This is episode 57 of the Dunk Talk Podcast, a solo one, because something happened that deserved its own full telling: I got flown out for a dunk contest for the first time in my life. I’m Dylan Haugen, 5’11”, 17, and the TBL (The Basketball League, a 50-plus team professional league) flew me to Maryland for the Frederick Flying Cows’ All-Star Weekend dunk contest. I won it. That’s four contest wins in a row now. Here’s everything: how the invite happened, the preparation that almost fell apart, the contest itself, and the belt. There’s a belt.
How a 17-year-old gets flown to an All-Star Weekend
The quick contest resume for context: an outdoor 9’9” contest last June (fun, unstructured, my first event), the Nickel Dickle in Waconia, Minnesota in September (won it with a double-up X over three), and a February gym contest the day after my first Underboth (won that too). Then an email arrived from the Flying Cows’ social media manager: the TBL was running an online dunk contest, fan-voted via Google form, and the winner got flown to the All-Star Weekend contest in Frederick. I submitted a clip, campaigned shamelessly on Instagram, and about five days later got the phone call: I’d won the vote, and they were booking my flight and hotel. To everyone reading this who voted: this event existed for me because of you, and I mean that literally.
It wasn’t FIBA. It wasn’t Vegas. But flying out of state, hotel paid, to dunk at a professional league’s All-Star Weekend, that’s a different category of feeling than any local win, and it was one of the coolest moments of my career without a single dunk attached to it yet.
The preparation, which went sideways
Prep weekend was at the gym near my cabin (the Jack Link’s Activity Center, in the tiny town where Jack Link’s jerky was founded, the best empty gym in the middle of nowhere in America): rims at 9’10.75”, a touch low for event prep, but available. The session was diagnostic gold. Best Eastbay of my life, but on the fourth or fifth attempt, contest-unrealistic. And then I missed six consecutive double-up X’s, a dunk I literally could not remember last missing. Film review found it instantly: I was pushing forward on the ball instead of down-and-toward-me, sending my center of mass drifting so I was finishing mid-fall. Fixed it, made five straight. (The eternal lesson: film everything; the camera diagnoses what the body can’t feel.)
Then the week itself: sick the entire time. Deload Monday lift, skipped Tuesday upper entirely (lifting sick before an event is a risk with no upside), no Wednesday session, Thursday full rest, three consecutive rest days, which I never do. Flew to Washington D.C. Thursday and broke my own no-walking rule for the White House, the Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial, because you don’t skip the Lincoln Memorial to protect your calves. Some rules bend.
Contest night in Frederick
The event ran a 3-on-3 tournament and a three-point contest first, which meant sitting in the crowd from 7:00 until roughly 8:45, itching. The organizers, who were excellent throughout, gave me a weightlifting room and exactly the 30 minutes I needed: isos, dynamic warmup, sprint development, ball handling, caffeine. On-court warmups: a made cuff Windmill, a back-rimmed Hide-and-Seek that was nearly one of the craziest accidental makes ever (I threw the lob badly behind my shoulder, caught it anyway, and back-rimmed what would have been an outrageous dunk), and then a stretch of missing basic one-handers, because warmups love to lie to you in both directions.
One honest self-scout from the introductions: when they announced my name, I stood, waved like a substitute teacher, and sat back down. Showmanship is now officially on my development list alongside the 360 behind-the-back.
The dunks
- Round one, dunk one: double-up one-hander over Bobby Connors, a 6’3”-ish, extremely built Flying Cows player I recruited pre-contest specifically for his platform quality (Bobby, if you read this, I still can’t find your Instagram, DM me). Walked to the three-point line, didn’t think, went, punched it. Perfect execution. The “don’t think” cue, learned from a hundred Kilganon conversations about cueing, is real: for dunks you’ve done a thousand times, deliberation is the only failure mode. The crowd, for the only sub-six-foot guy in the field, was loud.
- Round one, dunk two: the between-the-legs off the lob, which took three attempts and unimpressive scores, but enough, combined with the opener, to reach the two-man final. The other dunker I’d most wanted in that final, a genuinely elite guy, top-rimmed a 180 between-the-legs twice and couldn’t land his behind-the-back, the cruelty of contests in one sentence.
- The final: my opponent attempted a catch from a bleacher-level throw and a Reverse Pump off a lob, missing both, which technically meant a layup wins it. I flew out here for more than a layup. There was a 6’9” player, one of the nicest humans I met all weekend, who I’d been eyeing all night, so I set up the double-up X over him. And then, mid-approach, my penultimate planted early and wrong, the single scariest feeling available when you’re mid-air over a 6’9” man in front of hundreds of people. Cleared him anyway. Dunked it anyway. Perfect score, win, and a reminder that the body sometimes saves the brain.
The belt, the cash, and the gratitude section
The prizes I didn’t know existed until I was there: a genuine championship belt (I own trophies and medals; a belt is different, a belt is forever) and $250 cash. Then photos with everyone, a broadcast interview for the TBL, and the overwhelming impression that every person involved, organizers, players, crowd, was hospitable beyond what the gig required. And my mom came with me and bought me dinner, which belongs in the credits of every win I ever get.
The reflection I’ll keep: at my home gyms, I do dunks I’ve never seen another human do in person, to total indifference, which is a strange ambient loneliness this sport carries (Tom says Australia’s the same). Events like this are the antidote: a building full of people who decided dunks matter for a night. That’s worth a flight. And every contest, this one included, exposes the same growth edges, dunk selection under pressure, showmanship, first-attempt conversion, that I’d rather learn at 17 in Frederick than at 22 somewhere bigger. The reps are the point. (The full contest is on my personal YouTube, linked in the description; a reaction breakdown with Hunter is coming.)
Four straight wins, one belt, and a standing goal for this platform: grow it until I can pay every dunker who comes on to tell their story, and get those stories onto Google where they outlive the algorithm. If you’re new, subscribe; if you voted, thank you again. Next episode is Adam’s journey from Taiwan through dunking, weightlifting, and growth. Peace out.