Stephen DuCharme: Making a big contribution
In the team room for the USU men’s basketball is a wall filled with pictures – pictures of USU players who have left an impact. Stephen Ducharme wants to get his picture on that wall. Even if he doesn’t know what it takes to get there other than hard work, it is something he is willing to do.
DuCharme has some big shoes to fill. Over the past few years, fans at USU have enjoyed plenty of success, mainly because of the big players who have worn the Aggie blue. Last year Nate Harris finished his four-year career at USU along with Cass Matheus, and the year before that, Spencer Nelson graduated and went on to play professional basketball in Europe. One of the big questions about the team this year was whether or not they could deal with the loss of those key, big men.
DuCharme is answering that question.
DuCharme started playing basketball in second grade in Kansas. Ever since then, basketball has been part of his life. At an early age, DuCharme knew basketball could be his ticket into school, thanks to some frank fatherly advice.
“When I was young, my dad gave me a basketball and said, ‘Get a scholarship because I’m not paying for school,'” DuCharme said.
So DuCharme did just that with help staying motivated to practice again from his father.
“He was a hard-core practice junkie,” DuCharme said. “When I was little, he used to have me out in the cold shooting foul shots.”
In high school he continued to play basketball, but he also tried his hand at another sport, football. It didn’t go as well.
“I played football, until I got hurt,” DuCharme said. “I broke my arm and separated my tail bone on the same play. That was it for football for me.”
After high school he continued to play basketball at a local junior college in Kansas. From there, he was recruited to play for USU.
“Basketball,” DuCharme said about his reason for coming to USU. “I could have gone to a couple of East Coast schools, but I like it out here. I love the Spectrum. I came out for a game against BYU. It was a huge game, so I committed after I visited.”
So now he plays at USU in the tough Western Athletic Conference, a conference in which DuCharme will face very talented big men almost every night out. He has played against Luke Nevill, a 7-footer from University of Utah, and Nick Fazekas, a possible first-round draft pick in the NBA, who also happens to be 7 feet tall. DuCharme said he understands that in order to compete with these bigger players, he needs to work at it. The coaches know it too.
“The big thing with the coaches is they just want their big men to hustle,” DuCharme said. “We’re undersized, and we need to rely on our quickness, out-hustle the other guy and out-work them. When you’re out there playing, you’ve got to just play. Obviously, I am an undersized five man. A lot of guys have four or five inches on me and weigh about 40 pounds more than me. But you just got to grind it out every game and out work the other big guy.”
Early in the season DuCharme did not start, nor did he see many minutes at all during the game. It almost seemed like he was struggling to get in the flow of the game. Almost overnight, all that changed.
At the Top of the World Tournament in Alaska, DuCharme got things rolling. The first game of the tournament, he missed his only shot. The second game, he did not miss at all. He made a perfect 10-for-10 and went on to score 22 points. In the next game in the tournament, he didn’t miss either. He shot 7-for-7 and scored 16 points. Since then, he has been a big contributor to the Aggie team.
“I wasn’t getting a lot of minutes the first few games, but once I got those minutes, I just went out there and I did what I do,” DuCharme said. “I would go out there and out-work the other guy and out-hustle the other guys. When you start playing, you start feeling more comfortable. Someone that plays only two minutes a game is not going to play as good as someone that plays 30 minutes a game.”
Since that tournament, DuCharme has been a consistent starter and averages 10.1 points per game. He is the big man on an undersized team that is playing in one of the top conferences in the country. But he said he knows that in order to continue to be a key element to the success of the team, he has to work hard, which is one reason the USU coaches recruited him.
“One of the main reasons they recruited me is because they thought I was a hard worker,” DuCharme said. “I didn’t think I was. I just thought I was an average guy, but you’re always going to have to keep working at every level. I want to be known as a hard worker.”
After college, DuCharme has the goal of continuing to play basketball. His father, a chiropractor, wants him to take over the family business, something he is not sure he wants to do. Here at USU, he is majoring in business administration and perhaps will do something with that, but his dream is to play basketball.
“If someone has a passion, that is what they are going to want to do,” DuCharme said.
DuCharme has come out this year and answered the big-man question for Aggie fans. He has answered the question about whether or not he could play with the bigger players and whether or not he could continue to get better. He has shown he can work hard. He has shown them he has passion.
-wwm@cc.usu.edu