Former B-R boys basketball star E.J. Dambreville signs with Denmark's Team FOG

TAUNTON— E.J. Dambreville is taking his talents to Denmark.

The former Bridgewater-Raynham and Florida Southern College standout signed with Team FOG Næstved of the Basketligaen, Denmark's top professional basketball league, last Thursday.

"We think (our future) looks exciting with EJ Dambreville, who can score but has also grabbed a lot of rebounds in his college days," Team FOG Næstved Director Andreas Larsen said in a press release.

For Dambreville, fulfilling a lifelong dream of becoming a professional athlete is an incredible feeling.

"Man, I can't even put it into words, it just feels great," Dambreville said. "All of the hard work and sacrifice, the blood, sweat and tears, all of it paid off, so I'm just grateful and blessed to be in this position and have great people around me who have supported me along this way. Right now I'm just enjoying the opportunity that I have."

Dambreville heads to Denmark following a five-year college basketball career at Florida Southern, a Division II program in Lakeland, Florida. In his college career, he averaged 12.1 points and 9.9 rebounds per game. During his redshirt senior season, Dambreville started all 28 games, leading the Moccasins with 9.9 rebounds per game while also averaging a career-high 18.1 points per game and recording 82 assists, 31 steals and 11 blocks in helping the team finish 19-9. For his efforts, he was named a First-Team All-Sunshine State Conference, a National Association of Basketball Coaches Second Team All-South Region and a Division 2 Conference Commissioners' Association Second Team All-South Region All-Star.

"The best compliment I can give E.J. is that he impacted winning here at Florida Southern both on and off the court since day one," Florida Southern coach Mike Donnelly said. "E.J. is intelligent, funny and has an engaging personality, so he made a great impression right away ... He has been our undisputed team leader the last couple of years. All of the guys last year respected E.J. and looked up to him."

More: Johnny Baseball and more: Taunton Daily Gazette Baseball All-Scholastics

After this past season, Dambreville signed with an Italian-based agent who got him into a July showcase in Las Vegas that gave him the opportunity to play in front of professional scouts from across the world. That's where he caught the attention of Team FOG Næstved, whose leadership was looking for a strong rebounder.

"A couple weeks after the showcase, I got a call from (Team FOG Næstved) and I ended up talking with the head coach (Daniel Pearson) and the owner and it was a great conversation and it just seemed like it'd be a good fit for me to come in, especially for my first year," said Dambreville. "They needed a guy who plays like I play, to fit a certain role and they thought I'd be a good fit for that."

While other options were presented, Dambreville said he felt the Danish club was the best fit.

"I loved what they were offering for a first-year experience and I just felt real comfortable with that," Dambreville said.

For B-R coach Doug Alves, seeing Dambreville turn professional is a testament to the hard work he knows he has put in day in and day out since he first began coaching him as a middle schooler on the Taunton Youth Basketball travel team.

"He's always been a standout player," Alves said. "He's one of those kids who's a gym rat and has worked extremely hard over the years."

For Dambreville, who has been friends with Alves' son and former B-R standout Dougie Alves since childhood, the impact of Alves' on his life couldn't be understated.

"Coach Doug, that's my right hand man," Dambreville said. "He's everything. He's a great person overall, not just for what he's done for me but for what he does with the community... He coached me and taught me a lot of valuable lessons on and off the court about how to be a man and how to carry myself and I give a lot of credit to him and I'm extremely thankful to him."

The come up

His basketball journey with Alves began in middle school when he was a part of the Taunton Youth Basketball travel team. Dambreville began his high school basketball career at Taunton, playing his freshman and sophomore seasons for the Tigers before moving to Raynham and playing his junior and senior years for the Trojans under Alves, where he was named the Taunton Daily Gazette Boys Basketball Player of the Year in 2017.

"I loved B-R," Dambreville said. "It was another step for me to go over there and be coached by a great coach and be around great competition with Dougie and all of the other great players that challenged me every day at practice to be the best version of myself I could be and to be a leader on that team."

He recalled his favorite memory with the Trojans being their 2017 Division 1 South quarterfinal win over then-defending Division 1 South champions and 2015 Division 1 champion Catholic Memorial.

"To win that game at home in front of all of the fans, it was a packed house and standing room only, so that was definitely one of the best moments I had at B-R," Dambreville said.

Between Dambreville's junior and senior years at B-R, Alves, who also coached him in AAU basketball, reached out to NCAA Division I and II colleges across the region but didn't receive much interest in the 6'3" guard. Determined to earn a scholarship, Dambreville played a year of prep basketball at Woodstock Academy in Woodstock, Connecticut, then coming back and playing AAU basketball for Alves, where he caught the attention of Donnelly during a tournament in Springfield.

"I didn’t know anything about E.J. and never had watched him play before, but he stood out to me because his high-level energy was just different," Donnelly said. "He was raw as a basketball player, but he played so hard and just impacted winning in a big-time way. He was athletic and I knew he just was scratching the surface of his basketball potential. Once we started recruiting EJ, it was obvious that he loved the game, and he was hungry and determined to improve. We made him a top recruiting priority."

