Jesse Becker (From Hoops to Country Music)

Jesse Becker is a country music artist based out of Minnesota.

A graduate of Osseo Senior High School, today Becker still lives in the same quaint Minneapolis suburb where he grew up.  

“I’m glad that I’m raising my kids here,” Becker says of a city with a population with just over 2,600 people, even though it resides a mere fifteen miles from the Twin Cities.

As a kid, Becker was a phenomenal athlete who excelled in football, basketball, and baseball, all while exhibiting a stellar work ethic.

“My dad would come home from work, and I had already been dribbling a basketball for an hour in the basement,” Becker shares.

“And we didn’t have the internet back then, so I was using Pistol Pete VHS tapes to learn how to do all the things that he could do.”

In addition to modeling his ballhandling skills after a revered NBA legend, Becker spent countless hours refining his jump shot, training his body to repeat the same leg, arm, and hand motions every time he rose and fired.

Consequently, Becker quickly developed skills few of his peers possessed, and once Becker was asked to start playing with kids grades ahead of him, he gained confidence that basketball could one day become more than just a hobby.

“I was the shortest and skinniest little kid, but I knew I had some skill because the older teams were asking me to play, even though I was the smallest guy,” says Becker, who supplemented his practice routine by going to local parks, where sometimes the competition was even stiffer than what he encountered in gymnasiums.  

“That [playing outside] was the best thing for my development, because at a young age I got to play with high school kids.”

By the time Becker was in high school, unsurprisingly, coaches and players alike recognized his vast skillset.

As a junior, Becker guided Osseo to a runner-up finish in the Minnesota state high school tournament, but Becker insists that despite his gaudy numbers and relentless defense, his supporting cast was a huge reason Osseo continued its rich basketball tradition during his captaincy.  

“I was very fortunate to play with a lot of good players,” Becker reminds fans.

“I was the focal point of the offense, but my teammates made me as good as I was because they were doing a lot of the little things that aren’t always easy, and don’t often get appreciated by the average spectator.”

Still, there was no denying Becker’s talents, who going into his senior year of high school had ambitions of playing Division-I basketball.

Throughout his senior campaign, several programs inquired about Becker, but many recruiters also believed that Becker, who is 5-11, lacked the stature to compete at the highest level of the NCAA.

“They thought I was too small and would never be able to play at the D-I level,” Becker recalls.

“And that killed me for a while because throughout my high school and AAU career, there were several Division-I schools that showed interest, but then they would eventually back off, and that stung.”

A fiery combo guard who refused to accept defeat on the basketball court, Becker had trouble accepting the outlook that many scouts placed upon him.

In fact, Becker didn’t even begin to contemplate participating in Division-II play until it became evident that no D-I program would take a chance on him, but that’s ultimately how he ended up signing a letter of intent with the University of South Dakota.

“Going there was a leap of faith because I didn’t know anything about South Dakota,” Becker admits, echoing the sentiment of many who have never visited a state most famous for its stone depiction of past U.S. presidents.

“But USD did offer a full ride.”

Becker never envisioned spending five years in The Mount Rushmore State, but he routinely dreamt about mesmerizing crowds on the hardwood, and at USD, Becker did just that, to the point that after his senior season ended in 2009, professional teams overseas began to view him as a legitimate prospect.

Like many collegiate standouts, Becker partook in camps and tryouts for pro clubs, a process that reaffirmed his belief that he could earn a paycheck as an athlete.

But that phase also showed him that perhaps there was more he could do beyond sinking jumpers on the hardwood.  

“It takes time, commitment, and sacrifice to go overseas and continuously climb the ladder toward better and better pro leagues,” Becker notes.

“I figured I was going to start in one of the lower leagues, and as a 5-11 white guy, there wasn’t anything unique about me. They already had a lot of people like me, but they didn’t have a lot of people who were 6-11.”

Sensing that his time abroad would begin in a lower tier league for less-than-ideal pay, Becker opted to transition away from basketball and instead focus on music, his second love that to many was a hidden talent.

“I wanted to see where the whole music thing could go,” says Becker, a vocalist whose preferred genre is country music.

“My whole identity was basketball, but then it became about getting better every day as a musician and creating some hoopla and buzz around what I was doing.”

As is customary in the music business, Becker struggled to gain traction as a musician right away, but he eventually was introduced to a band named Maiden Dixie.

“They were all music school kids who had graduated from college. Music was their basketball, and I was just trying to figure out how to play in a bar and entertain a crowd,” Becker explains.

Needing a lead singer, Maiden Dixie offered Becker the position, even though the two parties didn’t know each other that well.

“We ended up being together for eight years and three albums,” Becker says with a smile, one that further reinforces how capable people are when they disregard outside opinion and pursue their passion with rigor and intentionality.

For Becker, being able to achieve success in a variety of different mediums has been rewarding.

Whether it’s been drilling a barrage of three-pointers in a tightly contested road game or performing onstage in front of thousands of people, the ubiquity of Becker is undeniable.

Still, while the external accomplishments are aplenty, the humble Becker has never lost sight of what’s truly important, which is why at the age of 31, Becker walked away from Maiden Dixie and their voyage into the Nashville country music scene to dedicate more time toward being a father.

“I was ready to focus on being primarily a dad,” Becker lists as the reason for his departure from the stage.

“I have a nine-year-old and a two-year-old, and it was hard to manage being on the road and doing the things that I wanted to do with my family.”

These days, simple things like coaching his daughter’s basketball team elicit the same joy that singing in front of a raucous crowd once did, and if you know anything about the Becker’s family history, it’s easy to see why this is the case.

“My dad was a musician too, but he eventually put that to the side and coached all my teams and was super involved in my life,” the former Oriole explains.

“He later got back into music when I got older, and that’s something I might do, but I am honestly just as happy to go camping with my family as anything else.”

At present, Becker still plays a couple shows each month.

The venues are much smaller than they once were, but in many ways, the impact Becker’s voice and presence have are as powerful as they have ever been.

“Music doesn’t feel like a job anymore. I play when I want to, and that makes music more fun, whereas before, if we were playing a couple town festivals in Iowa, I knew that I would miss my kids and want to be with them,” Becker says.

“That’s not to say that I didn’t absolutely love the grind or the journey of music. It’s just that things always evolve and change, and I think it’s important to embrace that instead of fight it in the name of accomplishing a dream.” QS

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