Damian Heath Cantrell (born May 17, 1976) is an American former professional basketball player. High school career Cantrell attended Santa Clara High School, where he was a standout athlete: he was named Athlete of the Year in his senior year in 1994 and received All-State Division IV honors. Coached by Lou Cvijanovich, he played both the guard and forward positions in high school; during his junior year he was a reserve, but a growth spurt from 6 ft 1 in to 6 ft 4 in helped him improve his game, and he averaged 22.5 points and 8.4 rebounds in his last year at Santa Clara, showing remarkable rebounding skills and a good 3-point shot. Despite Cantrell's 37-point effort in the IV-A championship game, Santa Clara lost the 1994 title to Verbum Dei High School. College career Cantrell decided to attend Ventura College where he was a teammate of Rafer Alston and was coached by Phil Mathews. In his freshman year he averaged 9.0 points and 7.6 rebounds and was considered the best rebounder of the Ventura team. Ventura went 37-1 during Cantrell's first season and 34-2 in his second year, and in 1995 Ventura won the State championship. In 1996 Cantrell was named in the California All-State First Team. After his sophomore year Cantrell, along with four other Ventura teammates, decided to follow coach Mathews who was hired as a coach by San Francisco. In his first year at San Francisco he led the team in rebounding with 209 rebounds (7.2 average) and was third in the entire West Coast Conference behind Brad Millard and Bryan Hill for total rebounds and fourth for rebounds per game. In his senior year of college he played a total of 646 minutes and earned All-WCC honors, again leading the team in rebounding with a 9.7 average. He was forced to miss a part of the season due to mononucleosis He was named USF Team co-MVP with Hakeem Ward. His 213 rebounds were second in the entire WCC in the 1997–98 season, behind only Bakari Hendrix of Gonzaga. College statistics |- | align="left" | 1996–97 | align="left" | San Francisco | 29 || || || .584 || .600 || .586 || 7.2 || 1.1 || 0.9 || 0.3 || 6.6 |- | align="left" | 1997–98 | align="left" | San Francisco | 22 || || 29.4 || .519 || .190 || .574 || 9.7 ||