DJ Wagner is one of the nation’s best high school seniors and likely will play at either Kentucky or Louisville.
When Milt Wagner, the director of player development and alumni relations for the Louisville men’s basketball program, spoke to the Louisville Quarterback Club last week he was surprised he got about 10 other questions before a club member finally asked him about his grandson, DJ Wagner.
The high school senior from New Jersey is one of the top players in the 2023 recruiting class and a priority recruit for Louisville — Milt Wagner played at Louisville with coach Kenny Payne and won a national title — and Louisville — Dajuan Wagner, Milt’s son and DJ’s father, played for John Calipari at Memphis.
“I thought that would be the first question,” Milt Wagner said when asked about DJ’s college choice. “It’s up to his mother and father. I don’t have the slightest idea.”
But he couldn’t resist two more words about his grandson: “He’s good.”
The five-star guard is good … and I mean really good. He obviously knows plenty about the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry and it seemed forever that he was a lock to Kentucky before Payne got the job at Louisville.
But can a grandfather really not influence his grandson’s recruiting, especially when he knows both head coaches so well?
“I stay out. I really do,” Milt Wagner told me. “We don’t ever talk about recruiting. I let his mother and father handle that.”
“He is a very smart kid. He will make the right decision. I will leave it up to him. We just have a grandfather-grandson relationship is how we keep it and that’s how we will keep it.”
Milt Wagner obviously sees Payne often. He has not talked to Calipari recently.
“Before I got the job (at Louisville), I would go up there (to Lexington) to some games and stuff. We still stay in contact,” Milt Wagner said.
