By Jeremy Martin

It took less than 24 hours for twitter nation to anoint Hafid Yassan's late game thunder jam against Cleveland High as the prep dunk of the year. Touted as the 'most insane high school dunk ever,' by the Sporting news, it laid claim to the top spot in the January 7th edition of Sports Center's top ten plays of the night on ESPN.

But for the moment, none of that mattered Yassan and the rest of the Cheif Sealth International high school starting five had just given up the game winning basket to the reserves during an inter squad scrimmage in perpetration for a Friday night road game at Seattle Prep.

Yassan, internet darling and star of a vine that basically exploded the internet was now on the deck doing pushups as penance for his team's defensive lapse.

“We're not going to buy into any of the hoopla, nothing changes, not here,” Chief Sealth head coach Colin Slingsby said.

And yet, in reality everything changes.

The dunk, seen by tens of thousands across the country and beyond has brought the teenager to national prominence, making an over night celebratory of a normally reserved young man.

Already well known in the Chief Sealth hallways, the 6'5'' senior has, in the blink of an eye transcended simple school yard popularity to become a trending topic on both twitter and facebook, getting shout outs from Dime Magazine, the Gonzaga Bulldogs and others.

“My followers have have doubled, tripled, all of that. They're going crazy, saying its the best dunk they've ever seen. They're comparing it to Vince Carter, saying I was walking on the moon,” Yassan said.
He may not have been in full on orbit, but the night he leapfrogged a Cleveland high defender and just about caught his neck on the rim certainly put him in rare air among his peers, and he's now hoping this dunk launches his likelihood of playing collage basketball into overdrive.

“I've talked to a couple of schools and coach says he's going to help me out with some others,” Yassan said.

But before Slingsby could assist his star forward in finding a home at the collegiate level, Yassan first needed to help himself by buckling down in the classroom.

“He shuffled around a little bit to a couple other schools and had some academic challenges his first couple years of high school, but he's been really consistent here and is growing up and becoming more mature,” Slingsby said. “Sometimes little things like this can make a difference. I'm hoping to find him a spot, academically he's on track so we're going to try to find him a place for next year.”

Next year however is still a ways away, especially when you play in Seattle's metro league, a conference filled with tough, athletic, no nonsense teams, and players who would sooner take you out then get posterized.

Yassan, however is up to the challenge and hopes to make a few more statements during the remainder of the season.

Slingsby too, wouldn't mind seeing him throw a few more down, even though highlight reel dunks are becoming the norm.

“We see him dunk daily so it wasn't as big of a surprise, but that one was a special one,” Slingsby said.
Starting with a perfect inbound lob from sophomore Yusuf Mohamed, and finishing with ten players bouncing around the gym, two benches of reserves grasping each other and a hysterical crowd unsure of what it just witnessed, it was all caught on a fan's smart phone. And good thing, because Yassan barely remembers doing any of it.

“I don't remember any of that, I just remember getting up high, I was scared to land, the crowd was going crazy,” he said.

Slingsby remembers it well, not because it ended it with what might go down as the dunk of the century, but because it was a perfectly executed inbound play, dubbed 'Single,' ran to perfection, just the way he drew it up.

“Normally (Hafid) sets a screen and slips to the basket, but they weren't guarding him so he just broke to the basket, which was the right thing to do,” Slingsby said.

The right thing to do indeed! That one play just might change the course of a young man's life, literally and figuratively spring boarding him to the next level and the next challenge.

“Its important but that was a ten second moment of his life and life moves forward, Slingsby said.
Of course it's ten seconds that Yassan, and countless others have watched on a loop for the past few days.
“I've watched it like 120 times, every time I watch it, it gets better and better to me. It was on Sports Center , it was crazy,” Yassan said.