X AV I E R N AT I O N M A G A Z I N E
XavierNation XavierN Xavier N T HE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE FOR XAVIER ATHLETICS THE
MYLES TO GO FOR HISTORY SWEET 16 PUTS XAVIER IN ELITE COMPANY, BUT MUSKETEERS’ GOAL REMAINS THE FINAL FOUR
REDSHIRT DIARIES
HOW MAKINDÉ LONDON HANDLED SITTING OUT
ON THE ROAD XavierNationMagazine.com | S P R I N G 2 0 1 5
TAKE A TRIP TO MILWAUKEE WITH THE MUSKETEERS
SOCCER SUCCESS
ANDY FLEMING IS BUILDING XAVIER’S NATIONAL PROFILE
Contents X AV I E R N AT I O N
SPRING 2015
22 | 2014-2015 SEASON REVIEW Xavier’s men’s and women’s basketball teams advanced to postseason play, including the men’s Sweet 16 appearance. But be assured neither program is satisfied.
WARMUP
12 Around NYC
Experiencing the BIG EAST Tournament means much more than attending games.
14 Going Viral
Xavier is producing more and more entertaining videos to keep you connected.
16 Off the Court
28 | ANATOMY OF A ROAD TRIP Join reporter Rory Glynn and photographer Greg Rust as they take a trip to Milwaukee with the Musketeers, including in planes, buses, hotels and restaurants.
34 | MAKING THE CALL Xavier Nation goes behind-the-scenes with the three officials for the Musketeers’ home game against Creighton. What do they discuss in their tiny locker room in Cintas Center?
XU’s Fortune 15 program helps players with personal development and branding.
18 Academic Tradition Chris Barbour carries on Sister Rose Ann’s blueprint with his own style.
19 Muscle Man
Matt Jennings builds a strong program with dedication, focus, strength, and some out-of-the-box thinking.
20 What is an
Endowed Coach?
40 | DIARY OF A REDSHIRT How did freshman Makindé London handle sitting out his freshman season? As expected, there were ups and downs. “It was tough at first to sit there and put my ego aside,” he says.
44 | MORE THAN A GAME Coach Andy Fleming is raising Xavier’s national profile in men’s soccer – and along the way he is teaching some very valuable life lessons.
50 | CINTAS CENTER You have already started to see some improvements in the on-campus arena, but there are even more big plans ahead that will excite Xavier fans.
Chris Mack’s new job title begs some questions. We have the answers.
COOL DOWN
58 Compliance 101
One of Caitlin Carducci’s roles is to educate Xavier boosters, staff, coaches and student-athletes.
60 Chasing
Another Ring Former Xavier star James Posey used to guard LeBron James. Now he’s helping coach him.
62 Where Are
They Now? Catching up with former Musketeers Josh Duncan and Nikki Drew.
64 Recap
A look at all 18 Musketeer teams.
54 | THE CLASS THAT MATTERS This Bob Staak recruiting class boosted the XU program. Xavier Nation also talks to Bill Daily, a visionary who pushed for a strong men’s basketball program.
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68 Playing Through
XU grad Jason Kokrak takes a few minutes from his PGA Tour schedule to answer some questions from Xavier Nation magazine.
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XavierNation T H E O F F I C I A L M AG A Z I N E FO R X AV I E R AT H L E T I C S
XAVIER UNIVERSITY TEAM PHYSICIANS SINCE 1999
PUBLISHED & PRODUCED BY Cincinnati Magazine (Ivy Bayer, Publisher) Vehr Communications (Nick Vehr, President) Xavier University (Greg Christopher, Athletic Director)
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Perry (Vehr Communications)
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Dan Guttridge (Vehr Communications) Kara Renee Hagerman (Cincinnati Magazine) Amanda Boyd Walters (Cincinnati Magazine)
Xavier University Team Physicians Since 1999
Robert R. Burger, M.D.
REPORTERS Rory Glynn, Dan Guttridge, Bob Jonason, Dave Malaska, Tabari McCoy, Rodney McKissic, Michael Perry, Bill Thompson, Sue Vonderhaar
PHOTOGRAPHERS Doug Cochran, Greg Rust (Xavier University), Bob Stevens (Xavier University)
SPECIAL THANKS Brendan Bergen (Xavier University), Tom Eiser (Xavier University), Brian Hicks (Xavier University), Greg Lautzenheiser (Xavier University), Mario Mercurio (Xavier University), Hayley Schletker (Xavier University)
MARKETING DIRECTOR Chris Ohmer (Cincinnati Magazine)
Henry A. Stiene, M.D.
For more information, scan this QR code with your smart phone.
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ART DIRECTOR Danielle Johnson (Cincinnati Magazine)
SENIOR ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES Maggie Wint Goecke, Matt Reis (Cincinnati Magazine)
ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES Laura Bowling, Christie Goetz, Lisa Lawrence, Jenny Swain, Tammy Vilaboy (Cincinnati Magazine)
ADVERTISING & MARKETING DESIGNER Jen Kawanari (Cincinnati Magazine)
ADVERTISING DESIGNER Emily Nevius (Cincinnati Magazine)
ART & PRODUCTION MANAGER Julie Whitaker (Cincinnati Magazine)
OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Missy Beiting (Cincinnati Magazine)
BUSINESS COORDINATOR Erica Birkle (Cincinnati Magazine)
XAVIER NATION MAGAZINE 700 Walnut St., Suite 450, Cincinnati, OH 45202 513.381.8347 • www.XavierNationMagazine.com
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FROM THE EDITOR
WELCOME
CONTRIBUTORS
RORY GLYNN Former Xavier beat reporter and former assistant sports editor of The Cincinnati Enquirer. Also worked at Cleveland Plain Dealer and Atlanta Journal Constitution.
DAN GUTTRIDGE Former college and professional baseball player with Florence Freedom. Account executive at Vehr Communications and contributing editor to Xavier Nation magazine. @dan_guttridge
BOB JONASON Former general manager and digital operations director at Indianapolis Star and former deputy news editor/ sports at The Philadelphia Inquirer. UC journalism professor. @BobJonason
DAVE MALASKA
P H OT O G R A P H C O U R T E S Y V E H R C O M M U N I C AT I O N S ; C OV E R P H O T O G R A P H B Y K E V I N C . C OX /G E T T Y I M AG E S
Former Cincinnati Post staffer and a freelancer who has covered high school, college, and professional sports for more than 20 years. @dmalaska
TABARI McCOY Former CinWeekly arts, entertainment, and news reporter. Professional stand-up comedian. Also worked at Community Press papers and was a Bengals intern. @tabarimccoy
RODNEY McKISSIC Former Xavier beat reporter for The Cincinnati Post and former sports reporter for the Buffalo News and The News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington. @rodneymckissic
Behind the Scenes
W
WHEN WE FIRST STARTED PLANNING XAVIER NATION MAGAZINE AND TALKING about what it could be, there was lots of discussion that involved phrases like “behind the scenes,” “inside,” and “in-depth.” Truthfully, you never know who’s going to agree to what. Letting people behind the curtain, so to speak, can be a distraction and also requires a level of trust. Well, this second issue of the publication, which launched in November 2014, takes you places readers are not typically allowed to go, such as: • On a road trip: Xavier Nation reporter Rory Glynn and photographer Greg Rust accompanied the team to an away game against Marquette in Milwaukee. They went on the buses and planes with the players and coaches, hung out in the hotel, and attended team meals. Check out how the student managers set up a court in one of the ballrooms. • Into the officials’ locker room: We got special permission from the BIG EAST Conference to “cover” a game from the perspective of the referees. Rust and I met them in their Cintas Center locker room hours before Xavier played Creighton, followed them out to the court, and pretty much shadowed the officials throughout and after the game (well, we weren’t on the floor when the game was being played, but we were mighty close). • Into the mind of redshirt freshman Makindé London: When you are counting on playing college basketball as a freshman, it’s not easy to accept a coach’s recommendation that you redshirt and sit out a season. London followed the advice of Coach Chris Mack and shared his ups and downs with Glynn. There’s all that and more. We appreciate the great feedback we received after the first issue. Please enjoy this one, too, and don’t hesitate to send us feedback or story ideas at musketeers@xaviernationmagazine.com.
Sincerely,
MICHAEL PERRY Former Xavier beat reporter and former sports editor of The Cincinnati Enquirer. Author and publisher of Xavier Tales: Great Stories from Musketeers Basketball (2008). @mdperry14
Michael Perry, Editor-in-Chief musketeers@xaviernationmagazine.com
BILL THOMPSON Longtime editor and reporter at The Cincinnati Enquirer, including in the sports department.
SUE VONDERHAAR Former deputy sports editor, night news editor, and copy desk chief at The Cincinnati Enquirer.
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THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN // Front row (from left),
P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
athletic director Jeff Fogelson, Jamal Walker, head coach Pete Gillen. Back row (from left), Michael Davenport, Dwayne Wilson, Bob Koester, Jim Renforth, Mark Poynter, Eric Knop, student manager Jim Botti, student trainer Gerry Branka, athletic trainer James Ross, assistant coach Conte Stamas. PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB STEVENS
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IT’S 1990 ALL OVER P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
XAVIER WELCOMED BACK ITS 1989-1990 MEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM 25 YEARS AFTER ITS FIRST EVER SWEET 16 APPEARANCE FOLLOWING AN UPSET OVER POWERHOUSE GEORGETOWN IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT. THE REUNION TOOK PLACE AT XU’S JAN. 24, 2015, GAME AGAINST DEPAUL.
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NO. 1 IN THE CITY
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
XAVIER DEFEATED THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI 59-57 IN THE CROSSTOWN SHOOTOUT ON FEB. 18 AT THE BEARCATS’ FIFTH THIRD ARENA. TREVON BLUIETT MADE TWO FREE THROWS WITH 11 SECONDS LEFT TO PUT THE MUSKETEERS AHEAD 58-57.
