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Rivals on the Court Turn a Friendship Into a Partnership
Austin Freeman, left, and Chris Wright's relationship is one of two teens whose athletic prowess has been apparent for quite some time and who live a few minutes apart.
(Katherine Frey - The Washington Post)
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Still, as Freeman went to DeMatha and Wright to St. John's, the two emerged as potential standouts during their freshman year, when Wright started and Freeman was a key reserve. Regardless of their success, they remained humble. While they occasionally are flashy on the court -- Freeman began the game at Trinity with an alley-oop dunk, and his slam in the team's second meeting is well remembered -- they are mild-mannered. That calm demeanor, though, masks their competitive fire.
"We do drills and things in practice, and he's working the hardest," St. John's Coach Paul DeStefano said of Wright. "We do defensive drills, and he's the guy working the hardest. He always wants to compete. He hates losing."
For Wright, that carries from the start of the game to the finish. Because while Wright stands more than a full head shorter than teammate Vlad Moldoveanu (who is 6-11 and has accepted a scholarship to play for George Mason), it is Wright who jumps center for the Cadets. That might surprise some, but Wright said he holds his own, noting he took the opening tip-off from DeMatha's Jerai Grant -- who is 6-10 -- in last year's WCAC title game.
"They don't say anything when I win the taps," Wright said.
Their commitment to getting better has been evident for years. Wright was one of the area's first high schoolers to begin working with a personal trainer. While it often is difficult to get basketball players to bulk up, Wright quickly added 22 pounds of muscle and plenty of explosiveness to his frame by lifting weights and eating more often, including countless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
"He went from being a pretty good leaper to dunking the heck out of the ball," said Alan Stein, who co-owns Elite Athlete Training Systems and worked with Wright the past three years. "Chris set it off for me in the area. He was like a walking billboard."
While Wright's success has been easy to see in the scorebook -- not even Hall of Fame coach Morgan Wootten is certain of another local player to top 2,000 points in his high school career -- Freeman often is required to carry less of the load for DeMatha. When the time comes, however, Freeman also can be the go-to player; he averaged 29 points in two victories over Wright and St. John's.
"They're different, but a large part of that is probably out of necessity," DeMatha Coach Mike Jones said. "In seventh and eighth grade they were clearly very talented. It was clear they both were going to have bright futures. They chose to go to two different schools where their games developed differently."
