Taurian Fontenette

Taurian Fontenette, known as Air Up There, was a 6'2" streetball dunker from Hitchcock, Texas, born in 1983. Because AND1 claimed naming rights to Air Up There, he also competed as Mr. 720, Birdman, The Human Pogo Stick and Way Up There.

He played at three colleges in five years. He went to UTEP in 2000 on a scholarship, then serious injuries in his sophomore season cost him it. He landed at Richland Junior College from 2001 to 2004, where he was named freshman of the year and first team all-defense, and finished at Paul Quinn College in Dallas in 2004 and 2005. None of that is the reason anyone knows his name.

In 2006, during an AND1 Mixtape Tour game in Houston, he got out alone on a fast break and spun twice in the air before finishing. It was the first 720 ever landed, and it happened in a live game rather than a contest, off a single fast break with one attempt available. SportsCenter ran it, the clip spread across the early internet, and it is still the dunk his name is attached to nearly twenty years later.

His other signature was quieter and arguably harder. The axle-rider, a 360 between-the-legs, he said he was doing in high school before anyone else, and what set him apart was that he threw it in live games and on breakaways rather than saving it for a contest with unlimited attempts. Landing a 360 between-the-legs in traffic, once, with no reset, is a different skill from landing it in a gym.

He toured with the AND1 Mixtape Tour and the Ball4Real Tour through the era when streetball was on national television, and won the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest in 2010. In 2009 he signed with the Dallas Generals of the American Basketball Association, though the franchise folded in January 2010.

Taurian passed away on November 2, 2026, at age 43. Most people know him for the 720, but his place in basketball goes well beyond that dunk. He earned three all-state selections in high school, played college basketball, and became a star of the AND1 Mixtape Tour, where he brought his game to streetball crowds across the country. He inspired a generation of professional dunkers, and his example helped inspire the work we do at Dunkademics.

His family and friends have shared what the highlights cannot show: a loving father, a loyal friend and a generous man whose energy stayed with people. The 720 will always be part of basketball history, but the people he influenced and the people who loved him are just as much a part of his legacy.