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WELCOME HOME // Xavier P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
students are all fired up as they greet the Musketeers’ bus when the team returns from its victory over Cincinnati. PHOTOGRAPH BY GREG RUST
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ALL FOR ONE // Xavier finished
P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
with 904 points, well ahead of second-place Georgetown with 763, in the BIG EAST Swimming and Diving Championships in Ithaca, N.Y. Twelve Xavier men’s swimmers were named to the all-conference team after the Musketeers won the BIG EAST title (10 women were all league, too). PHOTOGRAPH BY HAYLEY SCHLETKER
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WE ARE CHAMPS AGAIN P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
THE XAVIER MEN’S SWIMMING TEAM WON ITS SECOND CONSECUTIVE BIG EAST CONFERENCE TITLE. NICK FOSTER WAS NAMED MOST OUTSTANDING SWIMMER, AND TEAMMATE ARMANDO MOSS WAS ALLCONFERENCE IN SEVEN EVENTS. XU’S BRENT MACDONALD WAS MEN’S CO-COACH OF THE YEAR.
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Warmup
P H OT O G R A P H B Y G R E G R U S T
BIG EAST IN NYC PG. 12
X GOES VIRAL PG. 14
BUILDING A BRAND PG. 16
//
JUST TO GET YOU STARTED
ACADEMICS & STRENGTH PG. 18
and MORE
NATIONAL EXPOSURE // ESPN anchor Stan Verrett interviews Xavier coach Chris Mack at the ESPN studio in Los Angeles the night before the Musketeers were set to face Arizona in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
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WARMUP
AROUND NYC
THE BIG EAST IN THE BIG APPLE
1 2
A TRIP TO THE CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP MEANS MORE THAN JUST BASKETBALL.
4
1 THE RIGHT NOTE: The Xavier cheerleaders and pep band welcome fans to Madison Square Garden. 2 LET’S GO X: The Xavier cheerleaders and pep band perform on the Madison Square Garden plaza as a part of the BIG EAST Tournament pep rally.
5 6
3 CURTAIN CALL: The energy and glow of Times Square and the theater district are just blocks from Madison Square Garden. 4 SIGN OF THE TIMES: One of the many Xavier fans at the Today Show highlights her support for the Musketeers. 5 ALL FOR ONE: Xavier administrators visit a Boys and Girls Club on the lower east side of Manhattan to participate in activities and develop new Musketeer fans.
3
6 TRUE COLORS: Madison Square Garden is illuminated with the colors of teams from the BIG EAST.
9 FIGHT CLUB: The Musketeer and the Butler Bulldog spar on the Madison Square Garden plaza during the BIG EAST Tournament pep rally. 10 THE BIG ONE: New York City welcomes the BIG EAST Tournament by illuminating the Empire State Building with the BIG EAST colors.
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
8 THE BIG ONE: The “Thirsty Fan,” which is directly across the street from Madison Square Garden, is the official restaurant and bar for Xavier fans while at the BIG EAST Tournament.
P H OT O G R A P H S B Y B O B S T E V E N S
7 RISE AND SHINE: Xavier fans bring lots of energy and support for X to the Today Show.
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
10
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WARMUP
TECHNOLOGY
GOING VIRAL
CHECK OUT THE XAVIER NATION PLAYLIST
Find more than 100 videos at Facebook.com/XavierMusketeers/videos 1
THIS IS XAVIER ATHLETICS—2014 HYPE VIDEO // Featuring clips of every team that calls Xavier home, this sizzle reel showcases the qualities Musketeer fans have come to know from their studentathletes: teamwork, dedication, determination, sportsmanship…and of course, exciting, edge-of-your-seat plays.
2
MEETING MUSKETEERS WITH MATT STAINBROOK: J.P. MACURA // Stainbrook interviews the freshman from Minnesota, who has plenty of advice on how to survive snowy winter weather. Grab your boots!
XAVIER ATHLETICS TAKES OVER THE WEB, ONE VIDEO AT A TIME.
T BY TABARI MCCOY
THE PLAN IS SIMPLE: TELL XAVIER’S STORY,
tell it as efficiently as possible, and seize the opportunity to do so whenever possible, all while sticking to the proven mantra of quality over quantity. Making sure the stories are fun and engaging doesn’t hurt, either. Xavier Athletics is all over the Internet through outlets such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Vine. There has been an increased emphasis on videos over the past year, featuring Musketeers from every program. “The focus this year was to create as much quality content as possible, but with a more strategic approach to distribution,” says Tom Eiser, associate athletic director for communications. “Brendan Bergen (athletics communications coordinator) was brought on board last year with a goal of improving creative content and distribution across all of our social media. It’s a team effort with athletic communications, athletic marketing, and other key groups on campus. Our numbers are up significantly across the board, especially in video distribution through platforms such as Facebook and Vine.” Bergen says the popular videos enable fans to engage with their favorite student-athletes watching clips, such as “Meeting Musketeers with Matt Stainbrook,” which features the senior men’s basketball center humorously interviewing teammates. “We get a lot of support on campus, especially from campus video coordinator Cliff Jenkins,” Eiser says. “He was a tremendous resource to maximizing our coverage and content on the basketball trip to Brazil in August and the #LayupForLauren video, just to name a few examples. Like we do with the magazine, we are trying to provide video content and behind-the-scenes material for our fans that is not available elsewhere.”
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X–WORTHY: AUDREY RAMOS // This is part of the “X-Worthy” series, which highlights student-athletes with remarkable stories. A walk-on when she came to Xavier as a freshman in 2011, Ramos, an Indiana native, becomes not only a scholarship athlete but also team captain in her senior season. This video tells about the athlete track & field coach Ryan Orner calls his “Little Devil” because of her “feisty, fiery personality.”
4
XAVIER MEN’S BASKETBALL CHRISTMAS SKIT // Stainbrook plays Santa Claus and finds out his teammates’ wishes for the holiday season. Just wait until you hear what Stainbrook’s brother Tim asks for at the end of the video.
5
XAVIER MEN’S BASKETBALL #LAYUPFORLAUREN // The mostwatched video uploaded by XU Athletics, this features Chris Mack and the men’s basketball team taking a layup challenge— after spinning around and becoming significantly dizzy—to raise funds for The Cure Starts Now on behalf of Lauren Hill, the Mount St. Joseph women’s basketball player who battled a rare and inoperable form of brain cancer; she played her first college game at Cintas Center on November 2, 2014. She passed away on April 10, 2015.
FOLLOW XAVIER ATHLETICS
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/XavierMusketeers YOUTUBE: youtube.com/user/xaviermusketeers TWITTER: twitter.com/XUAthletics;
twitter.com/XavierGameday
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/XUAthletics VINE: https://vine.co/XUAthletics OFFICIAL WEBSITE: goxavier.com SEARCH HASHTAG: #LetsGoX
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WARMUP
OFF THE COURT
COMMUNITY ACTION
ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT
REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE
FAN INTERACTION EDUCATION
BUILDING YOUR BRAND WITH ITS FORTUNE 15 SERIES, XAVIER HELPS PLAYERS WITH PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND BRANDING. BY MICHAEL PERRY
Y
“YOUR BRAND IS WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT YOU WHEN YOU’RE NOT IN THE ROOM.” That quote, from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is part of a presentation Xavier men’s basketball coach Chris Mack gave to his team last July shortly after six new players arrived on campus. Mack was introducing a new program initiated by the men’s basketball program called the Fortune 15 Series—Building and Protecting Your Personal Brand. Components include character development, media training, classroom etiquette, social media training, career development, alumni engagement, community service, and fan interaction.
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“I think it’s natural for players to think that we’re taking more of their time, giving them even more to worry about,” Mack says. “What we’re trying to do is help them develop as people, help them learn how to take advantage of all these programs, help them build great reputations and personal brands so they are better positioned for success after college.” The program’s name combines the branding of Fortune 500 companies and the typical number of players Xavier has on the roster, including walk-ons (15). Mack talks to his team about the reputation of Fortune 500 companies and their relentless pursuit of success. He wants players to understand that they will be evaluated by the masses each and every day based on their performance in
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the classroom, their behavior on and off campus, how they treat others, how they project themselves in the media and on social media, whose company they keep, and how they interact with the Xavier— and Cincinnati—community, including fans, faculty, and fellow students. Many players, some of whom came to Xavier with high profiles, already have a personal brand of some sort. And that will only grow over time with the exposure they receive as Division I studentathletes on a successful team in the BIG EAST Conference. David West, the Division I National Player of the Year in 2003, may not have been thinking that he was building a personal brand during his four years at Xavier, but he surely was. West was respectful to coaches, staff, and media from the minute he stepped on campus. He was as friendly and fun off the court as he was intense and competitive on it. His leadership and professionalism were certainly factors in becoming a first-round NBA draft pick, an NBA All-Star, and an acknowledged leader in the locker room of all his NBA teams. In July 2013, NBA legend and Indiana Pacers General Manager Larry Bird said to an Indianapolis reporter: “I told David, over a year ago, at the end of the season, he’s done more for this franchise than he can ever imagine. Coming in here and establishing himself as a great player, not only on the court but in the locker room, and in the city doing special things … You just don’t see it very often in this league. There’s special players who come through who are great players, but they don’t give their heart and soul on the court or in the locker room to make other players better. We’re very much appreciative of that.” It’s hard to have a better personal brand than that. West knew what he stood for when he arrived at Xavier and blossomed as a person and a leader throughout his four years as a Musketeer. “So many players— college and pro—help or hurt themselves all the time because of their positive or negative be-
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havior, their social media interactions, and their community personas,” Mack says. “We want our guys to make great choices and to understand they have an incredible opportunity to not just play Division I basketball at a high level and get a tremendous education, but to position themselves for long-term success in basketball or in business.” Xavier’s student-athletes have always been involved in community service projects. Mack believes this all-inclusive program is an improved and more comprehensive approach to developing Xavier players as people. “We had 31 scholarship offers,” says Paul Macura, whose son J.P. was a freshman this past season. “Everyone always wanted to talk about basketball and his development. Sure, we wanted him to play basketball and excel, but we wanted him to grow to be a good character person and a good leader. “You’re talking 18 years of what we’ve built [as parents] and you’re handing it over to a university. You entrust them. Xavier has had a very strong record both on and off the court. There is a pretty good formula there. This was a big part of our expectations. A lot of schools say they do it and don’t follow through. This is exactly what I expected.” Last summer, Mack sent a letter to the families of each player. In it, he talked about his staff as great coaches, individual instructors, recruiters, and scouts. “Beyond all of that, they play a role better than all of those combined—they are LEADERS OF MEN,” he wrote. “We view our responsibility to help all of our guys become the best person they can be as the most important role we play.” “I believe that with all my heart,” Mack says. “I want to win games badly. I think people know that I am as competitive as can be. I also know that families are trusting us with their children and believing that they will leave Xavier better than when they arrived—as players and people. That’s a responsibility we take very seriously.”
