Dereck Jerome Lively II was born February 12, 2004, in Philadelphia. His mother, Kathy Phillips Drysdale, was a 6-4 standout at Penn State (1988–92): 1,295 points, 717 rebounds, 89 blocks, part of the Lady Lions team that reached #1 in the AP poll in 1991. She spent 13 years with the Philadelphia 76ers in game operations. His father, Dereck Sr., was a Philadelphia-born chef — boisterous, funny, full of life. But he battled drug addiction.
In 2011, Kathy moved the family to Bellefonte, PA, near State College, for a marketing role at Penn State. On January 5, 2012, five weeks before Dereck’s eighth birthday, his father died of an overdose. The boy walked to the stairs and peered down. He saw his father on the floor, black and blue, lifeless.
Not long after, Kathy told her nine-year-old she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She would fight it for eleven years — through chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, a brief remission — while coaching her son in AAU ball, driving to every tournament, and working full-time at Penn State.
A HoopGroup event gave Dereck his first exposure. Team Final (Nike EYBL) recruited him. Kathy found a documentary called We Town about Westtown School’s basketball program (Mo Bamba, Cam Reddish) and made him watch it. He agreed to attend the boarding school three hours from home. An ankle injury cost him freshman year. COVID sent him back to Bellefonte, where he worked out daily at the local YMCA with his mother, adding muscle and an outside shot. When he returned, Kathy didn’t recognize him.
Senior year: #1 recruit nationally (ESPN 100). 14 PPG/14 RPG/4.5 BPG. PAISAA state championship. McDonald’s All-American. PA Gatorade POY. Chose Duke over Kentucky, Michigan, and his mother’s Penn State.