It’s always been in Skylar Mays‘ DNA to lend a helping hand.
That’s evident in the way he plays basketball, of course. Twice in high school, Mays, a junior guard from Baton Rouge, set the LHSAA Top 28 record for assists as the star point guard for University High School, and he finished his prep career with more than 1,000 dimes. With another 210 through two seasons at LSU, Mays is on track to become just the seventh player in Tiger hoops history to eclipse the 400 assist mark when he wraps up his four years in purple and gold.
And yes – though Mays will draw looks from NBA scouts, thanks to his 6-foot-4 frame, deadly jumper, and springy legs – he plans to stay for all four years of his collegiate eligibility.
Plus four after that. Then another three-to-seven years of residency.
That’s because Mays, a pre-med kinesiology major, has his sights set on becoming Dr. Mays.
“That’s all I know,” Mays says. “My dad’s a doctor, my mom’s a nurse. My dad’s been running a private practice for 25-plus years. I have an uncle who is a urologist. I have another uncle who’s a dentist.”
Practicing medicine isn’t just about following in the footsteps of his family, though. It also suits an others-oriented worldview that just so happens to manifest itself in his unselfish play on the court.
“It’s about helping people,” Mays says. “Doctors save lives. That’s pretty cool to me. That’s something I’m about.”
Unselfishness is part of Mays’ makeup as a player, too, no matter how many assists he’s handing out. A ball-dominant point guard in high school, Mays didn’t blink when LSU coach Will Wade asked him to transition to a more off-ball role last season in Wade’s dual point guard system.
Instead, he embraced it, scoring 11.3 points per game, captaining a squad that went from one SEC win in 2016-17 to eight in 2017-18, and embodying the sort of work ethic Wade has preached from the day he arrived in Baton Rouge in the spring of 2017.
“Skylar was the first guy who asked me to work out when I got the job,” says Wade. “He wanted to be in the gym all the time. I knew then he was our type of guy.”
Wade’s never coached a pre-med student – the closest comparison he can come up with is an architecture student he coached while he was an assistant at Clemson. A creature of habit himself, what impresses Wade most about Mays’ ability to juggle school and basketball is the structure he implements in his daily routine.
Somehow, he’s equal parts gym rat and bookworm.
“Skylar’s phenomenal with how diligent he is, academically taking care of his business, taking care of his business on the court,” Wade says. “The way he structures his life and the discipline he lives with is something that’s very, very impressive.
“I wish I could clone him or find a few more like him. He’s awesome. He shows up, he works hard, doesn’t complain, and he’s a very, very good player. He handles his business off the floor. He gets the proper amount of rest every night. He eats what he’s supposed to eat. He’s great.”
Structure is necessary simply to survive – much less thrive in – a typical day in Mays’ world. His Mondays look like this: Weights at 7 a.m.; class from 8-11:30; a quick lunch; class from 12:30-1:30; an individual workout in the gym; team practice; lab from 7-10 p.m.; finally, in bed early enough for a full eight hours.
“I’m on my feet most of the day,” Mays understates.
Balancing books and basketball does come with a cost. Mays – an Academic All-American whose GPA remains over 4.0, despite the stringent workload – started as a pre-med biology major as a freshman, but because he wanted to be around sports when he acquires his Ph. D., he decided to switch his major to pre-med kinesiology.
That switch did cost him 32 hours of credits – essentially an entire year’s worth of classes. But a combination of high marks in high school and a year-round academic course load that comes with being a student-athlete meant Mays was already about a year ahead of schedule, so he’ll graduate on time, rather than a year early.
Or, in basketball parlance, no harm, no foul.
“I was going to be here regardless,” he says.
Changing majors comes with good news, too – especially for Mays’ teammates. His new path requires him to enroll in some preliminary kinesiology courses he’d not yet taken, so this semester, he’s sharing a classroom with first-year Tigers Darius Days, Ja’vonte Smart, and Marlon Taylor.
Mays’ credit-hour loss is their test prep gain. In between the workouts, labs, homework, and practices, Mays is making study guides for his teammates, too.
“I gotta look out for my guys,” Mays laughs.
Of course he does. It’s in his DNA, after all.