“Energy is starting to turn into one of my favorite things to focus on. It controls the things surrounding you, like your gratitude or your ability to empathize or even your character. And honestly without genuine passion and energy, you’ll never feel like you’re truly in the moment.”
— Mount Union senior guard D’Vontay Friga at the beginning of one of the hundreds of YouTube videos he has made over the past few years.
The goodbyes and well wishes D’Vontay Friga receives after a game don’t signal the end of his day. Another thing the Mount Union senior guard is passionate about awaits his final edits.
He knows more and more people each day look forward to the finished product.
Friga may be one of the most well-known NCAA Division III athletes in the country. A lot of people who follow the Purple Raiders probably didn’t know much about him in 2016 when he arrived from Cuyahoga Falls High School. Now they know him as one of the top players on arguably the best team in Mount Union men’s basketball history ... and a YouTube sensation.
Friga’s popular YouTube channel already has boomed to more than 104,000 subscribers. The video blogs he creates along with the help of three friends take viewers inside the team and his own life, and have been viewed thousands of times.
Here’s something that may surprise people: Friga feels his channel will reach many more people as Mount Union’s winds down and life after college begins.
“Once I put my mind to something, I’m probably not going to stop until I get there,“ Friga said. ”I started the YouTube channel with the intent this is going to reach a million-plus subscribers one day.
“I always say the same thing to people who ask ’Did you ever think this would grow?’ I knew it would get this big and bigger. I just didn’t know when.
“When I go into something, I’ll get it done.”
Friga has posted hundreds of videos on his channel since he started it in September of 2017. They have received more than eight million views.
The first videos were basic and barely lasted on minute. As the length increased and Friga began to feature his life as a college basketball player, the popularity grew. Now the videos last up to 30 minutes.
“I found out that in order to grow on social media, in order to grow on YouTube or in order to grow at all in front of people, you have to be transparent,” Friga said. “You have to be yourself. The way you go about doing your own thing is how you create an audience.
“Mine was on D’Vontay Friga, the Division III college basketball player. I started to make content based off my title. That’s when I felt like the audience started to come in.”
Friga posted a video the day after he scored his 1,000th career point last week. It featured a conversation with teammates Nathan Bower-Malone and Collen Gurley, game highlights, the radio call of his 1,000th point, postgame interviews with play-by-announcers Sam Bourquin and Billy Beebe and meeting family and friends afterward.
That video started with Friga doing a voice-over monologue:
“What exactly is it about a person accomplishing goals that puts people on the edge of their seat? Why does anticipation eat us alive? Those were a couple questions I was asking myself as I got closer to scoring my thousandth career point as a collegiate basketball player. I’d like to think it has something to do with people seeing the result of hard work. I always felt like when I saw someone accomplish something big, it motivated me and reminded me the things I want in my life can happen. I just have to make them happen.”
A view from the inside
Friga’s videos give viewers an inside look at the Mount Union men’s basketball team, which won the OAC Tournament title Saturday night and will open up play in the NCAA Division III Tournament this weekend. Scenes may be filmed inside the locker room, at shoot-around or when he and his teammates go to Subway for a pregame bite to eat.
These are private moments for many teams. The Purple Raiders players and coaches trust Friga, though. They know the videos would not reveal game strategy and would be shot in good taste.
“I’m grateful every single day that the coaching staff has allowed me to do the things I’ve done,” Friga said. “It’s content. It’s things people don’t see. It’s things people want to see.”
Friga thinks the videos can help Mount Union with recruiting.
“If a kid is on the verge of John Carroll, Marietta and Mount Union, all they have to do is check out how intense our game days are,” Friga said. “Check out our practices. Check out our road games. Check out what we do on weekends. Check out some of the team bonding.
“Being able to see all that and feel all that energy is different.”
The fan favorite
Friga is the most sought after Mount Union player after games. His channel attracts mostly young people. There is rarely a night when someone does not ask for his autograph or have their picture taken with him.
His YouTube channel and Friga’s engaging personality make him easy to relate to. His teammates know him the best and would certainly agree.
“D’Vontay might be the best guy in the world,” Gurley said. “He does a lot for everybody. If you’re down one day, he’s the best guy to have on your side.”
Mount Union senior center John Carroll said Friga brings the most positive energy in everything he does.
“If he’s on the court, he’s always motivating someone,” Carroll said. “He’s always uplifting all the other players. There’s never ever anything negative. That attitude is what draws everyone in, makes people want to stay with him and keep watching.”
The popularity of Friga’s channel sometimes makes him a target on the road. Inside a packed Marietta gym last month, some fans chanted “That’s on YouTube” if he or one of his teammates turned the ball over.
Friga just shrugs off comments like that.
“Marietta has been all over me for the last two years,” Friga said. “I actually feed off that energy. In my mind, it’s like at least you know about the YouTube channel. At this point I don’t need the Marietta student section to subscribe. If they know about it, that’s good enough to me.
“I love hearing it. If you want to use it against me, it’s going to motivate me more.”
A team effort
It takes a team to become a champion. Friga knows that full well. The first team All-Ohio Athletic selection is a big part of one of the best Mount Union teams in program history. Mount Union is 25-3 and will carry a school-record 17-game winning streak into the national tournament.
It also has taken a team for Friga’s YouTube channel to become a big success.
Behind the scenes, Joe Rees, Grayson White and Logan Monter film the videos. You will always find them behind the basket at games, roaming the court during warm-ups or shooting locker room scenes.
Some videos start with a drone shot overlooking the university. Friga and Rees met White when they saw him flying his drone on campus.
“I’m beyond grateful for Joe, Logan and Grayson,” Friga said. “We’re a team. A lot of people are like ‘Is it cool having people work for you?’ I say ‘They’re not working for me. They’re working with me.’”
Friga cannot make money off the videos because he is a college athlete. The videographers all work for free.
“That shows me personally their dedication and how well they know that this could go,” Friga said. “They just enjoy being behind the camera. They love watching the video and seeing that they took that shot.”
All of the videos are edited by Friga.
“Once a game is over we’ll go back to the apartment, and the very first thing we do is download all the footage to my computer,” Friga said. “Joe downloads all the photos. Logan downloads the slow-mos and makes some of the Instagram photos. I start editing. That’s how we get them out the next day.”
Friga’s hope is to turn the best segments from the videos into a feature film that would be released after he graduates in May. He hopes to premiere it at Mount Union or in Cuyahoga Falls.
“I made a trailer three or four months ago,” Friga said. “It’s called ‘The Subtle Art of Intention by D’Vontay Friga.’ Something I learned is nothing is ever done without intention. No matter what part of my life, there was intent behind what I was doing.
“I say it about every vlog. My life, it just feels like a movie right now.”
Reach Mike at 330-580-8341 or
mike.popovich@cantonrep.com
On Twitter:@mpopovichREP