“WE WANT OUR GUYS TO MAKE GREAT CHOICES AND TO UNDERSTAND THEY HAVE AN INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY TO NOT JUST PLAY DIVISION I BASKETBALL AT A HIGH LEVEL AND GET A TREMENDOUS EDUCATION, BUT TO POSITION THEMSELVES FOR LONG-TERM SUCCESS IN BASKETBALL OR IN BUSINESS.”
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BEHIND THE BENCH
“He’s helped me a lot,” freshman guard Trevon Bluiett says of Chris Barbour. “We have academic meetings once a week. It’s kind of a time for us to organize the week and figure out what needs to be done. Without that, I don’t think I’d be doing as well I am.”
ACADEMIC TRADITION PLAYER RELATIONSHIPS ARE KEY TO CHRIS BARBOUR’S SUCCESS BY RORY GLYNN
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WHEN CHRIS BARBOUR, XAVIER’S ACADEMIC ADVISOR FOR MEN’S BASKETBALL, was a young student-athlete himself, he once neglected a household chore and paid a hefty price. After failing to wash the dishes at his family’s Covington home, he was told by his father, Willie, a Baptist minister and former military man, he wouldn’t be playing football that fall. “Everything had to be in order for you to be able to do anything: Take care of the home, take care of school, and then everything else we’ll talk about,” says Barbour, who retells the story without bitterness. “It was a hard lesson to learn at the time, but one that affected me moving forward. I impart some of that to the guys now. Not using the same method, obviously, but I try to convey some of the same messages.” Barbour is in his fourth year working with the men’s basketball program in the role Sister Rose Ann Fleming made famous. It’s not always easy to follow the path of a Hall of Famer who’s been immortalized with a book and a bobblehead; her gold standard includes a streak of graduating every men’s basketball player who reached his senior year at Xavier. But Barbour, promoted in March to the new title of assistant director of student-athlete academic support services, succeeds by continuing the culture of accountability while bringing his own talents to the study table. “The way Chris goes about bettering our players, teaching them what it means to be successful here at Xavier, is something he takes great pride in,” men’s basketball coach Chris Mack says. Barbour is 39 but looks like he could be a player’s big brother; they call him C.B. He’s a familiar face on campus—he holds both undergraduate (organizational communications) and
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master’s degree (sport administration) from X—and often knows players’ professors because he had them, too. His canon of inspirational quotes (a jar of them rests on his desk in the Conaton Learning Center) includes nuggets that range from Jesus to Jay-Z. “He is able to relate to the players, and he’s also a very detail-oriented person,” Sister Rose Ann says. “He can look at their syllabi and chart out in great detail exactly what needs to be done, which is important for an adviser.” Barbour, who interned for Sister Rose Ann, now works with Angela Wyss, director of student-athlete academic support. He meets weekly with each player (and an assistant coach, ensuring nothing is lost in translation). He coordinates study tables, at home and on the road. At home, study tables are 7 to 9 p.m. five nights a week, with a monitor; players with GPAs below 3.0 must attend, though all are welcome. On road trips, it’s sometimes more organic. When Xavier traveled to Providence, he held a session in his hotel room, with one player at the desk, one in a chair, and a third atop a bed. “It has a family feel,” Barbour says. “They know we’re all in it together.” That includes Barbour. While at Providence, he took time to meet and exchange ideas with PC’s academic adviser and discovered she displayed A and B work by student-athletes on a corkboard in her office. “I just ordered my corkboard today,” he says. As a two-time Xavier graduate, Barbour is in a unique position to spread the school’s message to both current studentathletes and recruits. “One thing I tell recruits is, a lot of colleges can hand you a degree,” he says. “But when you put some sweat equity into it, when it means something to you, you don’t mind putting that degree up on the wall and bragging a little about it. “Here at Xavier, you’re getting a student-athlete, and not an athletic student. We’re definitely putting the student first.” Says Mack: “He’s very dedicated to Xavier. I wouldn’t trade him for the world.”
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y G R E G R U S T
WARMUP
BEHIND THE BENCH
“In our profession, it’s got to be all about the kids,” says Xavier Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Matt Jennings. “Along the way, you develop some really close relationships. You put in the time with them, and show them you’ve invested in them, and they really do appreciate it.”
MUSCLE MAN BUILDING A STRONG PROGRAM REQUIRES DEDICATION, FOCUS, STRENGTH, AND SOME OUT-OF-THE-BOX THINKING. BY DAVE MALASKA
I P H OT O G R A P H B Y G R E G R U S T
IT’S WEDNESDAY OF SPRING BREAK WEEK. MATT STAINBROOK AND SEAN O’MARA shuffle into the Musketeer weight room. Just off the weight room’s main floor, Matt Jennings, the head strength and conditioning coach, sips coffee, but his eyes catch the duo outside. About the time the fi rst few notes of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” begin playing from the overhead speakers, Jennings makes a bee-line to his charges. “How’s spring break?” Jennings, a former University of North Carolina football lineman asks, without waiting for much of an answer. “Well, time to go to work!” Five minutes later, Jennings is back in his office. Stainbrook and O’Mara are outside sweating and talking animatedly as they work out, energized by a shot of Jennings-induced adrenaline. “Oh, he’s a high-energy guy, no doubt about it,” Stainbrook says later. “He’s fun to talk to and hang around with. At the same time he knows how to light a fi re under your ass. When you’re in the weight room, it’s all business. He fi nds that balance,” adds the senior, one of Jennings’ top projects—Stainbrook dropped 50 pounds since coming to Xavier, dramatically improving his pro prospects. Balance. That’s the key. Overseeing a staff of three, he’s been in charge of all of the Musketeers’ strength and training programs since 2009. The Xavier way under Jennings includes individually tailored workouts for each athlete (yes, they work out year-round), individual motivation, and a few other wrinkles. Jennings and his assistants ghost each team they’re assigned to, a constant presence at
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WARMUP
practices, games, road trips, and other team meetings. It’s time spent forming relationships with every player. “I have to figure out what motivates a Matt Stainbrook, or a Sean O’Mara. What drives Dee Davis, what buttons you need to push for a Jalen Reynolds,” he says. “What works for one may not work for another. It often doesn’t. But you put in the time and you figure out what does.” Sometimes, part of the job is knowing when to get really unconventional. Like boxing. Or yoga. For the past few years, Xavier has worked with Mason-based professional training firm Ignition APG, bringing clients like Luke Kuechly, the NFL’s reigning defensive player of the year, to work out with Musketeer student-athletes. The firm helps Jennings set up workouts to prepare prospective pro athletes for the tests they’d see in NFL and NBA combines. Lately, they also helped Jennings and the Musketeers basketball teams train the way boxers do. “We did a little boxing over the summer with Ben Creamer, coach of Chris Pearson, a boxer out of Dayton who fights under the Mayweather team. Not that we’re getting anyone ready to fight or anything, but it helps with hand-eye coordination, stamina, and balance,” says Jennings. “The team really got into it.” Then there’s yoga. “Man, that’s really tough,” says Stainbrook. “I never thought I’d be doing yoga. It’s a really great body-mind thing, though.” The unconventional choices bring in different expertise, according to Jennings, who freely admits he doesn’t have all the answers. He’s more than willing to tap into the experience of a boxing trainer or a yogi, though. “What it tells our athletes is that Xavier will leave no stone unturned when it comes to helping them be the best they can be. If we don’t have the answer, we have all sorts of support that we can call upon to get the right answer,” he says.
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WARMUP
BEHIND THE BENCH
WHAT IS AN ENDOWED COACH? YOU HAVE QUESTIONS. WE HAVE THE ANSWERS.
all kinds of Xavier clubs and initiatives. The Thomas E. Sedler Award, which honors a male and female senior studentathlete for hard work and enthusiasm, is named after him. In 2008, he was honored with Xavier’s Founders’ Day Award.
BY SUE VONDERHAAR
M
Q: So what’s in this for the Sedlers? Greater access? More influence? To
MEN’S BASKETBALL COACH CHRIS MACK HAS A NEW JOB TITLE. AND IT’S A DOOZY. Thanks to a generous donation from longtime Xavier supporters Tom and Genny Sedler, the title of men’s head basketball coach has been renamed the Sedler Family Men’s Head Basketball Coach. It is the first endowed coaching position at Xavier. All of which, we are sure, raises a few questions for Musketeer fans. Let us try to help. Q: What exactly is a coaching endowment? It’s a hefty donation used to help pay a coach’s
salary in perpetuity. The amount of the Sedlers’ donation isn’t public, but it is the largest gift ever bestowed on XU’s men’s basketball program. From now on, says Xavier Athletic Director Greg Christopher, money that had been used to pay the men’s head basketball coach salary can be funneled into other areas of need, such as the recruiting budget. Moreover, he says, the extra money “will make sure we have competitive salaries for our assistant coaches.”
the average outsider, Christopher says, “a gift like this may look like the Sedlers have more influence than the average fan. But anyone who knows the Sedlers knows this was done because they love Xavier and they love Xavier basketball.” After all, he says, Tom Sedler already makes brownies for the team after every game. Sedler himself says the donation isn’t just about the game, though. Noting the influence the head coach has on molding young men to be champions and productive Xavier graduates, he says it’s about retaining the best leadership and “supporting the Xavier way.”
