Crouched in the corner of a small Indiana apartment, the 11-year-old girl clutched a worn Bible and prayed to be somewhere else.
“If we are going to be homeless,” she remembers pleading with her mother, “we might as well be homeless around people we know.”
The girl’s mother had moved them to South Bend for a job that never materialized.
The girl’s grandmother was a minister in Arkansas. Her grandfather was the bass guitarist in the church choir. The girl spent every Wednesday and Sunday of her childhood in church — her attendance more mandatory than an act of faith.
But short on hope, Dasia Young decided to call in a divine favor.
“I was going to test if God was real,” she said.
It wouldn’t be the last time Young felt lost. Nor would it be the last time she’d find her way.
Now, Young is a senior on one of the best teams in the country. When Utah begins NCAA Tournament play Saturday, the 1,000-point scorer will make her 71st start.
As Young begins her final run with the Utes, the forward has been reflecting on her journey. How she was separated from her mother for years. How she lost her biological father days before meeting him. How she nearly didn’t make it to college. But basketball — and the people basketball gave her — saved her.
“Everybody influenced me to be better that I was around,” Young said. “I’m really grateful.”
South Bend, Indiana
The three-bedroom apartment was stuffed with seven people by the time Young arrived in the middle of the summer heat.
When the job her mother was promised didn’t pan out, they scraped to survive, living in chaos Young said made her feel invisible.
Most days, she’d slink into the background as the four other children in the apartment required care. Two wore splints on their legs because of a genetic disorder. Another had a learning disability. A newborn baby screamed throughout the house.
Her grandfather begged them not to go. Now, Young felt why.
“It was horrible,” Young said. “I didn’t know these people.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Dasia Young as the University of Utah hosts Idaho, NCAA basketball in Salt Lake City on Monday, Nov. 7, 2022.
Her only escape was being able to sneak away for a few hours to play basketball at the park, though she always returned before dusk. “Don’t be outside when the lights go out,” she was told.
One night after she’d prayed to escape, her mother turned to her in the bed they both shared and asked the girl if she wanted to leave.
Days later, the sixth grader was on a train to Arkansas to move in with a basketball teammate.
Her mother wasn’t with her, and she wouldn’t know where she was again for two years.
Jonesboro, Arkansas
The first thing Young noticed when she moved into her new house was the family dinners.
The Islands, the family that took her in, would gather each night and eat as a group. “I wanted to be like that,” Young said.
Her mother had worked odd hours to make ends meet. And while she always saved enough to keep Young in basketball, the girl said her mother was emotionally distant. Meanwhile, she’d never had a relationship with her biological father.
At first, Young figured she’d stay with the Islands for a week or two. Her mother was getting money together to buy a house, she was told. But summer became fall, school started, and Young knew it would be longer.
“It was our season to take care of her,” Angel Island said.
She’d known Young for years. Island’s daughter, Faith, played travel ball on the same team and Island commanded the scoreboard, yelling at the refs from the courtside table.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah forward Dasia Young works out with the team on the practice court on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024.
Island drove Young and Faith to AAU tournaments from Atlanta to Kentucky, from Easter to August. It was clear by then that Young was a standout — a 5-foot-9 player who would dive into the stands for a loose ball. Island said it felt like their AAU team went 132-0. By the time Young was about to start seventh grade, the high school coach was already talking about moving her up to varsity.
Young liked her new situation. But at night, she secretly worried about her mother. She would get a call now and then, but the conversation was brief.
“To this day, I still don’t know where she was,” Young said.
Then the summer before she started eighth grade, her mother showed up on the Islands’ doorstep.
Jonesboro, still
The only piece of furniture in Young’s new apartment was a wooden pallet — which she and her mother, Janice Watkins, used as a bed their first few weeks back together.
The furniture trickled in slowly as people brought couches and tables from church. Watkins found a job at a hospital and worked night shifts to keep her daughter in basketball.
“My mom, her just being able to persevere through all those hardships just to make sure that I was OK,” Young said with appreciation.
By ninth grade, Young was on the varsity team. The school’s head coach, Jason Smith, said he’d only had five players do that in his 26 years of coaching. Young, he thought, could be special.
He was right. Although undersized, Young bullied defenders inside and became a starter by the end of the year.
Smith knew Young’s situation at home. Practice would end at 5 p.m. and he’d change hats to be whatever Young needed. If it was $50 worth of wings for dinner, he’d deliver it for his players. If it was a ride, he was there.
“There were times — junior, senior year — that you do worry, you know?” Smith said. “She lived in an area that’s a dangerous area.”
