CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. — The scene looks like it was lifted from the movie ‘Hoosiers.’

The concrete slab that serves as a basketball court is actually several segments that slope away from the rim.

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Black cows graze to the left behind the wooden fence. A large haystack is just beyond the adjustable goal. A barn stands in the distance to the right.

This is the basketball court on the farm in Montgomery County where the Byrd family has lived for 10 years, the place where one of the family dogs, Sandy, greets visitors not with a bark but a nuzzle.

This is the place where D.J. Byrd spent countless hours dribbling, shooting, straining as a youngster to dunk.

The 6-5 shooting guard became a local star, then a nationally ranked high school player while at North Montgomery and this fall he’ll head to Purdue to play for Matt Painter.

If you want to know how early Byrd picked up basketball, look at the photo near the television in the family living room. Byrd, a little more than a year old, is dunking on a mini-Michael Jordan hoop.

While he’s been all about basketball for as long as he can remember, he hasn’t beenonlyabout basketball.

A few feet to the left of the picture is an electric guitar.

Byrd taught himself to play starting in eighth grade, and now the kid can really shred.

Asked to sample something, he turns on the amp and nails such AC/DC standards as “Back in Black,” “Thunderstruck,” and “Shook Me All Night Long.”

Byrd’s parents, David and Mindy, were skeptical when their son announced he wanted a guitar and told him he had to prove he was serious. So Byrd bought an $80 acoustic model off Ebay. The first song he learned to play was Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man.”

“I started learning songs I liked and they got easier and I got better strumming,” Byrd said. “I started learning what chords were, and five years of that, I can play the guitar.”

Byrd’s current guitar was a present from his parents when he signed his letter-of-intent for his scholarship.

Byrd, who can mix in mellow material like Dave Matthews Band, got his affinity for heavy metal from his dad.

“I’ve always been an AC/DC fan,” David said.

“I wasn’t,” Mindy said. “But when I married him, I started liking it.”

Mindy has a video of David and D.J. sitting on a bed head banging.

For Byrd’s most recent birthday, his parents’ gift was quite apropos: All three went to an AC/DC concert in Conseco Fieldhouse.

Before the guitar, Byrd showed cattle until major AAU basketball events presented too much conflict. But a broken foot as a sixth grader meant he couldn’t play and he won Reserve Grand Champion Steer Overall for a short-horn steer.

“That was exciting for us and our family because there are some big cattle people who are really into it, and we just kind of did it as a side thing,” Byrd said. “And we should have gotten first, by the way.”

When he was only 8, his grandfather, Joe Wilson, allowed him a few turns driving the combine. Byrd baled hay, which “helped with my strength, but it hurt with all the cuts.”

All the while, he kept going back to the patch of concrete and the adjustable goal. He would raise it little by little each time he could dunk on it.

His first dunk on a 10-foot regulation rim came the summer after seventh grade in a warmup for a game in Carmel.

“I went up there and dunked it, and I was like, ‘Remember this day,’ " he said.

“He just looked at me with these big eyes that said, ‘Mom, did you see that?’ " Mindy recalled.

The day? July 27, 2004.

David Byrd, an operations manager for a guitar distribution center in Brownsburg, graduated in 1985 from Southmont High School, North Montgomery’s rival. Mindy graduated the same year from North Montgomery. David played two years at Marian College for John Grimes, still the coach there.

Through that time, David developed a belief he passed on to his son and two daughters, Sami, 16, and Kelsi, 15. In simple terms, if you’re not getting outworked, you’re doing it the right way.

“Some people are really athletic but don’t have a passion for the game and don’t work hard,” D.J. said. “Would you rather have a guy you can’t cooperate with and doesn’t care, or a guy that’s passionate about it and will help you win? I’ve always thought about it like that.”

The trip to the Byrd farm goes through several turns, the final one to a two-lane road with fields from either side.

Guys from out here — where hay bales sit behind basketball hoops — seldom become nationally ranked high school players headed to play for a school expected to open the season top 10 in the country.

“It still doesn’t seem real sometimes until we’ll be talking to coach Painter,” David said. "Then it’s, ‘Wow, we’re talking to Matt Painter because D.J.‘s going to play there.’ "