Q: How does such an endowment work? The donation is invested by the
university, and the annual returns are used for the endowment’s stated purpose—in this case a coach’s salary. Many universities, including Xavier, rely on endowment funds to help pay for scholarships, academic programs, and faculty positions. Xavier’s endowment fund is valued at more than $152.6 million. Harvard’s, at more than $30 billion, is the country’s largest. Q: What safeguards are built in to ensure the fund won’t shrink if we’re hit with another bad recession? Most endowments have spending guidelines
that govern how much of each year’s investment income can be spent. The spending policy for the Sedler endowment, Christopher says, is 4.5 percent. Any surplus gains will be reinvested into the fund to grow the principal and weather any economic slumps.
endowments are a fast-growing trend, and not just for head coaches. The practice started in the Ivy League and has spread to many schools across the country, including Stanford, Boston College, Duke, Notre Dame, and Michigan. Q: Who are the Sedlers and what is their connection to Xavier? The Sedlers
bleed Xavier blue, through and through. Tom Sedler, president and CEO of Home City Ice, is a 1958 Xavier graduate, and the Sedlers’ four sons—Tommy, Ted, Tim, and Terry—also graduated from Xavier. In 2010, the family helped launch XU’s Sedler Family Center for Experiential Learning in Business, and Tom Sedler, a member of the President’s Advisory Council, has been active in
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GENEROUS GIFT: Tom and Genny Sedler are long-time Xavier supporters.
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y B O B S T E V E N S
Q: Do other universities have endowments just for coaches? Coaching
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W E I V E R N “YOU ALWAYS WANT MORE.” THAT’S BRIAN NEAL TALKING ABOUT HIS XAVIER WOMEN’S TEAM, WHICH HAD ITS FIRST WINNING SEASON SINCE 2011. AND THE SAME COULD BE SAID FOR THE MEN, WHO ADVANCED TO THE SWEET 16 OF THE NCAA TOURNAMENT BUT YEARN TO GO FURTHER. XavierNationMagazine.com
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2014-2015 SEASON REVIEW
A
// BY RORY GLYNN
LL FOUR SCHOOLS IN THE 2015 FINAL FOUR HAD BEEN TO THE SWEET 16 at least five times since 2008. Only five other programs could say the same thing, and among them was Xavier. That puts them in the company of some true basketball bluebloods—Duke, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Kentucky, Arizona, Louisville, Kansas, and North Carolina. Those schools also have combined for 92 Final Four appearances. Could the Musketeers eventually take that next step? “If we all stay focused on that one goal and we all actually work toward it, I think we can get there,” freshman forward Trevon Bluiett says. “I honestly think we have the talent.” Xavier’s 23–14 season ended with a closer-than-that 68–60 loss to Arizona in the West Regional semifinals. It completed an up-and-down campaign in which XU went nearly three months without winning or losing more than back-to-back games. But in March, XU lost only to Villanova in the BIG EAST Tournament championship game and to Arizona in the NCAA Tournament; those teams were ranked No. 2 and No. 4 in the nation in the last regular-season USA Today coaches’ poll. “What separates the Final Four teams is they played hard for 40 minutes,” sophomore guard Myles Davis says. “We played Arizona hard for 35 minutes. They stick with it. I see that ability in our team, too. I feel really good going into next year.” XU graduates its leading scorer (Matt Stainbrook) and top playmaker (Dee Davis), and former four-star recruit Brandon Randolph announced plans to transfer. But plenty of talent returns, anchored by Bluiett, Davis, Jalen Reynolds, and Remy Abell, all presumably better for the March experience. “The only people who’d experienced a real NCAA run were Remy and Dee, and Remy was on a totally different team [Indiana],” Davis says. “It’s good that we got that under our belts. We know it’s not easy. We know it’s not about being better than a team for 40 days. It’s about being better than a team for 40 minutes.”
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Consider Wisconsin, which in its second straight Final Four was better for 40 minutes than perfection-pursuing Kentucky. Two years ago, the Badgers had a season very similar to the one Xavier just completed: 23–12 to XU’s 23–14. The Badgers lost in the final of the Big Ten tournament; the Musketeers in the BIG EAST final. Wisconsin, a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament, lost its first game; XU, a No. 6, won two. Wisconsin had a promising freshman (Sam Dekker) average nearly 10 points and make the freshman all-conference team; Xavier had a promising freshman (Bluiett) average double figures and make the freshman all-conference team. Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky would eventually blossom into the national player of the year as a senior, but in 2012–2013, he was a 4-point, 2-rebound a game sophomore. To get back to the NCAA and hope for an even longer stay, XU will need its young players to continue to develop, including Davis, who emerged from a crowded backcourt to average 10.6 points. He led XU with 63 threepointers (shooting .384 beyond the arc) and
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PHOTO GRAPHS BY (THIS PAGE) DOUG COCHRAN & GREG RUST; (PRE VIOUS SPRE AD) GREG RUST
XAVIER MEN’S BASKETBALL
P H OT O G R A P H B Y B R A N D E N C A M P/C O U R T E S Y T H E AT L A N TA J O U R N A L- C O N S T I T U T I O N
led the BIG EAST in free-throw shooting (.872). A year earlier, Davis averaged 5.3 points, shot .331 beyond the arc and .667 from the line. “I had a better season, but I have to have an even better season next year,” Davis says. “I know I’m going to work as hard as possible.” Davis says he embraces taking on more of a leadership role next season. He says he’s been ready for that since his freshman year (he redshirted in 2012– 2013). “Me, James (Farr), Jalen, we all came in together. We know what it takes,” Davis says. “We ask for a lot but the other guys know it’s for the right cause.” Bluiett, who averaged 11 points and 4.2 rebounds as a freshman, says the Musketeers can help their leaders by being more willing followers. “People have to be able to accept criticism,” he says. “Once everybody can take constructive criticism, we get that much better as a team.” Abell averaged 8.4 points and led the team with .411 three-point shooting. The 6-foot-10 Reynolds averaged 9.9 points and 6.1 rebounds, and 6-foot-10 Farr averaged 4.2 and 5.3. Freshmen J.P. Macura (32 three-pointers), Larry Austin Jr., and Sean O’Mara gained valuable experience. XU also activates two redshirts in forward Makindé London and guard Edmond Sumner. “All year, I’ve been asking them if they’re going to be ready,” Davis says. “They have the utmost potential. I hope they’re not going to settle for the Sweet 16, or runner-up in the BIG EAST championship.” Because Davis doesn’t want to. “I wouldn’t say that stuff if I didn’t think my team could actually do it,” Davis says. “I don’t want to be one of the guys who at Xavier almost did it,” he adds. “I want to be one of those teams in history to make it to the Elite Eight, the team that makes it to the Final Four. I feel like we have those goals and those aspirations. It would be amazing. Why not do it while I’m here?”
