Before Justin Leon takes the court, before he slips on his No. 23 jersey, before the arena doors open and Florida basketball fans flood in, his mom is awake in Arkansas.
She’s been up since 4 a.m. She clocked in at 5. And she’s about to spend 12 hours grinding and grating, reshaping and recycling desks and chairs in a manufacturing plant in a town where job opportunities are mostly limited to assembly lines.
“I enjoy it. I mean, it pays the bills,” she said. “It was a choice I had to make.”
But after 19 years and four bosses, Yolanda Marshall has come to one deep-seated, clear-cut conclusion: She doesn’t want her son to work in this factory.
Getting him to pursue a college education was her solution.
And since it wasn’t clear Justin would get one on grades alone, he decided to use basketball.
Now, years later, Justin will suit up for the biggest game of his life today at 3:10 in Orlando.
After two years of community college, two commitments and two decades of his mom pushing him to avoid a factory floor, his patience paid off: He’ll start for the fourth-seeded Gators in their return to the NCAA Tournament.
“The effort I put in,” he said, “made me actually be worth something.”
• • •
Justin’s interest in basketball blossomed by the time he was 2, his dad, Arthur, said.
By kindergarten, Justin was enrolled in a program that focused on basketball.
While his dad played video games, Justin pretended to be in the game, running around, shooting and scoring on a Nerf basketball hoop that hung on the door. He synched his movements with the players on the screen, freezing when his dad called timeout.
His mom said Justin would jump up and break the hoops often enough that he had to ask for a new one every Christmas.
“We bought so many of those, I should’ve been a part-time owner,” she joked.
Basketball kept making sense as he grew taller.
Today, he’s 6-foot-8 — about 8 inches taller than his dad who also played basketball.
“By the time he got to seventh grade, I was hugging his hips,” his dad said.
• • •
Obstacles were thrown at Justin as he grew up.
His parents split up before high school.
“When that happens,” Justin said, “there’s not a lot of money between one parent for three kids.”
He saw his mom pick up a second job. As a certified nursing assistant, she went to the homes of seniors and helped provide medical care.
She said she worked two jobs so her kids wouldn’t feel like they were living in a one-parent household.
Issues at home led to issues at school.
In one of his first high school seasons, he was nearly forced to miss an entire year because of grades. He had to meet with teachers, taking tests one-on-one to boost his GPA to where he could get back on the team.
As he developed as a player, his recruiting prospects suffered because his high school coach played him out of position.
His mom’s mission was in jeopardy. How could he avoid working in a factory if he was never offered a college education?
“We had a hard time on the scholarship,” she said. “He really wasn’t getting looked at like we hoped.”
• • •
Around the same time, John Sparks got a call about a skinny kid in Conway, Arkansas.
Sparks, coach of Shawnee Community College, drove five hours to Conway for Justin’s next game.
“I see this long, really thin kid,” Sparks said. “He missed a free throw, and before anybody could move, he came down the lane and tip-dunked it on about three guys.”
That’s when Justin got his only offer out of high school.
Sparks asked him to play for Shawnee in Ullin, Illinois — a town with a population of about 500 if you don’t count the deer, chickens and geese.
“It was like — free school, so obviously, why not?” Justin said.
Justin accepted Sparks’ offer and excelled right away.
“We thought he’d be good,” Sparks said. “We didn’t know he was going to be as good as he ended up being.”
His mom’s work ethic carried him to success on the court.
When class was canceled, Justin came back to the gym for a second workout.
He hated coming out of drills in practice.
In games, stat lines like 25 points and 19 rebounds were standard for him. Which made it strange when he wasn’t invited to a top 100 showcase for the best junior college players.
Sparks knew Justin needed to create some buzz before graduating from the two-year college, so he contacted the camp officials.
“He’s too thin,” they told Sparks. “We don’t wanna hurt his recruiting. We’d have to play him on the perimeter.”
Sparks didn’t buy it.
“You can play him in Afghanistan,” he said. “Doesn’t matter. Justin Leon is gonna play.”
When they let Justin come to the camp, he proved to be one of the top players.
After that, during his sophomore season at Shawnee, finally, Division I teams were going after him.
His mom was overwhelmed with the 20 calls a day Justin was getting.
“It was just heartwarming,” Justin said, “because I’m like, ‘Man, finally, all these times. Blood, sweat and tears I done left out on the floor, and daylight is starting to come.’”
Eventually Justin decided on Louisiana Tech. He liked the coaches, Mike White and Dusty May, who had driven to Ullin just to see him.
White and May got lost on a dirt road looking for the college.
“In the middle of just desolation is a campus, a little pond lake … that’s it,” May said.
After getting to know the coaching staff, Justin signed his National Letter of Intent for LA Tech on April 15, 2015.
“To me, getting recruited by Louisiana Tech felt like I was getting recruited by Florida,” Justin said.
• • •
Justin’s peace of mind was cut short when he got a call from a friend.
His friend told Justin that someone on ESPN said White was candidate for UF’s head coaching job.
Justin asked White about the news.
“I don’t know if coach White was able to talk to me,” Justin said, “because I asked him about it.”
No response.
UF announced that White would be the new head coach for the men’s basketball on May 7, 2015.
Justin had signed with LA Tech specifically for the coaches, and now his family was left hanging.
“We didn’t know what we were gonna do,” his mom said.
Sparks said Justin had turned down offers from schools like Ole Miss, Kansas State and Indiana specifically because of his relationship with White and May.
May said they couldn’t contact him because he had committed to LA Tech.
May got a phone call from Sparks.
“Hey, J doesn’t really know what’s going on, he’s kind of in limbo,” Sparks told him.
May didn’t know what to say.
“It was kind of just left open-ended,” May said.
Justin rescinded his letter of intent and was courted by more colleges.
His phone was ringing again, but Justin couldn’t visit any schools.
“We couldn’t visit because we couldn’t take three or four days to go visit somewhere (while) we gotta pass biology and English,” Sparks said.
Since Justin wasn’t able to graduate in spring, he’d have to take summer classes while juggling his future.
Then Florida called.
It had another scholarship.
“As soon as we were able to call him again, he knew we wanted him,” May said.
Justin committed to White and May for a second time on June 8, 2015.
But he still had to deal with what Sparks called the most trying time in his life.
He still had to graduate.
“If he wouldn’t have passed those classes, I don’t know if he would’ve had to sit out or what,” Sparks said. “But he wouldn’t have played last year at Florida.”
So for eight weeks during summer school, Justin endured tutoring four or five days a week. He passed with a high enough GPA in August.
But again, his comfort was brief.
Because now he was about to play for a Division I program after having missed an entire summer of individual workouts, strength training and getting to know White’s system.
“He came in behind in all areas,” May said.
Justin used his mom’s work ethic to catch up.
“This is my 17th year coaching,” White said, “and he’s the hardest-playing player I’ve ever coached, hands down.”
• • •
Justin Leon has gone from a high school center with one community college offer to a starting forward on a top-20 team. From struggling in school to studying at UF. From getting snubbed at a showcase to playing in March Madness.
“I don’t know why he’s had to take the hard road,” his mom said.
But she believes everything happens for a reason. Justin learned that from watching her work 12-hour days in the factory.
“Seeing that as I grew up just showed me to keep working hard, and there’ll be brighter days,” Justin said. “Eventually good things will happen.”
Contact Matt Brannon at mbrannon@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @MattB_727.
UF forward Justin Leon walks on the court during Florida's 93-54 win against Missouri on Feb. 2, 2017, in the O'Connell Center.
