YouTube exposure results in Santaluces' Diocemy Saint Juste getting football scholarship

Wednesday, February 06, 2013
by Steve Dorsey

Diocemy Saint Juste is proof that placing a highlight film on YouTube or a recruiting website can help in securing a college football scholarship.

The speedy Santaluces senior running back mostly flew under the radar of major Division I college coaches until the end of last season when Chiefs coach Daryl Drinkwater placed Saint Juste's highlight video online. A few days later, Drinkwater received a call from the University of Hawaii, and on Wednesday, the 5-foot-8, 185-pounder signed with the Warriors.

"We played Vero on Thursday, his stuff was up on Sunday and they called Monday," Drinkwater said of Hawaii's recruitment of Saint Juste, the first Palm Beach County player to sign with the program.

Drinkwater said there had been a rumor that Saint Juste was only 5-6, but when he told Hawaii that that was erroneous, they immediately offered him a scholarship and invited him to visit the campus, which he did about a month ago.

As the recruitment process developed, Drinkwater also discovered that Hawaii head coach Norm Chow is a friend of an uncle of Drinkwater's mother.

Saint Juste had planned to take his full allotment of five recruiting trips. He visited Colorado State before his official visit to Hawaii, now a member of the Mountain West Conference, the second weekend of January. While he was in Honolulu, Chow showed him a Hawaii jersey with his high school No. 22 on it and Saint Juste called Drinkwater to tell him that he was going to a luau that night.

"A day later, he called me and said, 'Coach, I'm committing. I love it,' " Drinkwater said. "He also liked Colorado State, but when he went to Hawaii, it just changed everything for him."

Saint Juste said he slept for most of the 13-hour plane trip to Honolulu, but didn't have second thoughts about the distance from his home in South Florida after the visit.

"It was amazing," said Saint Juste, who plans to study sports marketing and management. "I had never been to a place with that much culture and tradition. I like the offense that coach Chow runs and I think I'll fit in pretty well."

Three other Santaluces players joined Saint Juste during a signing ceremony at Santaluces on Wednesday. Rico Jean Louis is headed to Colorado State-Pueblo, Rod Theodore will play at Nebraska-Kearney, and Sean Steele will attend Glenville State.