Jordan “1FootGod” Southerland

Jordan Southerland, known everywhere as the 1FootGod, is widely considered the best one-foot dunker in the world. At 6’3″ with a 50 inch vertical he takes off from a single foot in a sport where almost every elite dunker is a two-foot jumper, and he has built an entire bag around that difference. His mom, a Bulls fan, named him after Michael Jordan, and the free throw line dunk is his first memory of wanting to dunk at all.

Jumping runs in the family. His dad could dunk at 5’10” and trained Jordan’s vertical from about age eight with a system: lower the rim, set a height, raise it the next month. He was dunking on nine feet at nine, then stalled there for nearly four years while his dad kept him off weights. The breakthrough came at 13 going on 14, in a game, at 5’6″: baseline, one foot to two hands, and he hung on the rim screaming. He rolled his ankle on the very next play and did not dunk again for a year.

He never played a minute of high school basketball, making second cuts every year. As a junior he led the second-cut group past the starting five in a scrimmage and was offered the job of team manager instead. The pivot came from his gym teacher, Coach Friday, a former NFL player who saw him throw a baby windmill in class and would not let it go. Jordan went out for track, cleared six feet on his first high jump attempt, and found that its landing mechanics finally quieted the knees a 5’9″ to 6’0″ growth spurt had wrecked. He has Coach Friday’s name tattooed on his leg.

Rudy Clements, a former Sprite contest dunker he met at a church basketball run, bet him he would unlock five dunks in one outdoor session and delivered, and the flat, flared-leg, eyes-off-the-rim look people associate with the 1FootGod traces straight back to him. His college coach made him take ballet to learn how to land, which is where the spinning control comes from. His signature is the Reverse 360 Windmill off one foot, and Vince Carter reposted the first one he landed in a contest.

His first professional contest was the Sprite Slam Dunk Showdown at the Indiana State Fair, at exactly 20 years old: he signed up through a website link, drove eight hours, slept in his car, and still keeps the ticket. He won his first contest two years later and his first overseas title in Latvia, improvising a behind-the-back over a man on a motorcycle when two opponents took his planned dunks. He went 22-1 across the 2022 summer, the one loss by a point to Isaiah Rivera, who he calls his arch rival, and Jordan Kilganon is the only dunker he has never beaten.

Years with the Harlem Wizards, dunking on demand most nights of the week, are why contests do not rattle him, and his method is plain: master a dunk until you can make it five times in a row, then practice it exhausted. At 30 he is in a creative second wind, landing four Christ Air variations in two weeks after Dom Gonzales sent him a clip. He is also one of the most present personalities in the sport, known for livestreams that run for hours and for pouring time into younger dunkers like Finn Addy, because he wants somebody to end up better than him.

His dunking is filmed by Dunkademics, and he told his full story on Dunk Talk in how he became the 1FootGod.