The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly athletics in the 2022-23 school year is sponsored by Poly alum Jayon Brown and PlayFair Sports Management.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly athletics in the 2022-23 school year is sponsored by JuJu Smith-Schuster and the JuJu Foundation.
Long Beach Poly senior captain and defensive back Daylen Austin received a major honor Thursday afternoon on campus, as he was presented with an Under-Armour All-American jersey. Austin will play in the nationally-televised UA All-American Game on January 2 in Orlando; the game will be televised on ESPN.
“This means a lot to me to see the long hours of hard work pay off,” said Austin, who is committed to LSU. Austin has talked previously about growing up dreaming of playing for Poly, maybe hoping he’d have one or two scholarship offers, not the dozen-plus he currently carries.
“I didn’t know it would go this way, it blew me away,” he said. “My brother Alex always told me but I thought it was just my big brother trying to keep my confidence up.”
Austin joins an extensive history of Poly defensive backs to be named All-Americans. No school has produced more NFL players than Poly, and certainly no school has produced more DBs. Mark Carrier, Darnell Bing, Vaughn Telemaque, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Iman Marshall, Jack Jones, and many others who played DB at Poly have received All-American honors in the past.
Poly coach Stephen Barbee said he couldn’t be happier to see a Jackrabbit receive an All-American honor (the first in Barbee’s five-year tenure).
“He’s put in hard work since he was a freshman, battling through adversity and now being able to write his own future and be at the top level nationally,” said Barbee. “It’s a testament to his hard work.”
The jersey was presented during a brief ceremony during the school’s Homecoming Fair, ahead of its Homecoming game against Cabrillo on Friday night. Because the presentation happened during the Fair, most of the Poly team and many other students were on hand to cheer for Austin.
“I think it’s nice for the younger kids to be able to see this, to be able to put that jersey up in the film room for others to see and aspire to,” said Barbee. “It’ll be up next to our CIF championships and other things we’ve got up in the film room. But I love to see a four-year Long Beach kid that could have gone anywhere and decided to stay home. This is the fruits of his labor for sure.”
