This is episode 14 of the Dunk Talk Podcast. I’m Dylan Haugen, joined by my co-host Hunter Castona, and the guest is Hyrum Fechser, a 21-year-old 5’9” dunker from Utah who tested a 48.5-inch vertical at Dunk Camp 2024 right in front of both of us. That number puts Hyrum in the very small global club of dunkers with a documented 48-plus inch running vertical. The path to that number is one of the more unique arcs I’ve had on the show: he came up through high school track, set the state long jump record at 23 feet, has a 6’7” high jump PR, met Jordan Kilganon by accident at a gym in Utah, and only started competitive dunking 12 months before the recording.
A 29-inch vertical, an 8-week Vert Shock cycle, and the first dunk at 14
Hyrum didn’t go to public school until 9th grade. He went to Water Canyon, a tiny high school on the Utah-Arizona border with a graduating class of 62. He’d never played organized basketball. He didn’t even know the rules, didn’t know you couldn’t dribble with two hands. He went out for track and cross country instead. The track team had no coach, no track, no field. Just a grass field outside.
The dunking idea came from his friends, who were all on the basketball team and wanted him to try out. At 5’7”–5’8” with a 29-inch vertical (he’d measured), he could touch the small box under the rim. So he ran the original Vert Shock program: eight weeks of box jumps and plyometrics with no equipment. His vertical went from 29 to 35 inches in a couple of months. First dunk landed at 14 toward the end of freshman year. Sophomore year he was on the basketball team and got close to in-game dunks but never landed one. By junior year he had a 40-inch vertical and was throwing down two-handers.
A 6’7” high jump, a 23-foot long jump, and an 11.48-second 100
The high school athletic ceiling for Hyrum was track, not basketball. COVID cut off his junior year season (he was set to win state in multiple events). Senior year he didn’t play basketball at all, just focused on track. The numbers from that year:
- Long jump: 23 feet. Utah 1A state record at the time.
- High jump: 6’4” in-season (won him state); 6’7” at an open meet about a month after he graduated. Still his PR. He’s touched 6’7” three times since but hasn’t cleared 6’8”.
- 100 meter: 11.48 seconds, third in state.
- 110 hurdles + 4×100 relay + decathlon in the same season.
If high jump and long jump tell you anything, they tell you that the vertical Hyrum tests on a Vertec right now is built on a real triple-jump-grade plyo foundation. Most dunkers his height didn’t spend four years in an event-specific track program. He did.
The Vasa moment with Jordan Kilganon
Hyrum got track scholarship offers out of high school but didn’t test well on the ACT, which meant the schools wanted him to self-fund his first year and then re-apply. He passed on the offer and started driving truck. He dunked on weekends at Vasa, a gym in Utah.
The break came during 2023 NBA All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City. He’d watched Jordan Kilganon at the dunk show the night before. The next day he walked into Vasa and Kilganon was there warming up. Snapchat went out to his friends. Hyrum walked over, asked Kilganon for tips, and Kilganon (who had picked up an injury that day and couldn’t dunk much) ended up coaching him through the session. That was the day Hyrum landed his first Honey Dip and his first Reverse 180 Windmill, plus the height check video that started going around the dunk community.
The same day, Andy Nicholson, the owner of Dunk Camp, saw Hyrum jumping and asked if he was coming to camp. Hyrum didn’t even know camp existed, much less that it was in Utah. Andy got him in despite the camp being full because they could see he could jump high. That was the entry point to the whole pro dunking arc.
Dunk Camp 2023: 46 inches on a sprained ankle, and the green band a week later
Hyrum sprained his ankle a week before Dunk Camp 2023. It was at maybe 85 percent by the time he got to camp. He still tested 46 inches. He believes a healthy ankle would have put him at 48 even then. That was the start of his standing relationship with the WDA dunk-band system (white, light blue, light green, green, blue, purple, black, and each tier requires landing a specific list of dunks).
At camp on a sprained ankle he got white, light blue, and light green bands at 8 feet. A week after camp at a session in Utah, he hit the green band, his first Eastbay, his first behind-the-back dunk (still his only behind-the-back to date), his first Dubble Up Eastbay, his first Dubble Up Reverse, his first slingshot, and the Reverse 180 Windmill. Catastrophic week of new dunks. The path from there to the bigger bag was set.
Joining the Utah Dunkers
The Utah Dunkers are arguably the original college-and-community dunk group, predating Minnesota and Wisconsin Dunk Squad and the WSU Dunk Club we talked about in the last episode with Justin Blanchard. Hyrum found them via Instagram about a month after Dunk Camp 2023 and reached out when he was up in Logan for a family reunion. First session, he joined the group, and they renamed from Utah State Dunkers to Utah Dunkers around that time. Current core lineup is Dylan, Kyle, Hyrum, Mason, and Ham. Mason and Ham live in Logan (two hours away), so full-crew sessions happen roughly monthly. Hyrum, Dylan, and Kyle dunk weekly closer to home.
