Shortly after the basketball season ended a year ago, a reporter walked past Skyler Halford in the halls at Timpanogos High School as he was headed to the gym with a basketball in hand.
"I thought the basketball season was over?" he asked jokingly.
"It's just starting," was Halford's response.
You see, for Halford, basketball is a year-round endeavor to which his dedication knows no bounds.
"That has always been his mentality," said Timpanogos coach Clay Anderson. "He thinks he can always get better. Basketball is more than just a hobby with him."
The senior guard has turned the game into a way of life.
"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about basketball," Halford said. "You want to get as far ahead of your competition as you can. If you're not out there working one day, someone else is out there working harder."
Judging from the results, he has produced not only this season but throughout his outstanding high school career. Not many people have worked harder than him. Nine games into the season, Halford is second in 5A in scoring with 22 points per game. He is also one of his team leaders in rebounds, assists and steals.
Halford attributes his success to how hard he has worked, and those around him agree.
"When he's working for something, he goes all out," said BYU-bound Timpanogos baseball player and student body president Bret Lopez, who is a good friend of Halford's. "I wish I had as much work ethic as him. I've never seen anyone work as hard as he does."
Halford's hard work is one of the only explanations for his success. Although he is a good athlete, he fails the 'sight test' that college recruiters often refer to. It would be generous to list him at 6-foot-1, and he weighs only 160 pounds.
Just by looking at Halford, it's difficult to believe he could possibly be one of the top guards in the state, yet that's exactly what he is.
Coach Anderson explained that coaches from outside the region often come into games knowing his star player by name only and are surprised when they see him.
"They look at him and say, 'This is Halford?' But by the end of the game they're going, 'Wow,' " Anderson said. "The coach at Mountain Crest (where Halford went off for 24 second-half points) said, 'We knew he was pretty good', but by the end of the game he was saying, 'He's the best guard in the state and the best we've gone up against.' "
Halford just shrugs off his diminutive stature and points out other basketball players such as John Stockton, Muggsy Bogues and Earl Boykins who have been successful despite not being very big.
"I get told all the time that I'm not big enough," he said. "It is what it is. When you imagine somebody scoring 22 points a game, you think about a kid like (Pleasant Grove's) C.J. Wilcox. But I don't know, I'm a 6-foot guard, I work with what I can get. I'm not going to get any bigger any time soon."
Working with what he can get seems to be working just fine. Despite the fact that he's one of the state's top scorers and usually one of the smallest players on the court, Halford also puts his body on the line to get the job done, a trait that is often missing in elite players.
"The No. 1 thing that sticks out when you talk about Skyler is that he's the ultimate competitor; he just never stops," Anderson said.
Lopez added, "I feel like he makes up for his size with his desire and his will to succeed. He'll throw his body around all over the court. I'm amazed with what he's able to do. He always has cuts all over him after games."
Halford hopes that his competitive drive will help lead the T'Wolves to a top-four finish in the brutally tough Region 4 and into the playoffs for the first time in five years.
"We've never gone to the state playoffs," he said. "I still watch, and it's terrible to watch because you wish you were there. My biggest goal is to make it to the state playoffs and make a run."
When asked to describe himself as a player, Halford responded: "I like to consider myself a hard-nosed player; scrappy. But I also want to put up points and show my ability and skill. That's kind of what I want to be known as."
In other words, someone who can do it all, which is what he's done throughout his high school career. Not only does Halford do it all on the court, but he excels off of it as well.
Halford is an excellent student who is currently taking AP Calculus. He is part of the Timpanogos student government and is also in charge of the basketball team's service commitment to read to kids at a local school.
Service will likely be a continual theme for the rest of his life. After high school, Halford plans to serve an LDS mission. Afterward, he hopes to catch on with a Division I basketball program, although he may attend a junior college first. Ultimately, Halford hopes to become a basketball coach so that he can pass on his knowledge of the game to others.
"Once it's over, I think I want to stay in basketball and use my knowledge to help others," he said. "Basketball will always be a part of my life."
That is perhaps the least surprising thing about him, and he wouldn't want it any other way.