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INCOMING FRESHMAN
KAISER GATES
KAISER GATES IS A FOUR-STAR PROSPECT and a top-150 recruit nationally, but at home, his parents are the stars: His mother, Necia, runs a successful kale chips business and is known as “The Queen of Kale,” while his father, David, is the former vice president of Atlantabased Rowdy Records who has worked with R&B acts like TLC and Monica. Gates isn’t a chips connoisseur and his musical talents are limited to your rudimentary freestyle rapping sessions with his friends. “No, music is not my thing,” he says. Xavier didn’t sign Gates to carry a tune. With Remy Abell, Trevon Bluiett, Myles Davis, James Farr, and Jalen Reynolds returning from a 23–14 team that reached the Sweet 16 in 2014–2015, Gates, a 6-foot-8 forward from St. Francis High School in Alpharetta, Georgia, could be the missing piece to a fine puzzle. “I’ve been training for this since as long as I can remember and to see it finally pay off has been a blessing,” Gates says. “It’s great.” Gates received more than 30 scholarship offers but didn’t consider many of them seriously and narrowed down his choices quickly. He took unofficial visits to Alabama, Auburn, Missouri, UCLA, USC, and Georgia, and an official visit to Texas Tech three weeks before he committed to the Musketeers. Gates’s father grew up in Dayton and he has relatives in Middletown, Ohio. “I liked their style of play and the BIG EAST is one of the top conferences there is,” he says. “There’s great competition every night, they have a great coaching staff and I really liked the team when I went out there. It was a real nice
fit.” Especially considering, like Xavier, Gates is a winner. Gates capped his senior year by leading St. Francis to the Georgia Class A Private School Championship in March, giving the program back-to-back state titles. In the 2014 state final, Gates scored 23 points in the 96–81 victory over Greenforest Christian, which beat St. Francis in the 2013 title game. “Honestly, the second state championship game didn’t mean as much to me as the first one,” says Gates, who averaged 14 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists while helping lead St. Francis to a 29-5 record as a senior. “My sophomore year we lost in the state championship and there was a lot of built-up emotion trying to get back and my junior year we won it. Then coming into my senior year, it was expected. I felt like, ‘Yeah, we won, cool, but we were supposed to do that.’ We weren’t supposed to lose that game.” The willowy 205-pound Gates is expected to come in and compete for playing time at small forward. The word “upside” is often used to describe Gates, who will remind some Xavier fans of James Posey, the two-time NBA champion who played 12 years in the NBA. “Gates is a very long and athletic forward who runs the floor extremely well,” an ESPN. com scouting report says in January. “He is an above the rim shooter and an excellent midrange shooter but also can hit the open three when his feet are set. Gates has a great touch in and around the lane off the catch and with turn shots. He has a nice offensive feel and he displays that with his ability to move without the ball and read penetration in order to get to open areas to get his shot off. His long and wiry length allows him to shoot over smaller defenders and late closeouts with ease.” Gates figures he’ll play both forward positions initially at Xavier. “I’m a versatile player but if I can step up and bring my handle up so I can play on the perimeter on the college level, then they can put me in different lineups,” Gates says. “That would help me with my playing time a lot more. I need to get my handle right, get some shots up and get stronger. That will help me get on the court faster.” That’s music to everyone’s ears. — RODNEY M C KISSIC
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2014-2015 SEASON REVIEW
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// BY BILL THOMPSON
UMBERS MIGHT NOT TELL THE ENTIRE STORY, BUT THEY ARE USUALLY a good place to begin. Such is the case with the Xavier women’s basketball team. The Musketeers finished 2014–2015 with an 18–15 record after going 8–23 in coach Brian Neal’s first year. They were 8–10 in the BIG EAST (3–15 in 2013–2014), won a conference tournament game, then earned a bid and won a game in the Women’s Basketball Invitational. No matter how you define progress, Neal’s second season fit the description. “I don’t think there was anybody in the preseason that would have predicted 18 victories for our group,” he says. “We were picked ninth in the BIG EAST [they finished seventh, four games ahead of eighth-place Marquette] after it was such a struggle last season. So I don’t think there is any negative to [this season]. Of course there are frustrating moments and you always want more. Once we step back and evaluate where the players are, we’ll be able to raise the level of everything we do with the program. There is a lot of optimism moving into next year.” Frustration and optimism collided on the weekend of Xavier’s final regular-season games at the Cintas Center. Seton Hall, which tied DePaul for first place in the BIG EAST at 15–3, beat the Musketeers 77–60. But less than 48 hours later, Neal’s team showed the Senior Day crowd what it had to look forward to when it overcame a 31–23 halftime deficit against a good St. John’s team to score 51 points in the second half en route to a 74–61 victory. “We knew we had to pick up the energy in the second half [against St. John’s],” says junior guard Aliyah Zantt, who scored 22 points, including 3-of-4 from three-point range. “Rae [Raeshaun Gaffney] had the energy going in the first half, so I kind of piggybacked onto her. We started feeding off of each other, made some layups, and started playing freely.” A performance like that does a coach’s heart good, especially when he sees only one senior
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(Ohio State transfer Maleeka Kynard) leaving. In addition to Zantt, juniors Jenna Crittendon and Briana Glover, and sophomores Gaffney, Maddison Blackwell, and Leah Schaefer played the bulk of the minutes this season. But freshmen Marquia Turner, Kindell Fincher, Jada Byrd, and Anniina Aijanen earned valuable game experience. Add 6-foot-2 incoming freshman Tierra Floyd (see Pg. 27), and 6-foot -1 redshirt freshman Imani Partlow from Winton Woods, and suddenly next season’s Musketeers are taller, more talented, athletic, and experienced. “We have a large contingent of returning players who know what’s expected, who know what the BIG EAST is like,” Neal says. “So we won 18 games this year, then the expectation will be even higher. “But these next steps are the tougher ones. We’ve already taken the easy ones and they weren’t easy. But now you start talking about Creighton, Villanova, DePaul, and all those guys, it’s a whole other animal.” Gaffney, the former Mt. Notre Dame and
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P H OT O G R A P H S B Y D O U G C O C H R A N & G R E G R U S T
XAVIER WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Fairfield High School star who returned home after two years at Virginia, is eager for the challenge. “We grew so much this year, it speaks to how we bonded,” she says. “I think that the chemistry and how we played off of each other was something we had to learn. That was a process. “Now on this team, we’re all on the same page. Everyone is excited about what we can do next year. [Floyd and Partlow] will definitely bring something to the team. And with our upperclassmen being stronger and having a year playing together, I’m really excited for next year.” Imagine the numerical possibilities if each part adds something to the whole.
THREE QUESTIONS TO PONDER IN THE OFFSEASON: 1. Is there enough playing time to keep everyone happy? The upside of an experienced team is depth, but can coach Brian Neal find a rotation that gives enough minutes to everyone who has proved they deserve to be on the floor?
P H OT O G R A P H B Y T O N Y T R I B B L E
2. Freshmen Tierra Floyd (6-foot-2) and Imani Partlow (6-foot-1) add size to an undersized roster, but will it be enough to bang inside with the taller teams that currently reside at the top of the BIG EAST pecking order? (Sophomore Anniina Äijänen is also 6-foot-2.) 3. Speaking of Äijänen, Neal has rekindled Xavier’s Finland connection with the help of Taru Tuukkanen, who was a member of the 2001 Elite Eight team. Susanna Stromberg, Tuukkanen, and Reeta Piipari played key roles for coach Melanie Balcomb, who built a national presence in the late 1990s. Can Neal entice more talent from Scandinavia to Cincinnati?
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INCOMING FRESHMAN
TIERRA FLOYD
IN THE SPRING OF 2014, TIERRA FLOYD suffereda serious knee injury that would eventually force her to miss her senior season; then in late June, she learned she would be moving from Toledo to Cincinnati. But there was some good news last November when she signed a National Letter of Intent with Xavier University. Undaunted, the 6-foot-2 do-everything Floyd is focused on becoming an impact player as a collegian, something many believed she was destined for since her debut as a freshman at Toledo Notre Dame. “I want to fit in and come in and make an impact immediately,” says Floyd, who selected Xavier over Ohio State, Indiana, Virginia, and Dayton. “I want to help this team make it further than what they did this year.” Floyd averaged 16.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.9 assists, and 2.6 steals as a junior at Toledo Notre Dame. In addition to being named the Toledo Blade Player of the Year, she was named to the All-Three Rivers Athletic Conference, Northwest Ohio All-District, and All-Ohio first teams. “Signing a player like Tierra sets a cornerstone piece for our program,” Xavier coach Brian Neal says last November. “In my opinion, she is the best player in Ohio because she affects the game in every way imaginable with her size and ability to play really every position on the floor.’’ But Floyd had been forced to make adjustments. In April 2014, Floyd was playing for the Columbus-based All Ohio Black team at an AAU event in Virginia when she stepped on some-
one’s foot and crumpled to the floor. Floyd had torn her ACL. “At first they thought it was just a knee sprain,” Floyd says. “I kind of prepared myself for the worst and I figured it wasn’t normal because of the way it felt. I was pretty devastated but I knew I could get past it.” Floyd’s mother, Netta Smith, Xavier’s director of basketball operations, endured a similar experience. Smith tore her ACL prior to her senior year in 1994 at Massillon Washington High School. Smith, who eventually signed with Bowling Green, elected to play her senior year of high school, something she later regretted. “I wanted to get back out as soon as possible but I wasn’t thinking big picture,” says Smith, who appeared in just 56 games for Bowling Green. “Looking back on the decisions I made back then, I definitely would have changed them. We told Tierra, ‘Yes, it would be nice to play your senior year but what do you have in front of you?’ ’’ Still, Floyd briefly considered taking the floor for St. Bernard-Elmwood Place as a senior. “I went on and off about how I felt about playing,” she says. “I don’t want to say high school isn’t important, but I wanted to make sure I was 100 percent. I never wanted to play at 70 or 80 percent because I wanted to give it my all.” While Floyd recovered from surgery in June of last year, Smith accepted her position at Xavier, which meant the family would be moving to Cincinnati. Leaving Notre Dame was difficult. For three consecutive seasons, the Eagles advanced to the Ohio Division I girls basketball state semifinals and the objective for Floyd’s senior year was to win it all. “I was pretty sad,” she says. “I had been playing there for three years and they became my family. It was a lot different coming down here [to Cincinnati] but I got used to it.” Floyd used the time to work long hours with her father, Terry Floyd, honing her skills and getting back into shape. The knee, Floyd says, is 100 percent. “It started off kind of slow and I was edgy about it at first, but right now I feel pretty good,” she says. “I’m ready to get back in shape, start working out again and getting back into the swing of everything.” — RODNEY M c KISSIC
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ANATOMY OF A
ROAD TRIP XAVIER NATION TRAVELS WITH THE MUSKETEERS TO MILWAUKEE FOR THEIR GAME AT MARQUETTE. BY // RORY GLYNN PHOTOGRAPHS BY // GREG RUST
erhaps no pathway in sports is more prized than college basketball’s road to the Final Four. But college basketball’s road itself—all the regular-season two-day treks, across time zones and through dicey weather, to be the Visitor to some other scoreboard’s Home—is more often something to be survived than celebrated. In fact, it’s been said that winning on the road in men’s college basketball may be the toughest task in team sports. Consider February 10, the night Xavier Nation went along for the ride when the Musketeers traveled to Marquette: Miami University would lose by 14 at Eastern Michigan, the University of Cincinnati by 16 at Temple, and consensus No. 1 Kentucky would undergo its toughest test of the regular season, escaping LSU with a two-point victory. Not for nothing is traveling a negative in basketball. When Xavier hits the road, the objective is simple: Get in, get out, get a victory—maybe have a little fun in between. Which is just what the Musketeers did in Milwaukee. Here are some postcards from 35 hours on the road with Xavier basketball.
