MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — Adrian High School’s Jordan Kelly has been fortunate enough to watch Stevie Elam grow up in Adrian and become the young man he is today.

“I had the pleasure of knowing Stevie from the time he was really young,” Kelly said. “He was a student at Lincoln Elementary in Adrian, where I was a teacher.”

Kelly had him in class in first grade, in fourth grade, and then again in seventh grade.

“I was lucky enough to get to watch Stevie ‘grow up’ in a sense,” Kelly said. “Even from the time at Lincoln Elementary, you could tell that he was going to be special.

“You could see the talent he had, and he always had either a football or a basketball in his hand wherever he went,” Kelly continued.

“On top of that, he was a leader among his classmates,” Kelly said. “He was someone that everyone wanted to follow and be like.”

When Elam stepped foot on the Adrian High School basketball court as a freshman in the fall of 2021, his world changed.

It was a change for the better.

“He was always the hardest worker, a great teammate and leader, and he was coachable,” Kelly said. “When you combine those things with the talent he had, you get a very special player.”

Elam graduated as Lenawee County’s and Adrian’s all-time leading scorer with 2,112 career points, but surprisingly, he was also the Maples’ all-time rebounder as a 6-foot-3 guard.

“Not only was he a phenomenal scorer, but he was a tenacious rebounder,” said Kelly, who coached Elam during his four-year career. “He became the school’s all-time leading rebounder last season, which is pretty impressive for a guard.”

Elam is the son of Grady and Amy Elam, both of whom were also athletes. Grady played football at Eastern Michigan University, while Amy ran track at Siena Heights University.

“He worked hard and earned it all from a very young age,” Kelly said. “I am just glad that I got to be a part of his story.”

Now, Elam is continuing his story at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“It’s been great, just learning the game from guys that have been here for multiple years,” Elam said of his UW-Milwaukee teammates.

“I’m just playing the game I love and getting better every day,” he added.

Since arriving in Milwaukee, Elam has had eight starts in 21 games with the Panthers. He scored a career-high 22 points against Horizon League opponent Detroit Mercy on Feb. 20, and he netted 21 points against Cleveland State in another Horizon League game on Feb. 1.

Despite missing six weeks of the season with a foot injury, Elam has flourished under Coach Bart Lundy and his staff at UW-Milwaukee.

He currently averages 9.6 points and 4.5 rebounds per game, shooting .342 (38-for-111) from 3-point range and .881 (37-of-42) from the freethrow line.

“First of all, he just provides good positional size, which we really need with all the injuries [we have had],” Lundy said of Elam. 

“His shooting stretches the floor for us and opens up the offensive side of the ball.”

The same traits that propelled Elam at Adrian High School attracted the attention of Lundy and associate coach Jose Winston, who recruited Elam to the Panther program.

“He has gotten progressively better defensively, and he’s absolutely amazing on the glass, “ Lundy said of Elam’s ability to get missed shots for the Panthers.

Elam is the type of player that teammates want to be around, and that’s what the Milwaukee program needs on the basketball court, Lundy said.

“It’s amazing,” Elam said of getting the chance to play Division I basketball. “It’s been a dream come true. I love it.”

(Note: Statistics in this article were current as of the press deadline for our March issue, which was in mid-February.)