Tampa Catholic alum Isaiah Campbell-Finch stars in movie as basketball player
TAMPA - Tampa Catholic Boys basketball coach Don Dziagwa has been there and done that at the school.
"I am a little bit biased towards Tampa Catholic," Dziagwa said. "Just stepping on our campus kinda helps people achieve a lot of great things."
He's certainly seen greatness walking down the halls.
"We not only have some really good athletes that have come out of Tampa, we have some actors that have come through Tampa Catholic," Dziagwa said.
The backstory:
Tampa Catholic High School has produced a couple of well-known movie stars like Channing Tatum and Joanna Garcia-Swisher. However, there is another name to add to that list - Isaiah Campbell-Finch.
"I'm watching myself in a movie," Campbell-Finch said. "It's crazy."
Campbell-Finch is not just in the new Amazon Prime movie "Basketball Jones: The First Chapter," he is the star. He admits he's watched it a few times now.
"It was a crazy thing that happened, and it wasn't expected," Campbell-Finch said.
That's because he had no prior acting chops. The director, Aaron "Quick" Nelson, needed someone who could play basketball to play the lead. Once he saw Campbell-Finch's skills in a game during his senior season at Tampa Catholic, he asked him to star on the big screen.
"It was definitely something different for me, but I liked it for sure," Campbell-Finch said.
The filming took place during his senior year, and he barely missed any practice time. It was not a distraction whatsoever.
"There was even one game, our district tournament against Berkeley, where I had to film all day for 10 hours and then went to the game and dropped 47 points, and we won district," Campbell-Finch said.
Just like he did on the court, Campbell-Finch put on quite the performance on the screen.
What they're saying:
"His acting, to be honest with you, is really, really good," Dziagwa said. "It's kinda neat with him trying to make his varsity team, whereas at Tampa Catholic, he was obviously one of our best players. It wasn't like he had to make the team. We knew he was going to make the team."
READ: Tampa Catholic alum Kevin Knox II reflects on seven years in the NBA
Campbell-Finch always knew basketball would be his path, not acting, and now he's about to begin his freshman season on scholarship at Samford.
"It has been my dream my whole life since I was three years old and I started playing basketball," Campbell-Finch said. "For me to really be living out my dream, I mean, what could I complain about."
And he certainly would not complain about an acting career once his chapter of hooping comes to a close.
"Basketball is definitely the thing right now and the main focus, but I don't know what can happen in the future. It could be something I end up liking, but right now it's for sure basketball."
The movie can be bought or rented on Amazon Prime.
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The Source: Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Mark Skol. Jr.