P
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OUTBOUND FLIGHT MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2:45 P.M. (EST)
A CHARTERED XTRA AIRWAYS jet sits at Lunken Airport, ready for boarding. A generation ago, when Xavier played in the old Midwestern Collegiate Conference, bus trips were the norm. In the early days of their Atlantic 10 membership, the Musketeers mostly flew commercially out of CVG. Now, with a few exceptions—a commercial flight to the Wooden Legacy in Anaheim, California; a bus trip to Butler—charter flights are the rule. “As the profile of the program has grown, so too has the way we travel,” coach Chris Mack says. “We travel first class.” The team bus goes from campus to Lunken inside of 15 minutes. The Xavier party boards. Mack and his staff take spots up front; players and student managers gravitate toward the back. In between, a variety of XU personnel take seats, including athletic director Greg Christopher; Tom Eiser, associate AD for communications; Chris Barbour, academic advisor for men’s basketball; and Sister Rose Ann Fleming, longtime academic advisor, now faculty athletics representative and a special assistant to the president. Radio broadcasters Joe Sunderman and Byron Larkin and producer Dave Armbruster also are among the XU party, which comprises 45 people. At 3:45, it’s wheels up for the Boeing 737-400. Almost to a man, players take advantage of the one-hour, four-minute flight time to catch up on rest. Though each gets his own row of three seats, it’s still not easy to fold a power forward’s frame into a business traveler’s space, so feet dangle over the aisle. Trendy Beats by Dr. Dre headphones help muffle the engine noise. Milwaukee’s on Central time, so XU picks up an hour in transit; it’s a little before 4 local time when the plane touches down.
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VIDEO STUDY MONDAY, 6 P.M.
HOTEL CHECK-IN MONDAY, 4:15 P.M. (CST)
XAVIER’S CHARTERED BUS pulls up to the four-star Pfister Hotel downtown. Among interesting facts about the Pfister, built in 1893 and now on the National Register of Historic Places: Every president since McKinley has stayed there. Neil Diamond had a banquet room reconfigured so he could play ping-pong. The late Rick Majerus, the former Marquette and Utah coach who famously preferred hotels to houses or apartments, once called it home. Also, it ranked 10th on Travelocity’s list of America’s most haunted hotels. When staying at the Pfister, the Reds’ Brandon Phillips reportedly got out of the shower to discover his music blaring, except he hadn’t turned it on. When in Milwaukee with the Giants, Pablo Sandoval and Edgar Renteria were so spooked they checked into a different hotel at their own expense. The Musketeers won’t report any juicy ghost stories, but Mario Mercurio, as director of basketball administration and Xavier’s travel coordinator, had a superstition of his own: X stayed at the Pfister for the 2010 NCAA Tournament, when the Musketeers beat Minnesota and Pittsburgh to reach the Sweet 16. But at least one basketball player at the Pfister gets the shivers. As the XU party collects its bags and room keys, University of Cincinnati great Kenyon Martin takes note of all the gear and cracks good-naturedly, “Seeing all this Xavier makes me break out in hives.” Martin, 37, signed with the Milwaukee Bucks in January and had a game that night against the Brooklyn Nets.
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THE TEAM GATHERS on the seventh floor in the Pfister’s Grand Ballroom. Partitions separate the ballroom into thirds (Xavier uses room B; the Nets used room A the day before). A projection screen at the rear of the room shows selected Marquette game footage as Xavier assistant coach Mike Pegues narrates salient points. “This is the two-man game Coach talked about,” Pegues says, using a red laser pointer for emphasis. Mack interjects occasionally. Room B will be home base for Xavier basketball for the next 24 hours. The team will eat most of its meals here, take in video sessions, conduct study tables, even defend some Marquette out-of-bounds plays on a makeshift court taped on the carpet by team managers—truly putting the ball in ballroom. Mercurio sends each road hotel a travel worksheet in advance. The information he provides is as macro as the total number in the traveling party and their room needs, and players’ roommate assignments, and as micro as how the team likes breakfast potatoes (cubed, cheese over the top, no onions or peppers). XU asks that seven round tables with six chairs at each be in the room at all times, that the hotel provide the projection screen, and that no hotel staff be present during film study. “We’re not asking an easy thing out of a hotel,” Mercurio says. “It’s not like a wedding, where you need one meal and a block of rooms. We’re not the easiest group to handle.”
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DINNER
BOOKS AND BEDTIMES
LATE NIGHT
MONDAY, 7 P.M.
MONDAY, 8:45–11 P.M.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2:30 A.M.
ON THIS EVE of the game, dinner isn’t in the hotel, but at Benihana, a short bus ride away. The venerable Japanese steakhouse chain is a favorite of the team, Mercurio says. “Probably our No. 1 spot,” he says. “The guys love it. There’s been trips like NCAA Tournaments when we ate there two consecutive days.” The XU party fills five hibachi grill tables. But one, populated by nine players, is missing a chef. J.P. Macura drums with his chopsticks. Mack gets up at one point to offer hungry players some of his sushi rolls. Eventually, a chef arrives to appreciative applause, and their culinary entertainment begins. The team tends to take its meals at the hotel for simplicity’s sake, but Mercurio likes to mix in a restaurant run when the schedule permits. Sometimes the team orders in advance, but tonight, players order off the menu. “If you have a noon game [the next day], you’re not doing it,” Mercurio says.
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IT’S BACK TO the ballroom for study tables. All players are welcome; players with GPAs below 3.0 must attend. Barbour, the academic advisor, moves from table to table, looking over players’ shoulders at their laptops and offering counsel. Pegues shows up with his laptop and gives big men James Farr and Jalen Reynolds some more cramming on Marquette. Eleven p.m. is curfew for the players, and it’s room-check time. Sometimes the coaches handle room check—even Mack has been known to make rounds—and sometimes it’s the graduate assistants or student managers. XU’s staff of managers—Pat Carroll, Eric Massa, Tanner Skelton, Michael Misleh, Mason Schaaf, Jack Hayes, Ben Carloni, Matt Reagan, Alex Poedtke, Matt Stebbins, Chris Schrank, and Zach Mog—handle a myriad of functions home and away, from laundry to luggage, logistics to lattes (the coaching staff prefers Dunkin’ Donuts to Starbucks for their pregame brew). But few chores are more important than keeping inventory of the players themselves. You’ll see managers counting as players board the bus each time—making sure no Davis or Stainbrook is left behind.
IT’S LIGHTS OUT at last for Mack, who has just re-watched snippets from Marquette’s games against St. John’s and Butler. The rest of the staff has long since been released for the night. Mack met a friend for a bite after the team got back to the hotel, then decided to fire up the laptop one more time. At this point, Mack later acknowledges, “the hay is in the barn.” But still, he watches. Maybe there’s one wrinkle he hadn’t seen that he can use later.
BREAKFAST TUESDAY, 9 A.M.
BACK AT THE seventh-floor ballroom, a buffet breakfast is served featuring the prescribed potatoes, as well as eggs, fresh fruit, bacon, pancakes. Lots of pancakes. “The ball teams, they all like the pancakes,” says Tony Calderon. In his 28th year as a banquet server at the Pfister, Calderon has seen countless celebrities and four presidents; the night before, he served the Nets. “Carbohydrates and protein, that’s what the ball teams want.” Xavier freshman Makindé London loads up a plate. London, 6-foot-10 but just 210 pounds, is redshirting this year, in part to get stronger. He glances back at the buffet. “I might have to come back,” he says.
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FOOD AND FREE TIME TUESDAY, 12:30–4 P.M.
SHOOTAROUND TUESDAY, 11 A.M.
THE XU BUS ROLLS into the back of the BMO Harris Bradley Center, home to both Marquette and the NBA’s Bucks, for XU’s morning shootaround. Players and staffers adjust their eyes to the arena lighting, still dim but gaining strength. Sister Rose Ann takes a seat in the stands near midcourt. She is asked how many shootarounds she’s seen. She smiles. “Hundreds,” she says. The shootaround retraces some already well-traveled ground on the scouting report. It also gives the Musketeers their first feel for the baskets and shooting backgrounds at the Bradley Center, which was unavailable Monday, occupied by the NBA game. “I would say that in terms of what we do on the road, a lot comes down to arena accessibility,” Mack says. “So many of the places we play at house NBA teams, and you don’t always have the ability to get in the night before and shoot.” While the action continues on the floor, deeper in the recesses of the Bradley Center, locker room A is abuzz with activity. In each player’s locker—arranged to approximate the layout at Cintas Center—XU managers place compression shorts, undershirts, socks, two warmups, jersey, shorts, other gear. Because Marquette will wear baby-blue alternate uniforms tonight, XU will wear its alternate black; the BIG EAST said XU’s customary navy didn’t offer enough contrast. The Nike fabric wrinkles easily, so managers use a steamer to smooth everything out for the Fox Sports 1 TV game. There are 16 players on the trip, but only 15 uniforms in lockers. “Matt Stainbrook likes to change at the hotel,” says manager Eric Massa. Massa is a junior and a cousin of XU great Gary Massa (Eric’s brother, Michael, is one of Xavier’s three graduate assistants, along with Ty Sampson and Joe Sullivan). “It’s just something he does, and something you have to remember.” Says Stainbrook: “It’s a superstition: The first guy that’s ready for the game is the first guy who’s ready for the war. After pregame meal, I put on my jersey and my shorts and put my pants and my coat on over it. I get to the gym, slide my shoes on and I’m ready to go.” It’s almost noon when Mack joins Sunderman at the scorer’s table to record the pregame comments that will air on WKRC-AM. Sunderman asks about Matt Carlino, Marquette’s leading scorer, who scored 27 points in a 62–58 XU victory at Cintas Center. Carlino sat out Marquette’s previous game with a concussion. “Joe, I’m like you,” Mack says. “There’s no way that kid’s not playing tonight.”
