DJ SHOUSE

By David Kronke Tribune-Star

DJ Shouse’s business, Beast Training, which helps kids from third grade to college to bring out the best in their basketball skills, got its name when a videographer recorded a session with Shouse training 30 kids. The videographer told him, “You got these kids out here looking like a beast.”

“That stuck to me and I went with Beast Training,” he said. “That’s what I tried to channel when I was on the court. I tell the kids, ‘Find an alter ego that’s a beast and turn into that when you’re playing. You can be a nice, straight-A kid outside the court, but when you’re on the court, you got to channel something else.”

It’s a successful approach.

“This year, I’ve got five kids that I’ve been dealing with since they were in third grade and they’re all freshmen on their varsity teams at different schools now,” Shouse said.

DJ Shouse enjoys working with kids on and off the basketball court as CEO and founder of Beast Training LLC and outreach mentor with the Hamilton Center. Here, Shouse poses for a photo in the Terre Haute Boys & Girls Club on Feb. 14.

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“The results are showing. Parents were happy. Kids continued to come back and felt they were getting better.”

Basketball has been part of Shouse’s life since he was 3 years old, though he admits his father would have preferred he had pursued playing golf rather than hoops.

“I loved it so much as a kid I wanted to play in the NBA,” he said. He played in college but after that, he said, “it was a little going nowhere and I noticed that.” So, realizing that starting a business represented a more viable opportunity than trying to continue playing, he began training others.

“DJ dedicates his time to working with the kids in our community,” wrote Donna Fullhart in her letter recommending Shouse for the 12 Under 40 list. “He builds them up so they will be successful and confident. He put months into fundraising, planning and executing a free youth sports camp last year [called Blacktop Camp] that not only gave our kids a safe and educational way to spend a week but also taught them about giving back to their neighborhood.”

Shouse also works as an outreach mentor for Hamil-

■ Title: CEO and founder of Beast Training LLC, Outreach Mentor with Hamilton Center

■ Education: Lincoln Trail College (graduated 2011), Oakland City University (graduated with bachelor’s 2020) ton Center, working with 50 children. He motivates them to do better in school and in sports, helping them find a tutor, getting them food and clothes and just paying a little extra attention to them that their life at home may not be providing.

■ Community service: Participated in Christmas, book bag and backpack giveaways, organized and participated in free sports camps for children and teens, after school tutoring program with fifth graders.

“When I moved back to Terre Haute, I wanted to have an impact in a positive way,” he said. “Basketball is something I’ve turned into a tool that I use to reach the youth in the community, not just as a sport but life in general.”

Indeed, Shouse says that basketball has the capacity to teach a lot of important life lessons.

“When you talk about strategic plans and critical thinking and things you need in your own life, basketball helps with all that,” he said. “There’s so many life lessons that go on in basketball. When I was 16 years old, one of my coaches said, ‘You don’t realize how hard you’re working, but you’re really building character. You don’t know it yet.’”

He added, “One of my goals with the kids I’m training nowadays is to understand that [character-building aspect] at 16, at 17, at 18. If they understand those life lessons at that early an age, they’re definitely on their way.”