Where Are They Now: The Professor

HoopDiamonds

Grayson &apos;The Professor&apos; Boucher saw his life change back in 2003 when he became a mixtape LEGEND on the And1 tour. Now he finds himself with millions of followers and global basketball brand. See how he got there!  Make sure to subscribe and follow HoopDiamonds everywhere so you don&apos;t miss out on any of the action!  IG: http://www.instagram.com/hoopdiamonds Playmaker Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@playmakr  HoopDiamonds is a grassroots & high school basketball content creation platform based out of South Florida, dedicated to bringing you the best and highest quality basketball video content on the internet. Powered by @Playmaker.

Transcript

00:00 Have you ever wondered how the Professor managed to go from zero to a million subscribers in just a single week?

00:06 I mean, this guy grew up like any regular kid in a small town in Oregon.

00:11 How did he become the social media superstar amassing millions of views on his YouTube videos and billions of streams online?

00:18 Believe it or not, just like with everything, there's a secret sauce to becoming so successful.

00:24 And the Professor breaks it down to us on what that is.

00:27 Can you take any guesses? Let's find out.

00:30 To this day, some people look at the Professor, whose real name is Grayson Scott Boucher,

00:34 and would never guess that he plays basketball, let alone any sport at all.

00:38 Can you blame them?

00:39 Here's this small white dude from Kaiser, Oregon, barely standing at around 5'10" and weighing 150 pounds.

00:46 He doesn't necessarily pass the eye test of being a hooper, and never really did growing up either.

00:51 The burning question is, how did he fall in love with the sport of basketball in the first place?

00:56 The answer is his father, whose passion for the game wore off from him by putting a miniature basketball in his hands when he was just two years old.

01:04 By the fourth and fifth grade, there was only one thing on Grayson's mind, and that was to make it to the NBA.

01:10 He fell in love with the sport and practiced every single day at his local gym,

01:14 and his dad would rebound for him while he got him thousands of shots.

01:18 All he did was practice basketball.

01:20 Once high school came around, while everyone was hitting the football games on Friday night, he was hitting the gym.

01:26 He took the saying "no days off" quite literally, and didn't stop until he was the best player on his high school team.

01:32 There's another popular saying, "hard work pays off," and it did for him ahead of his freshman year after all those late hours in the gym.

01:40 Except, there was still one problem.

01:42 His freshman year of high school, he was 4'11" and only 85 pounds.

01:46 A deep breath and exhale towards him could send him to the ground.

01:50 And anyone who knows the game of basketball understands that physicality plays a huge role in being successful at the game against tougher opponents.

01:58 Despite the challenges, throughout his time in high school, he became better and better,

02:02 and made the necessary adjustments to acclimate his game toward bigger guys on the floor.

02:07 He became quicker, faster, a better ball handler, passer, and shooter.

02:11 He was awarded second team all-state, and was only one vote away from winning MVP in his conference.

02:17 Once his senior year was approaching an end, playing collegiate basketball was the only goal he had in mind.

02:23 However, those next couple of months became the moment that he started to realize that his goals weren't as attainable as he had wanted them to be.

02:31 If you're enjoying this video, please hit that subscribe button to help continue to support us.

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02:39 Tap that notification bell to be the first to catch our content, and make sure to like, comment, and share these videos with your friends.

02:45 Now let's get back to it.

02:46 After high school, he was cut from three different community colleges back to back to back in a matter of months.

02:52 It left him no choice but to head back home to live with his parents, and attempt to find something else to conquer in life.

02:59 He described that time as being a failure in life, heartbroken, depressed, and didn't know what his next move would be.

03:05 After staying at his parents' home for only a few days, he didn't know what to do.

03:09 So he did the only thing that popped into his head at that time, go to the gym and continue working on his game.

03:15 It's all he knew, and the passion was fun for him.

03:17 His dad owned a jewelry store back home, which has been in the family business for decades.

03:22 He had sold jewelry to the local people of Kaiser, including the people that worked at the local community college in the neighborhood.

03:29 Which the professor initially refused to attend because he wanted to move out of his family's house.

03:35 Hey, I get it.

03:36 His dad had convinced the guy who was coaching at the local community college to give him a shot, and the coach was nice enough to give him a tryout.

03:43 So he went to go try out.

03:45 The coach saw he had potential and redshirted him that year.

03:48 After his freshman year ended, he dedicated himself more and more to the game that summer.

03:53 We're talking about showing up to the court at 5 a.m. on weekdays, making a thousand jumpers before the clock strikes 7 a.m., and then heading to his summer classes.

04:02 That summer, And1 was hosting tryouts, which he followed the league already and decided to go check it out, not thinking too much of it at first.

04:10 The Streetball OG, Prime Objective, was the first player who noticed him at open runs and questioned who he was to everyone else.

04:17 After watching him for a game or two, Prime sat him aside and told him to play in the final game of open runs.

04:24 The next thing he knows, he's in the final open game guarding Hot Sauce, Streetball legend.

04:29 During the first two minutes of the game, Hot Sauce made the professor touch earth with the different moves he put on him.

04:34 Of course, he had never seen anything like it before.

04:37 The professor claimed he had major butterflies before the game, but once that jump ball was thrown up in the air to start the game,

04:44 all those butterflies instantly went away, and he did the only thing he knew how to do, to hoop.