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THERE’S MORE FOOD being served in room B—lunch is Italian wedding soup, salad, pizza (cheese and pepperoni), a chicken cheese-steak bar—but unlike breakfast, attendance is lighter, and players who show are quicker to leave. “Sometimes we come back and we’re like, I’m good on the hotel food,” Matt Stainbrook says. “You show up, grab a drink or something and you’re good.” Instead, Stainbrook and his brother, Tim, and a couple managers walk to a downtown restaurant called Real Chili (Preventing Milwaukee’s Hangovers since 1931). “It was on Food Network’s The Best Thing I Ever Ate,” Stainbrook says. “Guy Fieri called it the best chili he ever had.” And? “It was kind of like Skyline, to be honest,” he says. “There’s a dish that’s not on the menu called The Marquette. It’s spaghetti, chili, beans, and cheese. I said, ‘I’ll have one of those. I’ll devour a little Marquette right now and I’ll devour a little Marquette later.’ ” Players have use of their rooms for the afternoon, until it’s time to leave for the arena; the mandatory checkout time is either negotiated or waived. “Our catering numbers are so big that usually they’re glad to have us there,” Mercurio says. In-room movies are popular with the players. In the room he shares with Sean O’Mara, Macura watches Vice, a Bruce Willis action flick. “Not bad,” he says. With a later tipoff for this game (8:15 local time, 9:15 Cincinnati time), players have more free time than usual on this trip. The schedule is more compact with a 7 p.m. start. “There’s times where if you’re really clicking, and you’re in a city that’s close,” Mercurio says, “you can be home to watch your highlights on the Channel 12 news.”
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PREGAME TUESDAY, 4 P.M.
THE LAST OF the Pfister meals is served: grilled chicken, pasta, cheddar baked potatoes, more salad. One will never come home hungry from a Xavier trip. “They [players] burn it off,” Christopher says, smiling. “We don’t.” After the meal, the managers will split up. Some will hop the bus to the Bradley Center to finish pregame preparations there; others linger to use athletic tape to mark off a makeshift lane and 3-point arc the team will use to simulate plays Marquette runs when inbounding the ball under its own basket. X marks the basket, and a basketball— the inexpensive indoor/outdoor kind—rests on the X. Players, wearing their winter bubble coats, some with backpacks still slung over their shoulders, move across ornate carpeting through the taped lane, working around screens, denying the toy basketball. It’s around 6:10 when Mack calls an end to the exercise. “Fellas,” Mack says, “let’s go get one.” The players roar their approval. The bus awaits.
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GAMETIME TUESDAY, 8:15 P.M.
IT TURNS OUT that Marquette’s Carlino doesn’t play. But that’s the only thing going for XU early. Turnovers, a concern of Mack’s back at the shootaround, become a reality. XU commits five, by five different players, in the first eight minutes as Marquette grabs a 16–5 lead. But the Musketeers settle down, slow the Golden Eagles with a zone defense, get double-figure scoring from four players, led by Trevon Bluiett’s 14 points, and steadily pull away for a 64–44 victory. “This definitely makes the flight home a lot shorter,” says Myles Davis, who scores 10 points. As jubilant players change in the locker room, the managers pack everything up; they’ll wash it back at Xavier. On longer trips, like the BIG EAST Tournament, they’ll use arena laundry facilities. When the team traveled to Brazil last summer, they hunted out a laundromat by typing what they wanted into a smartphone and showing it to passersby. Mack, sipping from a bottled water, makes his way to the media room to address reporters. “Give Marquette credit. They came out and were the aggressor,” Mack begins. “As time wore on, our guys settled in, didn’t panic, stayed the course. “We haven’t stood up at the podium too often and talked about wins where we hold the opponent below 50 points.” Mack pauses. “It’s nice to do that. “Questions?”
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POSTGAME TUESDAY, 10:30 P.M.
P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
THERE’S A PIZZA for each member of the traveling party on the way out the Bradley Center door toward a waiting bus. Bus transport is the lifeline of any road trip, ferrying players and staff from campus to airport, airport to hotel, hotel to restaurant and arena, arena to airport, airport back to campus. It’s a complex network of synapses that Mercurio set up with a single phone call. “Claudette, Champion Coach in Greenville, South Carolina,” he says. “I give her our schedule at the beginning of the year and she pretty much handles the rest. If they don’t have a bus in a location, they’ll broker it to somebody who does.” The company works with dozens of programs, men’s and women’s. One driver, Mercurio says, drove both XU’s men’s and women’s teams on an Eastern swing, and in between took Duke to Madison Square Garden for the game that would become Mike Krzyzewski’s 1,000th career victory. More important from XU’s perspective: This game became XU’s second BIG EAST road win. At 10:53, the bus pulls out for the airport. Makindé London, who still needs the carbs, opens his pizza box and takes a bite.
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RETURN FLIGHT TUESDAY, 11:30 P.M.
AMID THE USUAL preflight announcements, the captain congratulates the Musketeers on the victory. The same jet and crew that took the Musketeers to Milwaukee stayed to take them home. It doesn’t always work out that way. “If each team had their own dedicated aircraft, the cost would be prohibitive,” says Harold “Hap” Pareti of Air Charter Services Inc. Pareti, former People’s Express cofounder, counts about 25 college programs among his clients. Before the season starts, he gathers their schedules and then sets about figuring out the logistics. The teams’ needs, available aircraft and crew rest all are considerations. “It’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle,” Pareti says. Consider: In a seven-day span surrounding XU’s game at Creighton in March, Pareti will arrange for a 737 to take Minnesota’s men’s hockey team to Ohio State on a Thursday, then take West Virginia’s women’s basketball team to the Big 12 tournament in Dallas. From there, it’s on to Lunken to ferry XU to Omaha, returning to Lunken the next day; to Columbus to take Minnesota hockey home and pick up Minnesota’s men’s basketball team for the Big Ten tournament in Chicago; then back to Lunken to take XU to the BIG EAST Tournament in New York. Because a delay in any flight can jeopardize the schedules behind it, Pareti is in constant contact with his clients. He’ll talk, text, or e-mail Mercurio a dozen times in the course of preparing and executing each trip. This flight home is largely uneventful, just the way Xavier likes it. “To play a game on a Tuesday night and have your guys back in class on a Wednesday is a luxury, because with the conference tournament, NCAA Tournament, guys miss a whole lot of classes in the spring,” Mack says. “The other factor is just the convenience of being able to get in, get out. Travel beats you up. It can really wear your team down; you’re connecting flights, flights are getting delayed...commercial [travel] brings other variables into play that you don’t necessarily have to fight when you’re flying charter services.” The plane is on the ground at Lunken by 1:30 a.m. (EST), ahead of schedule. As the party files out to bus back to Xavier, Mack lingers in his bulkhead seat. His laptop is playing Xavier–Marquette video. Someone mentions that game is over, and Xavier won. Mack smiles. Get in, get out. Get a victory in between.
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➔XAVIER NATION GOES BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE REFEREES DURING A GAME AGAINST CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY. BY // MICHAEL PERRY
MAKING THE CALL 3 4 X AV I E R N AT I O N | S P R I N G 2 0 1 5
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y T K
PHOTOGRAPHS BY // GREG RUST
IT’S JUST BEFORE 7 P.M., MORE THAN two hours before tipoff, when officials James Breeding and Brent Hampton arrive at Cintas Center for Xavier’s February 4 game against Creighton University. Breeding lives in Louisville and Hampton in Lexington. They met at a TravelCenters of America truck stop in Richwood, Kentucky, off Interstate 71/75, and Hampton drove the two into Cincinnati. They are sitting in a small room with bluish-gray concrete walls in the bowels of Cintas. There are four small steel-blue lockers, a lockbox, a short bench with bath towels piled on it, two chairs, a shower, and an attached bathroom. There is also a small fridge with Dasani water bottles, blue and orange Powerade Zero, Diet Coke, and three sandwiches. This is the officials’ locker room. Officials have to arrive 90 minutes prior to game time. Often they come earlier because they never know how weather and traffic will affect their travels. Breeding and Hampton are checking their phones, playing Words with Friends, passing time. At 7:10 p.m., in walks Rob Riley, the third member of the officiating crew. “Very disappointing you couldn’t be here at 7,” Breeding says, holding back the laughter. “Your punishment is getting ice for my knees.” All three smile.
“AT 10:30 LAST night I got a call that my flight’s canceled,” Riley says. He can’t wait to tell his story. But before he can, the conversation turns to National Signing Day for high school football players. Then Brian Hicks, Xavier’s associate athletic director for external relations, comes in and hands out envelopes with paychecks for the night. Officials earn between $2,000 and $3,000 per game but are responsible for their own expenses, including travel. “You gonna let it snow here tonight?” Breeding asks Hicks. “I just got a snow alert,” Riley says. He is concerned because he has a 5:30 a.m. flight scheduled out of Columbus the next morning. They talk about the expected crowd (“We’re probably 400 away from a sellout,” Hicks says), the weather that’s expected to turn colder and produce snow before the game ends, and who is televising and producing the game. Hicks explains there is a BIG EAST Conference–mandated hard start at 9:15 p.m. “Normal pregame sequence,” he says, making sure they know there will be pyrotechnics. “We’ll warm everybody up for a few minutes,” Hicks says with a smile. “Anyone need anything from athletic training?” Hicks asks before leaving.
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Riley and Breeding request bags of ice. Hampton, at 38 the youngest member of the team, wants it known he does not need any. “If you need anything, just let our ops guys know,” Hicks says as he walks out the door. “He’s the best,” Hampton says. Riley quickly resumes his story about his flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Columbus being canceled. He was offered a flight out of LaGuardia in New York that didn’t work. “This is ridiculous,” he told the airline agent. His wife ended up driving him 45 minutes from their home in Hamilton, New Jersey, to the Philadelphia International Airport. The officials take turns telling travel horror stories. Pricing. Cancellations. Timing. Online and mobile ticket purchases. Difficult airline reps. “Travel is, by far, the worst part of this job,” Breeding says. “And getting worse,” Riley says. “And getting worse,” Breeding echoes softly. They all check their phones.
