Dereck Lively was once a student at Bellefonte Middle school just a few years ago. Throughout his time at middle school Dereck participated in basketball teams and fell in love with the sport. 

Dereck learned a lot at middle school including one thing that he still uses today: how to do math. This time in middle school was not very long but he still had a favorite teacher: math teacher Mrs. Tiffany Guiswite. 

Dereck transferred to Westtown High School at the end of eighth grade year. He and his family did this for many reasons, with the main one being to excel at basketball and get looks to hopefully go to college. This plan turned out to work extremely well. He became the number one recruit in ESPN’s top 100 and ended up getting multiple scholarships and Division 1 offers.

After debating where to go, he committed to Duke University. Now Dereck is playing for Duke in his freshman season. The once Bellefonte Area Middle School student is now playing Division 1 basketball and competing at an extremely high level.

Dereck has a tough schedule day-to-day at Duke. He wakes up and goes to workout, then he eats and goes to workout again. After the second workout he eats another meal and then does schoolwork. After his busy day, he has some freetime and then goes to bed.

He has continued his success by getting different brand deals and even has his own official hat. Dereck has signed an NIL deal with LIDS, a hat company and they launched his own custom embroidery designs available across the United States. 

Dereck has also teamed up with Upperdeck and Leaf. These two companies are sports card brands. 

Throughout this he has made his dream come true by “being able to help kids who are less fortunate than when I was a child,” according to Dereck. 

Throughout this exciting journey so far, Dereck has made one big purchase: he bought his mother her own house.

“It’s a dream come true to finally be able to take care of my mother, who has been working so hard to take care of me,” he said. 

Dereck has left a positive impact on many people including his friend from when he attended BMS. Derek Fravel, former student of Bellefonte Area High School, enjoys seeing Dereck’s continued success. 

“When Dereck is having this much success, it makes me very proud of him. To see how far he has come from when me and him were in middle school together,” he said.

One of Fravel’s favorite memories with Dereck was when they would play countless hours of video games together. 

“We used to play back in the day to pass time together,” he said.

Dereck has hopes of continuing his path in basketball and to see how far his talents can take him.