Two-sport athlete Deron Russell gears up for state basketball tournament, but knows college football season isn't far away

Deron Russell has long been a problem for opposing teams. The Waseca, Minnesota, star broke his own school record in the section semifinal game with a 51-point performance.

"We've had a lot of games this year where we look up at the scoreboard and go 'wow he's got 40 points right now?'" said Waseca head coach Seth Anderson. "Because he does it within such a good flow of our offense."

"You just get in awe watching it," said Waseca guard Ethan Hiller. "You're on the floor obviously so you gotta lock in. Just get him the ball and give him some space to work with and he'll do the rest most of the time."

The Blue Jays were undefeated until the title game a year ago. They also finished runner-up in football this fall. That's Russell's primary sport. He's one of the best players in Minnesota in both.

"There's definitely a lot of crossover," said Russell. "I pick apart stuff from that, put it into football. Same with basketball. But mainly it's just the competitive part of going back and forth against somebody else."

Russell didn't decide until this past summer what sport he'd play in college. He ultimately landed on football and a scholarship at North Dakota State. But he's not quite ruling out double duty.

"Mainly the football schools were like, 'you could come here and play basketball as well.' This and that. But I guess we'll kinda see," he said. 

Russell's older brother Damarious is also a college football player, now at Iowa State. This time last year, the two were sharing the court.

"We were lowkey crazy together on the team," laughed Russell. "He has something that he can bring to the table and so do I. We just play it back and forth. If I was having an off game, he would step up, if he was having an off game I would step up."