DERIDDER—Jake Greene, a DeRidder High School graduate who will be playing basketball for the LSU Shreveport Pilots in the fall, has been selected to the Southwest Louisiana School Sports Hall of Fame.

Greene will officially be inducted at 10 a.m. Monday at Prien Lake Mall located in Lake Charles in front of J.C. Penney.

“I feel good. I’m excited about it. I’m very honored,” Greene said.

“Out of every kid boys and girls in Southwest Louisiana that plays sports, they only selected four of them.”

Greene, a point guard/shooting guard, earned a partial athletic scholarship to LSU Shreveport and had positive things to say about the university.

 “They have very good academics and the coaches and the players are really great, good atmosphere,” Greene said.

Although Greene has proven himself at the high school level, he is going to have to show what he can do in college to see action during games.

“No time is guaranteed,” Greene said. “I’m going to have to prove myself, just see where I fall in the lineup.”

Reflecting on his high school career, Greene said his career highlights came during his senior year with the DeRidder Dragons.

“Definitely the two playoff games we won at home this year and made it to the quarterfinals (of the stat championship),” Greene said.

Those games were against Zachary and Grant. Greene said he had approximately 12 points and seven assists in each of those games.

Being a Dragon prepared Greene for the next level.

“Being 4A we played very good competition,” Greene said.

Greene said his dad, Mike Greene, was a basketball coach and was able to give positive and negative feedback. Greene said his dad told him what he needed to work on to make it to the next level. “I’ve started out [playing basketball] ever since I could remember,” Greene said.

“I started shooting on 10-foot goals when I was three.”

Greene said Mike Greene, who was the Assumption head coach, got him into basketball at 3-years-old.

Those who helped Greene with basketball were “my dad and my mom, my Godfather, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, my grandfather, pretty much my entire family.”

Greene is the son if Mike and Sonya Greene and is the oldest of three kids. His siblings are Ryan, a junior in high school, and Dane, a sixth grader.

Now it is up to Greene to take what he has learned with him to college.

“I’d like to help lead them (Pilots) to a conference championship and help lead them to a national championship in the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics),” Greene said.

He said he has continued to play basketball for “the competitiveness and just it’s a great game.”

College basketball will be a tougher challenge for Greene.

“Better athleticism,” Greene said, “it’s going to be tougher to guard the other players. I’ll have to work on my athleticism and quickness.”

But Greene is preparing for that next level during the summer.

“I’m in a weightlifting program right now,” Greene said. “I’ll be starting a speed workout pretty soon now.”

In high school, Greene ran cross-country for four years, track one year and joined almost every club his high school offered. He managed to balance his time and excel in both academics and athletics with “just hard work and motivation and my parents always pressed the issue.”

Greene said he was competitive in cross-country, but ran to stay in shape for basketball.

“Basketball isn’t the only reason I made it,” Greene said.

His favorite basketball team is the Phoenix Suns and his favorite player is Suns guard Steve Nash. Greene said he has tried to learn from Nash’s style of play to better his own game.

“Just the way he reads the court, his court awareness, he always knows how to get people open and get himself shots,” Greene said.

In Greene’s spare time, he plays other sports, baseball and golf and goes to movies. His favorite subject is math and he plans to major in Biology in college so he could go to medical school to either be an orthopedic surgeon or physical therapist.

“I’d just like to thank the community and the fans for the support throughout the year,” Greene said.

“I couldn’t have done any of it without God.”