More: Road Trip: See which Greater Taunton area football team will travel the furthest in 2023

The Moccasins gave Dambreville his first offer and he accepted, even as other schools that had previously overlooked him changed their minds.

"Following that offer from Florida Southern, a bunch of the schools that I had reached out to while he was at B-R started showing a lot of interest and offers," Alves said, "but being the type of young man that he is, he went with the coach and the school that wasn't afraid to take a chance on a kid that was under the radar."

The next level

At first, the move to Florida Southern proved to be quite the challenge for Dambreville, but he was determined to make it work and carve his place on the team.

"Coming in, I had great players around me and I struggled my first year just trying to gain my confidence back and finding how I could gain my way into the system," Dambreville said. "But it was a very humbling experience and I took that first year and went back home and made sure that I worked my tail off so that I would never feel how I felt that year, and Coach Doug was a factor in that."

After training with Alves, Dambreville returned to Lakeland and made an immediate impact on the Mocs, becoming the only underclassman starter on a team that featured NABC Division II Player of the Year Brett Hanson and went 29-2 on their way to the 2019-20 SCC conference title, something Dambreville considers his favorite memory from his time in Lakeland.

"(Accomplishing) the individual goals are great, but the team goals are something that we'll always remember," Dambreville said. "I'm big on team, so having those relationships with these guys that I'll have for the rest of my life, I feel that's bigger than any individual goal that I can get."

While the team had high hopes for the NCAA Division II tournament, they were dashed by the COVID-19 pandemic. While one door closed, however, another opened for Dambreville as he gained an additional year of eligibility, something he used to continue both his basketball and academic careers, earning his Bachelor's degree in Business and his MBA, for which he'll be hooded the day before he takes off for Denmark.

"I was blessed to be able to have the opportunity to have that paid for and work hard throughout the years," Dambreville said. "A lot of people wish to be in my position so I'm taking it all in and taking all of the opportunities that I can."

As well, he is also grateful for his time and experiences at Florida Southern.

"Florida Southern is another home. When I got back down to Florida, I came right to the gym and it brought back all of the memories that I had of the moments that brought me to where I am along with all of the people who've shown me love down here."

His impact on the program is certainly felt by those around him, who are proud to see his hard work come to fruition.

"E.J. told me from day one that he wanted to be a pro, and due to his commitment, sacrifice, and hard work hard work he has been able to make his dream come true," Donnelly said. "I have been coaching for almost 25 years, and E.J. is right up there with the all-time great people that I have had the privilege to coach. He is a great success story, and I know E.J. will continue to grind and keep getting better and better."

Giving back and looking forward

While back in Massachusetts this summer, Dambreville stayed with the Alves family and volunteered at Alves' funDAmental Basketball Clinic, a camp for Greater Taunton and Bridgewater area third- through ninth-graders at Forekicks Taunton last month. While there, he was able to share his story with the kids, something which he said meant the world to him.

"I always just try to express how I got to where I'm at and it's never coming from a cocky standpoint or anything like that, it's coming from just trying to let these kids know that I wasn't the highly recruited kid, I wasn't the tallest, biggest or fastest: I just worked hard," Dambreville said. "Having someone like Coach Doug, he put me in great positions and always put the work in with me. He always was in the gym when I wanted to get in and he pushed me on and off the court to be the best version of myself, so I tried to express that to the kids that they have a great leader and figure in the community (in Alves) so take advantage of what you have and always give it 100% because that's what I did and I'm reaping the benefits."

"I loved giving back, that's the least that I can for Coach Doug and the kids," Dambreville added. "The kids are a reflection of me, so if I give back positivity, the positivity comes back."

For Alves, seeing the success Dambreville has accomplished is a proud moment.

"It's an unbelievable feeling, especially seeing a kid that I'm so close to," Alves said. "He's been friends with my son Doug for years and we've spent time together. I work him out to this day and I helped him prepare for the showcase in Vegas. His dad is someone that has become a good friend of mine. His story, being an under the radar recruit who continued to believe in himself and put in that work ethic, it's just a tremendous story. It's something that myself as a coach, and not just the B-R basketball coach, but as someone who considers him a nephew, I take a lot of joy in seeing him achieve his dream of playing professional basketball."

As he prepares to head to Næstved, Denmark later this month, Dambreville said he's excited for new experiences both on and off the court.

"I'm excited for the whole journey, from basketball to being able to explore the whole country," Dambreville said. "I've been outside of the U.S. before but I've never been to Denmark and I've heard a lot of great things about Denmark and the people, how nice it is, how healthy it is and how clean it is so I'm very excited for the basketball part but also just to travel and see things that I've never seen before and just to enjoy the overall experience. A lot of people wish to be in my shoes, so I'll never take it for granted and always stay humble. I'm extremely blessed, so I'm just going to take it all in and have fun."

Team FOG Næstved kicks off its 2023-24 Basketligaen season on Sept. 14 with a visit to the Værløse Blue Hawks.

Taunton Daily Gazette sports reporter Cameron Merritt can be reached at cmerritt@tauntongazette.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @CamMerritt_News. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to the Taunton Daily Gazette today.

This article originally appeared on The Taunton Daily Gazette: Bridgewater-Raynham basketball alum E.J. Dambreville to play in Denmark