Smooth moves: Palmer 11-year-old makes SportsCenter's Top Plays

PALMER — When 11-year-old hoops enthusiast Jaydon Coon showed off his smooth moves during the 3-on-3 basketball tournament at Grizzly Family Fitness on Friday, he never thought that his behind the back, between the legs layup would end up on SportsCenter.

“It made me feel great,” said Jaydon. “I drove in from a guy, did a between the legs, then a behind the back then in midair did a between the legs and scored a layup. That was my first attempt at it ever in my entire life, yeah. I didn’t even think of it.”

In 2018, worldwide leader in sports, ESPN, introduced its flagship program SportsCenter to a new audience on Snapchat. According to a report from Public Editor at ESPN Jim Brady from 2018, SportsCenter on Snapchat receives over two million unique viewers every day, three quarters of which are between the ages of 13 and 24.

“Somebody had recorded it during the 3-on-3 tournament on Friday and they sent it to me as that clip and so I jokingly had posted it on Twitter to coach [Frank] Ostanik up in Fairbanks because him and Jaydon play one-on-one each year during the team basketball camp that we have. So I posted it to Frank just saying hey, Jaydon’s getting ready for your annual event next year and then like SportsCenter came on and they’d been doing things with kids so, I’ll submit that to SportsCenter just see what happens,” said Jaydon’s father Jon Coon.

On Sunday, SportsCenter on Snapchat anchor Treavor Scales kicked off the show finale of showing the top plays of the day as he does whenever he hosts SportsCenter.

“Top plays, for the gang, run it,” bellowed Scales.

Jaydon is shown dribbling the ball with his right hand. As he drives past the free throw line, 11-year-old Jaydon dribbles between the legs, picks the ball up and transfers it from his left to right hand behind his back during his gather step. Then in midair, Jaydon once again puts the ball between his legs before throwing up a right-handed layup that kissed off the glass and fell through the hoop. Jaydon Coon’s whirling dervish of a basket was shown as the No. 5 Top Play of the day, showing off his smooth moves to millions of viewers worldwide.

“I’m just happy I have basketball to play,” said Jaydon.

Jaydon’s father Jon coaches basketball with the Colony Knights boys team and was ecstatic to see the joy in his son as he realized he was on Top Plays.

“We just figured it went off into the never neverland, I had no idea it actually hit SportsCenter,” said Jon Coon. “To be playing with everything going on in the world even though that day I made him wear a face mask even just to play. In that clip he’s wearing a mask which is probably not a bad thing with everything that’s going on in the world.”