What he’s described as the biggest unlock from joining: every member of the crew specializes in a different thing. Dylan has fast hands. Mason has crazy power. Hyrum has the vertical. They give each other pointers, hype each other up, and the inter-group dynamic pushes everyone faster than solo training would. Same takeaway I’ve had with Minnesota Dunk Squad.
THP, the truck-driving routine, and box jumps onto his car
After Dunk Camp 2023 John Evans (THP) saw Hyrum jumping and pulled him onto the THP program. Hyrum’s been on it ever since. He calls it the most consistent jump training he’s ever done and the biggest single factor in the 13-inch climb from his original 35″ high school vertical to the current 48.5″.
The complication is logistical. Hyrum drives truck for work. He has a Planet Fitness membership that covers most stops, but Planet Fitness has no free weights and a safety bar for the squat machine, which doesn’t match what THP’s prescribing. When he can’t find a real gym, he runs and does box jumps. He has an Instagram clip of himself doing a box jump onto the roof of his car (which is roughly his height). The improvisation is funny in context. The point is that consistency in some form matters more than a perfect setup.
Knee pain didn’t catch him until last year. Through high school he was jumping all day every day with no warmups and had zero knee pain. Started getting jumper’s knee in 2023. The current routine is more careful about warmups, but his cold-jump tolerance is still wild. Hunter and I compared him to Gideon on Minnesota Dunk Squad. Gideon will skip warmups, sit out for two months, then walk into a session and hit an off-dribble Eastbay first try. Same kind of unusually durable engine.
Dunk School: the LLC, the dunk bus, and what’s coming
Hyrum’s newest project is Dunk School, a business he’s building with his best friend Josh Infield (“jumpingjosh22” on Instagram, a 5’9” dunker who shares Hyrum’s 39.5-inch standing vertical, and they tied at the standing-vert test at Dunk Camp 2024). The idea originated with Josh and is targeted at young kids who want to learn how to dunk. Movement-first instruction. Hyrum and Josh have:
- Formed the LLC and registered the copyright.
- Bought a short bus and converted it into a “Dunk Bus” with a regulation adjustable rim and a heavy-duty backboard mounted on the back.
- Active plans for a launch session and the first events. (Most of which Hyrum couldn’t share on the show because it’s still under wraps.)
Utah is the right place for it. By Hyrum’s count there are more basketball courts per square mile in Utah than almost anywhere else he’s been, and a meaningful share of them have adjustable rims (which is bizarre, since Hunter and I both have access to maybe one adjustable hoop in our respective hometowns). One of the hotels near where Hyrum lives has a parking-garage rooftop adjustable court that goes from 10’ down to about 4 feet.
Dunk Camp 2024: 48.5, the missing 50, and the approach fix
Hyrum’s stated goal heading into Dunk Camp 2024 was a 50-inch vertical. He tested 48.5. He was around 90 percent on the testing day, which he’s convinced means a 50 was in him on a perfect day. John Evans broke down the testing footage afterwards and pointed at Hyrum’s approach. He’s currently taking a lot of tiny baby steps and trying to make them up with the last two strides. The fix is bigger, more rhythmic steps with the same total approach length. Hyrum’s plan for the next year is to dial in the approach, test more frequently to build the Vertec-specific skill (which is a real thing, since touching a Vertec is different from touching a rim because of where the targets sit), and try for 50 at camp next year.
His broader take on vertical testing: most dunkers test below their actual vertical because they don’t practice the Vertec specifically. The mental routine of approaching a Vertec versus a rim is genuinely different. I had the same issue earlier this year. The fix is testing more.
Where Hyrum sits in the broader dunk world
The way Hyrum frames himself is honest. He says vertical is what he brings to the table. There aren’t many places he can go where someone is jumping higher than him. There are plenty of places he can go where someone has a bigger bag than him. The plan is to keep prioritizing the jump while filling in the bag, especially Eastbay off-vert (he can bottom-rim it, just a technique-tweak away) and a consistent 360 Windmill. The world is going to look very different for Hyrum once both of those land.
The other interesting thing about his career arc is the timing. Twelve months from “random truck driver who dunks on weekends” to “48.5-inch vertical, on THP, in the Utah Dunkers, building a business” is fast. He’s mostly catching the dunking world up to where his physical tools already are. The next 12 months are going to be more compressed.
Where to find Hyrum
Hyrum posts as himself on Instagram. Dunk School is going up there too once the launch is ready. The Kilganon GOAT-case episode pairs well with this one if you want more on the Vasa connection. Next episode is Jordan Pimstone on what it took to test 45 inches. DunkMan League starts this summer. Comment with any dunker you want me and Hunter to interview next.