From Mizzou to DeMatha, Peterson is Showing Them

Ron Bailey, Publisher

Jeff Peterson

March 18, 2006 – Jeff Peterson, a six foot, 185 pound junior guard currently attending and playing for DeMatha Catholic High School, is living up to his home state Missouri’s nickname of “The Show Me State”. Since coming to the D.C. area as a freshman to play for the DeMatha Stags, showing people his skill level and intelligence is all Peterson has done. Colleges have now taken notice.

Backing up two extraordinarily skilled players at the point and shooting guard positions, Jeff was instrumental in DeMatha’s lofty 34-1 record and being ranked fourth nationally. Being a perfectionist, when interviewed recently, he opined “We’ve been playing real well”, though he did lament the loss to arch-rival O’Connell.

Regarding playing both the point and shooting guard, Peterson indicated “My natural position is the point guard, but obviously when you have a talent like Nigel (Munson, the Stag’s Virginia Tech-bound point guard), you have to work with it”. In doing so, Jeff has developed his shooting range out to three point land, and honed his penetration ability in a backup capacity.

Coach Mike Jones, DeMatha’s talented head man has no reservations about Jeff’s role next year, projecting “He’s going to be able to flow between the one (point guard) and two (shooting guard). But he’ll play 90% of his minutes next year at the one”. According to Jones, Peterson has “worked real hard to get to the point where he is”.

Next year Peterson “looks forward to stepping up and being a full time point guard”. His ability to run the team is valued by Jones, as are other skills the young man possesses, including defense. “He’s a great defender” said DeMatha’s coach. “He’s been our best defender this year. We always put him on the other team’s best perimeter player”.

Despite sharing minutes with Munson, and to a lesser degree Austin Freeman (a junior two guard who has committed to Georgetown), Peterson has generated significant interest from a number of colleges. He shared “Stanford is showing me the most interest”, while “schools like George Mason and American” are also recruiting him. Peterson also has received mail from Notre Dame, Marquette, and Cincinnati.

Jeff is also a perfectionist off the court, and excels in school, having earned “a 4.1 (GPA)” last quarter in DeMatha’s challenging academic program. He anticipates majoring in “business, or maybe personal finance” in college; a subject in which Peterson has already been exposed to. Jeff indicated personal finance is his favorite class at DeMatha, and that when he took it “first semester”, the subject interested him because he “got to learn about real life situations with how to handle your money and different things like that”.

In balancing books and ball, Peterson agreed time management “is the most important thing”. Many times he has to eschew “the parties, the get togethers you want to go”, especially when “you have a paper due the next morning. You have to stay disciplined…and use your time appropriately”.

But Jeff doesn’t just have a Spartan existence consisting of just studying and playing ball, the young Springfield, Missouri native has developed a social structure in the three years since he has been at DeMatha. “I’ve made a lot of friends real quick” said Peterson, who understandably developed many friends through basketball. “I didn’t fit in (initially), but once we got on the court, and in open gyms, guys started to respect me” is how Jeff recounted the situation. Now, he is as popular as anyone at DeMatha.

From a hoops standpoint, Peterson will be very popular with Coach Jones and his teammates next season as well. “You have to look at him and say he’s going to be our team leader next year” said DeMatha’s coach. Jones went on to reveal “He’s (Peterson) has learned our system for three years. He’s going to be well prepared”.

Elaborating, Jones shared that the virtual keys to DeMatha’s car will be in Jeff’s hands: “If we are fortunate enough to start out next year where we should be ranked, or maybe where we feel as though we should be ranked, he’s going to be a big reason for that...He’ll be able to do a lot for us next year. He’ll be a key to how good we are”.

Being the young guy he is, Jeff Peterson will succeed at the task. And you will not have to ask him to show you, the results will be evident.