Taurian Fontenette

Taurian Fontenette died on Monday, 2 November 2026, at the age of 43. His sister, Tracie, announced the news on Facebook on Tuesday, 3 November: "As many of you may already know, last night we lost a huge part of our family, of our community. My heart is broken in a million pieces." She asked for grace as the family tried to "gain some understanding about what has happened." Local authorities did not have further details, and the cause and place of death have not been made public. Ballislife, DUNKMAN, Team Flight Brothers and thousands of fans paid tribute online. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.

Taurian J. Fontenette was born in 1983 and grew up in Hitchcock, Texas, a small Galveston County town about 40 miles southeast of Houston. He fell for basketball as a child. His father bought him a portable goal that could be set at seven and a half to eight feet, and Fontenette later told the story of trying a 360 on it so hard that he kept spinning. "My dad was like, 'What did you do? Try to do it again!'" he recalled. "And after he asked, I did a complete 720." Basketball Network reported that he was already spinning 720s on a lowered rim at about age 12.

He starred for the Hitchcock Bulldogs at Hitchcock High School and graduated in 2000, playing that year in the Texas High School Coaches Association All-Star Games. He said a friend first called him "The Air Up There" in his youth, and he insisted the nickname was his long before AND1 used it. He also maintained that he was performing the 360 between-the-legs dunk, later called the Axle-Rider, in his high school days.

After graduating from Hitchcock High School in 2000, Fontenette played college basketball at three schools. He started at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 2000 and 2001, then moved to Richland College in Dallas from 2001 to 2004. In his first season there, the team finished third at nationals, and he appeared in some scouting reports before a foot injury kept him out of a second season. He finished his college career at Paul Quinn College in 2004 and 2005. He later said Dallas felt like home because it was where he got serious about basketball.

Before streetball made him famous, Fontenette was working as a security guard at a chemical plant in Hitchcock. In 2005 he asked his boss for a day off, three weeks in advance, to attend the AND1 Mixtape Tour tryout in Houston. Picked to play against the AND1 team, he dazzled the crowd with his dunks and earned a spot on the tour roster. Teammate Hugh "Baby Shack" Jones was quoted as saying he had never seen anybody jump like that.

In the summer of 2006, during an AND1 Mixtape Tour game at Houston's Toyota Center, he spun two full rotations in mid-air and dunked in live play. ESPN's SportsCenter put the clip in its Top 10, SLAM magazine shared the footage, and it spread across the early internet. Because AND1 claimed naming rights to "Air Up There", he began going by "Mr. 720" and other names, including "Birdman", "The Human Pogo Stick", "Your Highness" and "Way Up There".

In 2007 he joined former AND1 general manager Lisa Fusco and several veteran players in breaking away to form the Ball4Real Streetball World Tour, buying a share in the new company. He told the Galveston County Daily News that the new tour was about real basketball rather than staged entertainment. In 2009 he signed with the Dallas Generals of the American Basketball Association, hoping to prove he could play the full game; the team folded in January 2010.

In February 2010 he won the first Sprite Slam Dunk Showdown, an amateur contest staged during NBA All-Star weekend in Dallas, with LeBron James among the judges. He went on to tour with the Ball Up streetball team, wearing number 11, and was remembered by the DUNKMAN league as one of the original Team Flight Brothers. He kept performing dunk shows and tour games well into the 2010s.

Fontenette remained rooted in Hitchcock throughout his career and often spoke of the support of his family and hometown. A 2006 Houston Chronicle profile, as later summarised, said he had worked security at a chemical plant to support his daughter. His son, Taurian Jr., became a standout senior wide receiver and sprinter at Hitchcock High School and was part of the 4x200 relay team that won a regional title in 2025. On social media he shared photos with his son under the hashtag #LikeFatherLikeSon. His sister Tracie described him as "a true gift, a one-of-a-kind soul" with "a heart so big that you never hesitated to go the extra mile for anyone who needed you."

Fontenette pushed back against the idea that streetball was only a show. "Lots of people are realizing it's not a gimmick, it's real basketball," he said. "You gotta bring your A-game, because if you don't, you're gonna get embarrassed." He preferred dunking in live games to staged exhibitions, and he consistently spoke of wanting to prove he was a complete player, not just a dunk specialist. On Instagram in 2021 he wrote: "Blessed the game and it will bless you back. Love of my life (Basketball) took me all around the world and gave me a legacy to be proud of."

Fontenette's 2006 in-game 720 remains one of the most replayed highlights of the AND1 era, and his signature Axle-Rider (a 360 between-the-legs dunk) was later popularised in NBA dunk contests by players such as Jason Richardson, Dennis Smith Jr. and Paul George. Many NBA players have said they were inspired by the dunks he did on tour. Team Flight Brothers founder Chuck Millan called him "arguably the greatest dunker to ever live" and "one of the godfathers of the professional dunk movement." In 2013 Julius Erving said he would like to see Air Up There enter the Hall of Fame and offered to help nominate him, calling him a contributor to the game.

Winner of the inaugural Sprite Slam Dunk Showdown at NBA All-Star weekend in Dallas (2010). His 2006 in-game 720 dunk featured in ESPN SportsCenter's Top 10. Texas High School Coaches Association All-Star Games selection (2000). Publicly endorsed for Hall of Fame recognition by Julius Erving (2013).

Fontenette appeared on ESPN's Streetball: The AND1 Mixtape Tour, and footage of his dunks has circulated widely on YouTube through channels such as Ballislife, Hoopmixtape and Dunkademics. He also appeared on Fox Sports' The Best Damn Sports Show Period, and SLAM magazine covered him in 2006 and again in its issue 170 feature in 2013.

Fontenette lost a dispute with AND1 over the name "Air Up There", which he said he had carried since high school, and toured for years as "Mr. 720" as a result. The exact rotation of his famous Houston dunk has also been debated: it is universally called the 720, but some observers, including Wikipedia's article, describe it as closer to a 540. In 2007, in his first Houston game with Ball4Real, he was ejected in the second half after an altercation with a local player following a hard foul.