INTERVIEW WITH DYAMI ROMELL STARKS

I was able to do an email interview with Duluth East Dyami Starks. This is what he had to say about playing for Duluth East and the up coming season.

My middle name is Romell.

I started playing ball when I was in 6th grade but I didn't take it seriously until seventh or eighth grade.

I stay at home with both parents; my mom Becky Starks my dad Will Starks.

I started playing like I said in 6th grade but in the seventh grade I started playing travel team basketball and we did a little traveling around the state. I put a lot of work in that summer and that's when I started to become a skilled player. I thank my dad for that.

I played with Wisconsin hoops in sixth grade then another local team the next two years. At the end of eighth grade I started to play with 43 hoops but switched to Howard Pulley. Last year I barely played so I could improve my game and play with my high school team.

Duluth obviously doesn't have as many African Americans as Minneapolis and the metropolitan area but we do have quite a few in the hillside area and out west. I go to school at East, and there are close to 25 African Americans who go to East. Racism is definitely an issue anywhere but East for the most part is not that bad. Our basketball team has at least 8 African Americans and that helps mix cultures and understanding the other side a little bit better. However Duluth can be kind of diverse in some areas of town. The areas I mentioned before like Central Hillside or out West have a lot of minorities.

A typical day for me in the off season is my workout schedule and I try to work around it. Usually I workout early in the morning or late at night and sometimes both. When I'm not in the gym, I'll go the beach at Park Point or Canal Park. If I'm home I might play NBA 2k9 on the Xbox; that's usually when I do nothing to spectacular.

But I'm not a big swimmer. If I go to the beach it’s just to hang out a little bit, but I have swam in Lake Superior and it's too cold for me. It does warm up later in the summer though.
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Early on in my high school career when I was a freshman I was just anxious to show what I could do. When I got the starting spot in the 4th game in the season I was real happy. I text my dad and said "I got it". That was a very fun and successful year but we lost a lot of people.

Sophomore year was somewhat of a rebuilding year. We had a down year but I look at the glass as half full and found out what it meant to be a captain/leader and a winner. I'm really excited about this upcoming season because I've put a lot of time and effort into working on the stuff I needed to work on.

When people wonder why I didn't play for Pulley or why I played on their 16's again it was all my choice. I chose to stay up here and play summer leagues with my team because reaching state and having a successful winning year is more important to me. I'm ready and am very excited to show people what we can do.

Being a player at East is OK. People know and respect me for the player that I am, but East is a hockey school so that can get a little frustrating sometimes. When we win people want to see us, when we lose it’s not that big of a deal. We'll try to change that this year. But Coach Tolo is a great coach. He understands leadership and coaching talent. He knows what a player has to do to get to the next level. I love being a player in his system and we both are excited about the upcoming season.