But Smith saw the relationship between mother and daughter growing. He’d make sure Watkins had gas in the car to come see her daughter’s games. He asked her to sit on the top of the bleachers because she was always screaming at the refs. He thought it hurt the team’s efforts to get calls more than it helped.
“She’d work until exhaustion,” Smith said. “She was always Dasia’s number one fan. Dasia is just her favorite basketball player. And in her mind, Dasia she is the greatest basketball player that’s ever played.”
In Young’s junior season, Nettleton High went 29-3 and went to the state semifinals. Young was an all-state player.
But around that time, Young received a call from her father. He’d never reached out before, not even when Young was in Indiana begging for help. He tried to strike up a conversation about basketball.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Utes guard Matyson Wilke (23) and center Nene Sow (25) hug Utah forward Dasia Young (34) as the Utes celebrate Young's game-winning shot giving the Utah a 77-76 win over the Colorado Buffaloes, in basketball action at the Jon M. Huntsman Center, on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024.
“I really didn’t care about building a relationship with him. Because he wasn’t there. And he had a family,” Young thought.
But her father was persistent. They started talking off and on and he promised to come watch her play. She made plans to drive up to see him.
Then, days before she was ready to see him, his kidneys started to fail. Less than a week later, he was dead. Young was devastated.
“We talked a lot towards the end,” she said. “We didn’t mend everything. But it was definitely better than what started off. So I’m really grateful for that. At least we had some good final words.”
Martin, Tennessee
Coach Jason Smith sat in his high school office as Young’s graduation neared, nervous about what came next.
Nettleton had gone back to the state semis and Young closed out her career 111-12, but she was still grieving.
And she had another problem: College offers weren’t coming.
Watkins had always told Young she needed a scholarship if she was going to college.
“I really had no plan B,” Young said. “But coaches didn’t like me because of my body language.”
Smith worked the phones, promising anyone who’d listen that Young wasn’t a problem. Eventually, a Division I offer came from the University of Tennessee at Martin.
An assistant coach there loved her, but the head coach was less enamored.
“He basically told me, ‘I wasn’t sold on you, but she was sold on you. So that’s why you’re here,’” Young said.
She spent two years there, starting 45 games. But she and her coach, Kevin McMillan, never saw eye-to-eye and Young entered the transfer portal frustrated.
“If I saw him at a Walmart, I’d walk the other way,” she said.
She went back to Smith’s office and wondered what came next. Smith sent her game film to coaches around the country to see if he could find her another school.
When UNLV contacted her, an overjoyed Young told the staff she’d come.
But the day before she signed, Utah called.
Smith and Young looked at the Utes’ schedule: Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco. Young had never been on a plane before. Now she could see the country while playing in a top basketball conference.
“I called my mom and said, ‘I’m going to Utah,’” Young said.
Salt Lake City
On Dasia Young’s first night in Utah, she cried uncontrollably in her dorm room.
She had surprised everyone she knew when she picked Salt Lake City as the place to continue her college basketball career. And, immediately, Young found herself regretting her choice.
“I missed the culture that I grew up around,” she said. “Like my friends like. But I had to outgrow that eventually.”
She felt lost during her first semester.
By the end of the regular season, she had decided to leave.
But Utah head coach Lynne Roberts did everything she could to convince the player to stay. Roberts ate lunches with her, telling her she had a home. Smith called her, saying there was “nothing here for her if she came back.”
It wasn’t until the Pac-12 tournament that Young changed her mind. Around the anniversary of her father’s death, Roberts pulled her aside and gave her the day off.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Utes guard Lani White (3) and Utah Utes forward Dasia Young (34) cheer on their team from the Bech, in basketball action at the Jon M. Huntsman Center, on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024.
“They cared about me as a person,” Young said. “Like forget basketball. Is basketball kind of hard now? Yes. Is the situation where I’m living with a new culture hard? Yes. But at least people care about me.”
Points unknown
On senior night two weeks ago, Young was joined by Angel and Faith Island for a weekend mixed with both happiness and sorrow.
A week earlier, Young had suffered another loss. Her sister’s father, a man whom Young had once been close with, had died. After her final game at the Huntsman Center, the red flowers laid around Young’s neck reminded her of a funeral she’d been to, underscoring the most recent loss she endured.
But Young felt more love than pain.
At dinner with the Islands that weekend, the group shared stories. About her time in the Islands’ home. How her mom always made sure she could play basketball. How her high school coaches guided her. How Utah took a chance on her.
“She’s had a really tough life,” Smith said. “... But as bleak as things looked to her at times, whether she knew it or not, she always had a bubble around her of people who wanted to protect her.”
He added: “She is a winner. I consider her a daughter.”
Whatever comes after this NCAA Tournament, Smith knows Young will be successful. Because through it all, Young has always come out on top.
