had to put up 40 every night," McClung says. (Maryland) and Armando Bacot (North Carolina), McClung was trying to adjust to playing with the caliber of talent he would soon be surrounded by in college. Meanwhile, playing for a Team Loaded squad with 10 future D-I players, including David McCormack (Kansas), Rasir Bolton (Iowa State), Michael Wynn (Wake Forest), Ricky Lindo Jr. His Instagram -once home to teenage buddy portraits and a James Bond-esque prom shot -blew up, racking up more than 400,000 followers by the time his senior season rolled around. Two more videos of McClung's dunks, posted in January 2018, did 1.2 million YouTube views apiece within two months. The original YouTube video generated hundreds of thousands of views. Playing in an Adidas circuit tournament with Team Loaded VA in Hampton, Virginia, McClung caught a pass on a fast break, took one dribble and launched off two feet into a powerful windmill dunk. "He started jumping really well kind of out of nowhere that summer," Ervin says. Zac Ervin, a freshman guard at Elon and McClung's high school and AAU teammate, remembered the moment. Later in the spring, though, he breached a new echelon of hops-one that would change his life. Ranked a 3-star recruit, he got offers from Rutgers, La Salle, Wofford, ETSU and Marshall before deciding on the Scarlet Knights. McClung played well enough to be named Southwest Virginia Boys' Basketball Player of the Year by the Bristol Herald Courier after his junior season. Marcus, a former teacher and Scott County attorney who now works as a juvenile domestic relations court judge in the region, trained the Gate City basketball team in strength and conditioning. With Ervin's help, his shooting form improved, and dreams of NBA stardom occupied his mind, much in the way they do every high school player with a jump shot. He began training with Greg Ervin, the former head basketball coach at Gate City High School and father of his best friend, Zac. ![]() In hindsight, that should have come as no surprise.īy the end of ninth grade, McClung had grown to 5'10" and had given up football. ![]() Basketball just happens to be the sport that stuck." "I eventually fell in love with basketball, but it isn't basketball itself that makes me so competitive," McClung says. Soon, though, that borderline obsessive competitiveness manifested itself in basketball. He started little league football in the fifth grade, hoping to follow in his dad's footsteps. Mac became so obsessed with the Vertimax, a contraption that uses resistance to improve explosiveness and vertical leap, that Marcus had to ban him from the gym so that his then-high school-aged sister could focus. The three battled constantly, to see who could eat their food faster, who could race home from school first and who could complete the most reps in the basement gym that Marcus built at home for Anna. His father, Marcus, was a former linebacker at Virginia Tech. 3 recruit, would soon be a star at Tennessee. His older sister, Anna, a soccer player who would become the nation's No. But there was a love of competition he learned at home.
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