Henry Bekkering may not be a household name, but he's becoming pretty well known among basketball fans as "that guy."
As in that guy from the now-famous video clip circulating the Internet, taken during a dunk contest at a Canadian high-school all-star game in 2003.
In the clip, a six-foot-five kid from Taber, Alta., leaps clear over a guard, throwing in a windmill for good measure before stuffing the ball through the hoop.
On his next takeoff, he practically meets the rim at eye-level before dunking with authority, hanging by his elbow from the cylinder a la Vince Carter.
The contest is locked up by this point - spectators are falling all over each other and the judges are adding numbers together to make four-digit scores - but he seals it by launching from a step in front of the foul line and finishing left-handed. Hard.
Yeah, Henry Bekkering can jump. The muscular 18-year-old has a 40-inch vertical, and that brief video has ball fans in chat rooms and web forums spewing superlatives about his ups.
But does Bekkering worry his reptuation as a leaper will brand him as one-dimensional?
He laughs, something he does easily and often.
"It doesn't really matter to me, whatever people perceive me as," he says. "I guess it's good to be a dunker. It's good to be recognized for other parts of your game too."
His penchant for spectacular jams has earned him some nice perks, anyway. After seeing the video clip, Fox's Best Damn Sports Show Period invited Bekkering to appear on the program in May and billed him "the best dunker you've never seen."
He also got to meet Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce and hockey great Luc Robitaille.
"That was a lot of fun, going to Hollywood," Bekkering says. "I'd never been there before."
But for the record, he can do more than just throw down. The youngest member of Team Canada, he's a two-sport athlete who played kicker on Eastern Washington University's football team last season while redshirting on the basketball team.
He plans to focus on basketball next year, and has a chance to crack the Eagles' main rotation, with several players moving on.
"I think I have a good chance to start," he said. "I think it will be competitive."
The game runs in the family for the Bekkering clan. Henry's sister, Janelle, is on the junior women's national team, and his younger brother, Ross, is on Alberta's under-17 provincial team that will compete at nationals next month.
"My dad just brought us up playing basketball," Henry says. "My whole family plays basketball. There's nothing else to do."
Bekkering, a Christian, plans to major in religious studies or education at Eastern Washington. He's thinking about becoming a teacher when his playing days are done.
"We'll see what the call is," he said.
But this week, his goal is the same as his Canadian teammates: help Canada qualify for the world championships for the first time.
"I think we have a good chance," he said. "We'll have good support."