04:49 As the game progressed, he came back at his opponents, which everyone in the gym appreciated.

04:54 He described whenever he played just one game against And1 Talent, he'd go home and feel like a superstar.

05:00 He couldn't wait to watch the game on tape and press pause on the parts where he made his one basket or cool pass.

05:06 The funny thing about all of it was that the production team made it look like he was a main part of the show,

05:11 throwing cool graphics of a young professor up on the screen with the And1 logo next to his name.

05:16 He didn't realize the show was about the new talent coming in and storytelling the show as who was going to be the last one standing,

05:23 the one to sign with And1.

05:25 He even said it himself, he was tripped out when he watched all of it go down in a small hotel room where he was staying at.

05:32 He ended up signing with And1 and the rest was history.

05:35 He ditched his community college to go play with the pros and attempt to make even more of a name for himself.

05:41 Unfortunately, And1's career for the professor ended in late 2008 and once again, the professor didn't know what his next move would be.

05:49 However, he did notice that in 2006 and 2007, people would approach him on the street and tell him that they saw his stuff on YouTube.

05:57 He had no clue what YouTube was and when he went to go search his name up on there,

06:01 he saw these highlight videos of him that had millions and millions of views.

06:05 People would grab highlights of him off the And1 ESPN show and make a fan compilation to publish on YouTube.

06:12 Boom! 3 million views, 5 million views.

06:15 There was no question that the next best thing to do was to start his own YouTube channel.

06:19 He supposedly found the guy who was uploading all the And1 highlights to YouTube

06:24 and asked him to make the first three videos for him and then asked him to show him how to edit videos so he could do it himself.

06:31 And believe it or not, the professor still edits about 30% of all of his videos to this day.

06:36 After all these years of posting content online, he described YouTube as his second chance of building himself back up after And1

06:43 and another chance to stay relevant and make even more of a name for himself.

06:47 So, then the question was, what should he post besides his old And1 highlights?

06:52 With every creator, there's always an idea and one of the first ideas that the professor and his friend had

06:58 was to dress up as a superhero and play random people one-on-one at the park on the basketball courts.

07:04 And then, at the end of the game, they would just leave and not take the costume off.

07:08 They were mixing pranks, wow factor, comedy, and basketball together.

07:13 It was hilarious and content that the internet had never seen before.

07:16 They'd go to the park in the valley for about an hour and not miss a shot.

07:20 One day, after playing in the valley, the professor had a flight to Chicago around 6 AM

07:25 and noticed he had amassed over 300K when he got to LAX.

07:29 And emails were flooding in his inbox left and right.

07:32 By the time he got to Chicago, he hit a million subscribers.

07:36 And then, by the end of the week, it was close to 7 million subscribers.

07:40 You could say that was the day the professor was given his second chance

07:43 and that the bag was once again about to be secured, but at a different level this time around.

07:48 2013 changed the professor's life for good.

07:51 And his channel was the most watched web series on the internet of all time.

07:56 Immediately after, bookings went up and he was more recognizable on the streets.

08:00 The cosplay on the court was so successful that you might remember the video

08:04 where the professor dressed up as Bugs Bunny from Space Jams

08:07 and was cooking dudes left and right on the course of Venice.

08:10 The costumes were custom made, which the professor and his content team

08:14 started finding people to make these custom costumes for him as the series kept progressing.

08:19 That solo video of him in a Bugs Bunny costume recouped the funds of that video and more,

08:24 allowing them to secure higher quality costumes, better equipment, resulting in better quality videos.

08:29 Now, his platforms have allowed him to create different avenues and opportunities for himself,

08:34 such as creating his own online training class for people who want to learn the game of basketball

08:39 called Crossed Up University.

08:41 He makes several birthday appearances a year for about an hour or so

08:45 and has made all the way up to 30k on some events just to cross some kids up.

08:49 Imagine that!

08:50 The professor's most prized possession and focus right now is on his brand, Global Hooper.

08:55 He's also got multiple NFT series online, which he partnered with Crypto.com

09:00 before they acquired the Staples Center, and is looking to drop even more NFTs in the future.

09:05 Another big goal for the man himself is to hit 10 million subscribers on YouTube.

09:10 He's also made it known that he'd like to try his hand at producing films.

09:14 After making a cameo in Adam Sandler's most recent basketball film, Hustle.

09:18 So there you have it!

09:19 Did you guess what the secret sauce was?

09:21 From getting cut by three different community colleges,

09:24 to becoming a cultural phenomenon as a star on the A&1 Tour,

09:28 to building a seven-figure social media business through his creative ideas

09:32 and ability to learn some new skills off the court.

09:35 Grayson's story of perseverance, adaptability, and a never-ending work ethic

09:39 is one that should be replicated if you have lofty goals and dreams of being a successful athlete or business owner.

09:45 There's always a strategy to everything,

09:47 and it's on you whether or not you want to work hard enough to achieve your wildest dreams.

09:52 Because it can be done.

09:53 And that's gonna do it for this episode of Where Are They Now?

09:56 If you enjoyed the video, let us know by leaving a like,

09:59 and comment what your favorite part of the professor's come up was.

10:03 Also, tell us who you'd like to see us feature next.

10:05 And as always, subscribe for more.

10:07 [music]

10:09 [silence]

10:10 [silence]

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