When you think of Matthew Tkachuk and Jayson Tatum, what similarities do you think of?
They’re both first round draft picks that are still playing for the team that drafted them. Tatum was drafted to the Boston Celtics in the 2017 NBA Draft with the #3 overall pick, while Tkachuk was taken in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft with the #6 overall pick.
Beyond that… not much, right? They don’t even play the same sport.
What you may not know is that they actually went to the same Chaminade College Preparatory School in Missouri. Matthew’s father Keith spent time playing for the St. Louis Blues which helped lead to his son sharing a gym class with a future NBA All-Star.
We have the class project to prove it!
Tkachuk doesn’t do much talking in the video, but it’s still hilarious to see the two future stars casually hanging out in high school. Who knew they would become what they are today?
Well, apparently they did. According to Tkachuk, the two used to have each other in their future plans as well.
“We always joked around that when we were older we’d be each other’s agent in each other’s sport,” Tkachuk said, via Calgary Sun. “That would not have been a good decision.”
While they decided against the agent idea, they were clearly close as friends and fellow athletes. While Tkachuk’s persona has evolved into being a bit of a pest, Tatum doesn’t remember Tkachuk being too bothersome during his younger days.
“I mean, he had a lot of jokes and he liked to play a lot,” Tatum said last week at the Celtics’ practice. “I wouldn’t say he got in trouble, though, but he was a funny kid.”
Overall, the two had a lot of respect for each other. Both seemed to believe that they’d be going places beyond high school, and they helped push each other to get there.
“We were kind of the two best athletes in our class, because I had played on the USA team for kids in high school and he had as well, plus his dad played for the St. Louis Blues, so people kind of figured we would make it somewhere,” Tatum said.
“It’s just cool seeing a guy succeed at another sport and seeing what he went through, every morning at 6 a.m. shooting hoops and getting ready,” Tkachuk said. “Our mentalities when we were younger, we both knew what we wanted to do and had that as a goal. We both weren’t going to be stopped and both put in a lot of work.”
Pretty cool to see how far the two have come.
(H/T Conor Ryan, Calgary Sun)