1 Percent CLUB Basketball_History

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The 1% CLUB was officially founded in 2003 by Jeremy Russotti.
However, it was the few years previous when the club really began to
evolve to where it is today.

At the time, Jeremy Russotti was the head coach at Casa Grande High school in Petaluma, Ca. Within his team, he developed a close bond and relationship to two of his players - Angelo Tsagarakis (Oregon State) and Josh Akognon (Washington State). Because of their endless hours of training, and the belief that only a small population trained at their level, they jokingly labeled themselves with the 1% CLUB moniker.

Most impressive was Josh Akognon, who went from never playing organized basketball until his freshman year of high school, to the 4th leading scorer in the state of California (30.1 ppg) by the end of his senior year. Josh accolades include being a member of the Nigerian National Championship team; being named as FIBA World Championship Top 20
up and coming players; elected most "underrated player in the PAC-10"
by Sports Illustrated; voted PAC-10 player of the week for his 25-point second half scoring outburst vs. National Champion runner-up UCLA. Recently, Josh transferred to Cal State Fullerton where he is averaging
over 20ppg, while being top 5 in the nation in both three-pointers made
and free-throw percentage. Josh was voted by the National Association of
of the top 150 players in the NCAA.

In 2008, Josh Akognon led his team to a Big West Conference Title, earning MVP of the Big West Tournament. In the NCAA tournament,
Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, Michael Flowers. ESPN Analysts Doug Gottlieb and Digger Phelps mentioned Josh as the "best player nobody ever heard of", as well as the "Players to watch list", respectively. Also, Josh has been listed by ESPN as the top shooter in the upcoming 2008 NBA Draft (with Chris Lofton).

The 2009 season was a banner year for Josh. Most notably was being selected by the NCAA for the All-American Honarable Mention Team.; recognized as one of the top players in the nation. For his league, Josh was named Big West Player of the year, as well as as to the 1st team NABC All-District team (2nd year in a row). Josh finished 5th in the country in scoring (24 ppg), while breaking the single season CSUF record of 764 pts (5th all time for Big West Conference). Josh also broke the Big West single season 3-pointers made record of 136. (2nd in the NCAA). Also, Josh finished 5th in the NCAA for free-throw percentage at 89%.

1% CLUB athlete, Angelo Tsagarakis signed with French Professional Team JL Bourg for the 2008 play-offs. He finished the playoffs averaging
10 points per game (19 mpg), shooting 44% from 3pt. land, 50% FG and 100% FT (6 games). He now signed with another French Professional Team, Paris Levallois for the 2008-2009 season.

Coach Russotti says, "the chemistry these two guys had together was something special. They fed off one another and pushed each other to unlimited heights. I was fortunate to be part of their development and it
was a great ride." Now Coach Russotti follows his passion and dreams in spreading the principles and training methods of the 1% CLUB to a variety of elite basketball players throughout California and the professional ranks.

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