Jackson’s Micah Caster jumps through hoops to become a basketball star

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Caster overcame some serious health problems

to become one of the state’s top players

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By JIMMY WIGFIELD

At an age when most kids were slinging mashed-up peas or Jello off their hands, Micah Caster was learning to splatter shots through hoops. Their dribble involved partially chewed food; his dribble involved a basketball.

Caster was so engrossed in the sport that he drew pictures of courts and constructed them out of Legos. And as he grew, so did his reputation.

“I had hoops everywhere,” Jackson’s first-team All-State point guard recalled. “I’d break a hoop and get another one. I had one in the hallway. I had one outside. I had one outside in the ground. I had another one downstairs and one at my grandmother’s house. I couldn’t escape them.”

And nobody could escape Caster’s cloud-busting outside shot, which helped the Aggies (30-2) win the school’s first basketball state championship in 2024.

Caster — who won the national Youth Basketball Organization of America 3-point contest as a fifth grader living in McIntosh — averaged 18.9 points as a senior and 15.1 points in his three-year varsity career. Caster is favored to be selected as the Class 4A Player of the Year, which would also make him a candidate for the state’s Mr. Basketball, both of which will be named on April 16 in Montgomery.

Jackson coach Anthony Hayes feels Caster is the best basketball player in the state.

“Hands down,” Hayes said. “I’m biased but I know the work ethic and the sacrifices he made.”

 

‘Stop the suffering’

 

What Caster has done is even more remarkable when considering a series of health problems voluminous enough to form a medical encyclopedia.

In kindergarten, he passed out on the playground while playing Ring Around the Rosie with friends and was diagnosed with hypoglycemia.

At age 7, he woke up at 2 a.m. one night peeing blood. He had hernia surgery that same year. He had a torn ACL his freshman year.

In middle school, he became severely allergic to many foods and was forbidden to eat dairy products, bread, candy and peanuts, which had helped raise his blood sugar.

In a moment of despair, he went to his mother’s room and got on his knees.

“I prayed to God and asked Him to stop the suffering,” Caster said.

The next day, his doctor ran tests. Two weeks later, he was told he was not allergic to anything.

“They gave me a peanut bar on my way out,” Caster said. “True miracle!”

Nobody had to run a test to see that basketball was in his blood. His father, Dr. Marcus Caster, is a long-time coach. His mother, Dr. LaTunja Caster, played in the state tournament herself. His brother, Peyton, also excelled on the perimeter.

“My dad was the athletic one, my mom was the playmaker and my brother was a pure shooter,” Caster said. “I got a mix of all three.”

Caster’s career started badly at the age of 3, when his father, who operated a youth sports league, put him on the floor with 5-year-olds.

“I started crying and turned back,” Caster said. “I didn’t want any part of it.”

The crying soon turned into trying, his interest spiked by watching the NBA and basketball movies such as “Like Mike” and “Space Jam.”

“It was just being around it so much and being around the older guys,” Caster said.

His father wisely had Caster learn to shoot with a smaller ball that fit his hands.

“I worked my way up instead of just using a bigger ball, which affects your technique,” Caster said. “My family was big into growing into basketball instead of basketball growing into you.”

Caster said becoming the national 3-point champion in the fifth grade is something he didn’t fully appreciate at the time.

“I was still a kid,” he said. “But it reminded me I was a shooter.”

 

At his best

 

If anyone needed such a reminder, they got it in this year’s state tournament at Legacy Arena in Birmingham.

The 6-foot-1 Caster was at his best when it counted the most after struggling from outside in the area tournament, sub-regional and regional, when he averaged just 13.4 points and shot 33% from three-point range. Escambia County even held him to 6 points, the only game he didn’t score in double figures this season, in the South Regional final.

“If you had told me Micah would score 6 points and we’d still win, I’d have said no,” Hayes said.

In the state semifinals and finals, however, the ball went back to rolling off his right fingertips, his elbow tucked, eyes on the hoop and nothing else. He averaged 26 points and made 15 of 27 threes (56%).

To put that in perspective, Caster shot better from 3-point range in the state tournament than 40 of the 42 boys teams did from the field. Twenty-eight teams reached the state tournament and 14 played in both rounds.

“He is special,” Hayes said.

Caster said the difference between the state tournament and what came before was because Montgomery’s Garrett Coliseum didn’t fit his eye in the regional — “It’s kind of hard to focus on the rim. There’s so much space, it kills your depth perception,” he said — and the fact the Aggies’ opponents drew a circle around him.

“The teams we played were already familiar with us and they wanted somebody else to beat them besides me,” Caster said. “They’d full-court press, full-court man deny, shade my way and I’d have to pass. At state, they wanted to see what I was gonna do. They’d start out playing me straight up, then I’d hit a three and they’d switch all up but I had it going and my confidence was up. Then it was way, way too late.”

He finished his high school career as the state tournament MVP and scored 30 points — despite going scoreless in the fourth period — in a 56-43 win over American Christian for the Class 4A Blue Map.

“The big equalizer was Micah Caster,” ACA coach Austin Grammer said. “We started off in zone and he got us out of that quick. Then we went man and tried to deny him and he shot us out of that too.”

 

More than a shooter

 

Although he used to make shots even from near mid-court, Caster has developed into more than a shooter. He has turned into a leader and become effective at attacking the basket.

“He’s been a shooter from the beginning of time,” said Hayes, who coached Caster since the eighth grade but missed his junior year while on duty with the U.S. Army. “As far as shooting threes, you won’t find many better than Micah Caster. His ball handling and attacking the gaps has improved. His leadership was a trait and quality I leaned on a lot. The guys followed him. There aren’t many who will outwork Micah and when your best player is willing to work the hardest, guys will follow him.”

Perhaps Caster’s more well-rounded game was reflected by the fact he wore the number 2, not 3. But he is still a shooter by instinct and said he would choose a wide-open 3-pointer over an open layup.

“I say that because two years ago, before coach came back, I would take the ball down and get one dribble inside the half-court line on the fast break and shoot 30-footers,” he said. “I had to break that habit. I was making those shots, too. Coach made me stop doing that. I had to learn to take it to the hoop. That added about 10 points to my average this year.”

But it didn’t help him achieve one goal.

“I didn’t get to dunk on anybody,” Caster said.

Aside from that, Jackson was 70-14 during Caster’s career, including only one home loss. He finished with 1,313 career points and is only the second player in school history to be named first-team All-State and the first since Walter Jackson in 1998.

But Caster’s next step isn’t so certain, which is perplexing to him and Hayes.

“He’s had some Division I interest,” Hayes said. “Some of them are waiting on the (transfer) portal. I know he can play at that level. I played D-I ball at Alabama A&M and I know Micah Caster is a Division I basketball player.”

Caster said he has some junior college offers and may have to finish at a four-year school.

“I don’t understand how I haven’t proven myself,” he said.