Featured Point Guard
D.J. Augustin - University of Texas
Longhorns spotlight: D.J. Augustin
By Thomas Stepp, Texas Media Relations
There is no certainty as to what makes an impression on the memory of a young child. Sometimes flashes of childhood emerge from something as simple as a familiar smell or color.
However, there are occasionally things that create such an impact, they alter the course of a person's life. That is exactly what happened for Texas point guard D.J. Augustin at the age of four.
It started out as an everyday trip to a New Orleans area Sam's Club with his grandparents on his mother Vanessa's side. Marie and Salvador Dufauchard were taking him shopping, as they often did while watching him as his mother worked as a schoolteacher.
That day, however, without D.J. asking, his grandmother, whom the family calls Mommo Re Re, thought to buy him a present. It turned out to be a black and red Michael Jordan basketball.
Ever since then, I started playing basketball, and I love it, Augustin said. She started me. When she first got it for me, right after we left the store, I started playing with it.
Augustin was off and running. Had it not been for that basketball, he might not be the preseason All-America candidate at point guard that he is today.
My mom got that ball for him, and we always said that evidently she saw something, and she knew something that we had no clue was coming -- that he would have such a passion for basketball, described Vanessa Augustin.
Unfortunately, Marie Dufauchard would only live until D.J. was five years old, but the mark she left with him, as she did with all of her family, was lasting and undeniable. He became determined to pay tribute to that.
His form of expression came in a tattoo, which he had etched on his back this past November. Surrounding two hands and a basketball are the words, Thanks for the rock and Mommo Re Re.
She held us together, Augustin said of his grandmother. She was my best friend. I was young when she died, and I just felt like basketball is something she gave me before she left. It was my blessing.
To know that she gave him that first ball and to see how he loves the game, it means a whole lot to us, Vanessa Augustin said. It touched everybody, and he did it on his own. We were against tattoos, but this is something he wanted to do, and it has actual meaning. He didn't just put a tattoo on his body with no meaning. I tease him a lot and tell him, You know one thing is for sure. She might not be there, but she's got your back.
To the Augustins, including father, Darryl, and daughters, Mia and Greer, nothing is more important than family, and it is evident to anyone who meets them. Texas assistant coach Russell Springmann, who affectionately describes them as The Cosby Family, recalls a dinner where he sat in disbelief at the level of true friendship he witnessed.
I've learned a tremendous amount from them as people, and I consider it a blessing to have had the opportunity to get to know them in the way that I have, Springmann said. I think it's helped me with my own family, to tell you the truth.
No one in the family personified that more than Marie Dufauchard. Although it has been 13 years since her passing, to the family, it seems as though it was just yesterday.
After years of wear and tear on that Michael Jordan basketball, there had been plans by Darryl Augustin to refurbish it. However, like so much else in the New Orleans area, it was lost to Hurricane Katrina, but nothing can break the connection between D.J. and Mommo Re Re.
There are times when I'm at the free throw line, or when it's crunch time, and I have to take a big shot. I just put it on her, Augustin said. That's why I got the tattoo. It's like she's watching over me.
D.J. Augustin - University of Texas
Longhorns spotlight: D.J. Augustin
By Thomas Stepp, Texas Media Relations
There is no certainty as to what makes an impression on the memory of a young child. Sometimes flashes of childhood emerge from something as simple as a familiar smell or color.
However, there are occasionally things that create such an impact, they alter the course of a person's life. That is exactly what happened for Texas point guard D.J. Augustin at the age of four.
It started out as an everyday trip to a New Orleans area Sam's Club with his grandparents on his mother Vanessa's side. Marie and Salvador Dufauchard were taking him shopping, as they often did while watching him as his mother worked as a schoolteacher.
That day, however, without D.J. asking, his grandmother, whom the family calls Mommo Re Re, thought to buy him a present. It turned out to be a black and red Michael Jordan basketball.
Ever since then, I started playing basketball, and I love it, Augustin said. She started me. When she first got it for me, right after we left the store, I started playing with it.
Augustin was off and running. Had it not been for that basketball, he might not be the preseason All-America candidate at point guard that he is today.
My mom got that ball for him, and we always said that evidently she saw something, and she knew something that we had no clue was coming -- that he would have such a passion for basketball, described Vanessa Augustin.
Unfortunately, Marie Dufauchard would only live until D.J. was five years old, but the mark she left with him, as she did with all of her family, was lasting and undeniable. He became determined to pay tribute to that.
His form of expression came in a tattoo, which he had etched on his back this past November. Surrounding two hands and a basketball are the words, Thanks for the rock and Mommo Re Re.
She held us together, Augustin said of his grandmother. She was my best friend. I was young when she died, and I just felt like basketball is something she gave me before she left. It was my blessing.
To know that she gave him that first ball and to see how he loves the game, it means a whole lot to us, Vanessa Augustin said. It touched everybody, and he did it on his own. We were against tattoos, but this is something he wanted to do, and it has actual meaning. He didn't just put a tattoo on his body with no meaning. I tease him a lot and tell him, You know one thing is for sure. She might not be there, but she's got your back.
To the Augustins, including father, Darryl, and daughters, Mia and Greer, nothing is more important than family, and it is evident to anyone who meets them. Texas assistant coach Russell Springmann, who affectionately describes them as The Cosby Family, recalls a dinner where he sat in disbelief at the level of true friendship he witnessed.
I've learned a tremendous amount from them as people, and I consider it a blessing to have had the opportunity to get to know them in the way that I have, Springmann said. I think it's helped me with my own family, to tell you the truth.
No one in the family personified that more than Marie Dufauchard. Although it has been 13 years since her passing, to the family, it seems as though it was just yesterday.
After years of wear and tear on that Michael Jordan basketball, there had been plans by Darryl Augustin to refurbish it. However, like so much else in the New Orleans area, it was lost to Hurricane Katrina, but nothing can break the connection between D.J. and Mommo Re Re.
There are times when I'm at the free throw line, or when it's crunch time, and I have to take a big shot. I just put it on her, Augustin said. That's why I got the tattoo. It's like she's watching over me.
