{"id":155643,"date":"2026-02-14T16:35:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T16:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/155643\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T16:35:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T16:35:16","slug":"how-famu-drs-senior-aiden-blair-went-from-newcomer-to-district-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/155643\/","title":{"rendered":"How FAMU DRS senior Aiden Blair Went from newcomer to district champ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 13, 2026, 6:03 a.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Aiden Blair never expected basketball to define his senior year \u2014 especially not as a starter on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maxpreps.com\/fl\/tallahassee\/famu-drs-baby-rattlers\/basketball\/schedule\/\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FAMU DRS<\/a> team that just claimed its<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tallahassee.com\/story\/sports\/high-school\/2026\/02\/07\/munroe-famudrs-godby-leon-basketball-fhsaa-district-champions\/88529977007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> first district title and playoff run<\/a> since 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">That\u2019s because Blair didn\u2019t start playing organized basketball until last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Blair, who lives in Gretna in Gadsden County, made the daily early-morning commute to Tallahassee with his older brother. During his junior year, then\u2013P.E. teacher and now\u2013boys basketball coach<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tallahassee.com\/story\/sports\/preps\/2019\/01\/05\/former-area-stars-desir-curry-historically-return-boys-basketball-coaches\/2489985002\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Dione Desir<\/a> noticed the 6-foot-2 student in class and immediately urged him to join the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 13, 2026, 6:03 a.m. ET Aiden Blair never expected basketball to define his senior year \u2014 especially&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1468,47,1668,1669,8913,97,293,2671,305,15390,37620,74857,304,308,96,300,35,46,232,234,233,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-155643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-accesspremium","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-sstssportshigh-school","11":"tag-sstsnhigh-school","12":"tag-tagbasketball","13":"tag-tagcolleges-universities","14":"tag-tagflorida-am-university","15":"tag-tagflorida-high-school-athletic-association","16":"tag-tagflorida-high-school-sports","17":"tag-taggadsden-county","18":"tag-taggirls-high-school-basketball","19":"tag-taggretna","20":"tag-taghigh-school-sports","21":"tag-taglocal-news","22":"tag-tagoverall-positive","23":"tag-tagsports-news","24":"tag-tagstory-highlights-ai-enabled","25":"tag-tagtallahassee","26":"tag-tallahassee","27":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","28":"tag-tallahassee-news","29":"tag-typestory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}