Flint Northwestern, 2000
2026 Greater Flint African American Sports Hall of Fame Inductee
Category: Basketball
Desmon Farmer’s athletic journey began at Flint Northwestern High School where he was dynamic on the hardwood. Farmer’s aggressiveness and ability to attack the rim helped make him a three-time All-Valley and All-City player during his career, and an All-State selection during his junior and senior years.
Farmer scored over 1,544 points throughout his four-year varsity career, all while also playing with fellow Hall of Famer Kelvin Torbert, and battling through a knee injury during his senior season. He was only the second player in Northwestern basketball history to have started on the varsity team for four seasons, and during his senior season he averaged 20.9 points scored per game.
Farmer’s achievements at Northwestern earned him a lot of national recognition and that’s how he gained the attention of the legendary basketball program at the University of Southern California. Farmer is one USC’s all-time best scorers with 1,606 points, which still ranks fifth on the Trojans’ all-time scoring list. In his freshman season, the Trojans won 24 games and reached the Elite Eight, beating Oklahoma State, Boston College and Kentucky, before falling to Duke in the Regional final. That same year, he was named to the Pac-10 Conference All-Freshman team.
Farmer was All-Conference in 2002, 2003, and 2004, and an honorable mention All-American selection in 2004. He averaged 13.3 points per game during his collegiate career, including a 19.4 scoring average as a senior, which is the 13th-best single-season scoring average in USC basketball history. After college, Farmer played professionally in Europe before stints in the NBA with the Seattle SuperSonics, and the San Antonio Spurs. For over 10 years, he played professionally for teams in the NBA D-League (now G-League) and for international teams. In the D-League, he played for Reno, Rio Grande Valley and Tulsa, becoming one of the league’s all-time leading scorers. While playing for Candores in the Colombian LBN League, he set the single-game scoring record with 50 points.
Farmer went on to spend many years working with professional and elite youth athletes to help advance their basketball skills. He was the founder and coach of the AAU Vegas Thunder team, which helped more than 20 young athletes earn NCAA scholarships. Farmer was also an owner and player for the Big3, a 3-on-3 professional league started by Ice Cube. In 2020, Farmer returned to the USC basketball program as an assistant coach.
Desmon Farmer, you are the true definition of being “Flint Strong!” You have made Flint proud, welcome to the GFAASHOF!