FOR THE NEXT two hours, on and off, they discuss in great detail moments from recent games they have officiated, as well as other games with controversial plays. They talk about the way coaches reacted, what was said by television announcers, the responses they got in the days following their calls. In this sense, they are no different than players and coaches who study film to try and improve. “They love to say we go to the monitor too much,” Breeding says. “The one time you don’t and miss something.… They can yell at me all they want.” By they, he means mostly fans behind the scorer’s table. They talk about more games with great animation. Breeding pulls out his iPad. Most major conferences—excluding the BIG EAST—use the DVSports Instant Replay system. Every game is taped and officials can review every play, examining each blow of the whistle. Games are downloaded immediately afterward. Officials can review calls by the time they shower and dress. They can e-mail clips to each other. “You’re going to be able to text that next year,” Hampton says. “That’s what a guy told me.” They huddle around Breeding’s iPad. “If you miss a play that’s going to be substantial, someone’s going to call and say, ‘What happened on that play?’ You’ve got to have an answer,” Breeding says. They watch a play from an earlier game. They are debating
➔ BRENT HAMPTON (Opposite) The 38-year-old from Lexington has a wife and four children and works for Palmer-Hampton Insurance, Inc., a family-owned business started by his grandfather in 1962. He has been a college official for 15 years.
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➔ JAMES BREEDING
whether a foul is flagrant. Was the right call made? They examine block/charges, continuation plays, more flagrant fouls. “I’d like to referee in slow motion,” Breeding says with a smile. “I’d be really good—or better than I am now.” He leaves the locker room to go retrieve bags of ice. Talk returns to travel and weather. “It’s all insane,” Hampton says. “Five more Saturdays,” Riley adds. Breeding returns with the ice bags. Riley sits on the ground and rests bags of ice on both knees. Breeding wraps an ice bag onto his left knee with an Ace bandage and joins Riley on the floor. Breeding had knee surgery in 2013 to repair a torn meniscus and missed the BIG EAST and NCAA tournaments. His doctor advises that he ice his knees before and after games. Riley had the same surgery five years ago. “I have no pain,” Riley says. “I just ice them every game. The body does take a beating between running five days and travel. Like someone once told me: The only thing that does not change in the game is the players; they are between 18 and 22 years old every year.” The three officials have never worked together as a group before. Breeding and Hampton attended officiating camp together in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 1997 and
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estimate they have worked together more than 100 times. They talked about the camp where they stayed in dorm rooms, had to bring their own bed linens, and how the airconditioning in the rooms was turned off. Breeding talks about his job as vice president of business operations with the Louisville Bats, the Cincinnati Reds Triple-A affiliate. Earlier in the day they introduced Delino DeShields as manager. Back to travel conversation. Bridge tolls. Parking rates at airports and train stations. A little politics. Hampton talks about how it took him two days to get to a Davidson at Montana game on December 10, 2014. After a brief visit from John Paquette, BIG EAST associate commissioner of sports media relations, and Joe D’Antonio, senior associate commissioner of administration and NCAA relations, Breeding starts talking about the night’s game. “We clearly don’t want any unsportsmanlike acts in our game,” he says to Riley and Hampton. “Unfortunately, this is the time of year when teams that are out of it know it and teams that are in it need to win badly. But both teams still want to win and sometimes it takes on a life of its own.” They resume conversations about other games in excruciating detail. Clock malfunc-
tions, point of interruptions, flagrant fouls, a taunting technical, coaches, players, block/ charge calls. Breeding puts on a blue surgical glove and rubs balm on his calves, knees, and thighs. Riley lies down on the hard floor and does bicycle kicks to loosen up. Hampton checks his phone. At 8:25 p.m., another knock on the door. “That’s the table crew,” Breeding says. In walks Jerry Gels (game clock), Dan Hogan (scoreboard), Dan Mirus (shot clock), and Tom Grogan (official scorer). All work the Xavier games at Cintas. “Everything working OK? No issues?” Breeding asks. “We’re all reacting to hard games where clocks have been a bit of an issue. It can happen, I know.” “We’ve all been here numerous times,” Breeding continues. “You guys do a good job.” “Don’t compliment us too much,” Hogan says. “Something will go wrong.” They talk about clock malfunctions (“That’s a nightmare for all of us,” Gels says), game situations, substitutions at the end of games. The table crew leaves. “Two things I say,” Breeding says to Riley and Hampton. “All that really matters to me is don’t let us kick a rule. As a crew, if you think we’re doing something funny, let’s just slow
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y G R E G R U S T
The 43-year-old from Louisville has a wife and three children and is vice president of business operations for the Louisville Bats, the Triple-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Breeding has been a college official for 18 years.
MAKING THE CALL
down. Saturday, I think we got in a hurry on something because we had been at the monitor so many times. We had a power supply go bad in the control panel that runs the clock. “…If we go to the monitor and we feel like we’re taking too long, just remember it’s not as long as we think. “…If you see something occur, a foul, call the foul.” Breeding slips on pink liner socks that will go under his black socks. Everyone notices. “I think they’re pretty,” Hampton says. “I’m just real secure in my manhood,” Breeding says with a smile. They stretch, use the restroom, put on heat patches and knee braces, and brush their teeth. “The oldest guy in the room is doing pushups,” Breeding says of Riley, 52. They discuss specifics about the game, play situations, tendencies of the players and coaches involved.
ABOUT 20 MINUTES before tipoff, they put on jackets and walk out to the court. Breeding, the crew chief, is mostly stationed at midcourt with Riley and Hampton on opposite ends. They watch the players warm up. (No dunking allowed!) A Creighton player comes up and fist bumps Hampton. Hampton talks about how the officials work together. “We’re supposed to be interchangeable,” he says. “It’s not how we run but more how we think.” Breeding meets with captains from both teams at center court. “Any problems we need to know about?” he asks. Nobody says anything. “You know the drill on sportsmanship: Don’t talk to anyone not on your team. If we’re talking to you, we’re trying to help you. Respect each other. Respect us. Have a great game.” “I like to keep it short,” Breeding says when the players return to their teammates. “They hear it every game.” The officials return to their locker room, take off their jackets and return to the court with four minutes counting down on the clock. They are wearing small, numbered Precision Time devices secured by belt packs; the device is a small computer that lets officials
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start and stop the game clock. Breeding talks to a TV producer he knows. Hampton adjusts his whistle. Riley stretches. The officials shake hands with the coaches. There is not a lot of chitchat. Some coaches smile. Some don’t even make eye contact. Xavier coach Chris Mack’s game face is on. Lineups are announced. Fireworks go off during Xavier introductions. You can feel the warmth from the pyrotechnics. “I want no part of that,” says Breeding, as he walks closer to the Creighton team and
“THE LAST FIVE MINUTES ARE ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL. WE KNOW IF WE BLOW THE WHISTLE, WE ABSOLUTELY HAVE GOT TO BE RIGHT.” —JAMES BREED ING
moves the Bluejays farther from the fireworks. “I was thinking if the other team caught on fire, it would not be a good start,” he says, smiling. Creighton’s coaches thank him. It’s time to tip off. Riley will toss the ball up. Breeding signals the start of the clock. We’re off.
“ILLEGAL!” Just 36 seconds into the game, the Xavier coaches are looking for an illegal screen call. “Aw, come on. Get in the game.” “He was pushing off!” The shouts come from the benches and from the stands. Musketeer fans are more upset with their team than the officials early on.
During a time out with 3:36 left in the first half, a student is shooting from halfcourt for the chance to win Penn Station subs for a year. Breeding walks in front of the student as he is about to shoot. Still, he launches a ball that caroms off the backboard and almost goes in. “I realized I walked right in front of him and he barely missed,” Breeding says later. “I went to the promotions guy and told him that I had distracted the shooter and he should be awarded another attempt.” The student gets a do-over. He misses again. “I’m sure whoever insures that promotion probably would have been upset if he had made it on the second try,” Breeding says. The game resumes. A foul is called on Musketeers guard Dee Davis. “Give the game away. Give it away.” “Ref, that was a stupid call.” “That is terrible. Terrible!” The half ends. Creighton leads 32–29 after being ahead by as many as 10 points. The Bluejays exit the court first, going off the same end of the floor in which the officials will go to get to their locker room.
“OUR JOB IS much harder when the ball doesn’t go in the basket,” Breeding says once the officials are in their quiet confines. Xavier, in particular, struggled, shooting just 36.4 percent from the field and 14.3 percent from three-point range. “It’s going to turn into a free throw contest,” Hampton says. They talk about specific plays, asking themselves if they got the calls right. “You’ve got three guys go up and end up in pile with three bodies lying on the ground,” Breeding says to Hampton. “I was standing there looking at them and saying, Man, I wonder who fouled who here? I was glad you called something.” “Don’t let the post play get rough,” Breeding says. “Keep calling the rebounds and call the fouls on the perimeter.” They talk about the dribble drives by players from both teams. Both coaches complained about illegal screens.
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Honig’s, a sports gear supplier. Riley has been a college official for 24 years.
“The screens that I’ve seen, they didn’t make contact,” Breeding says. “If they make contact, I’ll call them.” Pause. “What else? Any other areas of concern?” Breeding asks. “If this half [the shots] go in, it’s a lot prettier,” Riley says. “Nobody shoots the ball well at 9 o’clock games,” Breeding responds. “Seriously,” Riley says, “you ever had one of those ESPN games at 6 a.m.?” Riley then tells the story of officiating a game at 7 p.m. one night, then having a 6 a.m. game the following morning. It’s rare when something like that occurs. They all cringe at the thought. The good news: It was near Riley’s home and job in New Jersey. “I was in my office at 8:30—for an appearance,” Riley says with a laugh. “I need more games 10 minutes from my house,” Breeding notes. There is a clock in the officials’ locker room. It is counting down at about four minutes. “We’ve got to get out there,” Breeding says.
XAVIER FIGHTS BACK to tie the game less than two-and-a-half minutes into the second half. Creighton coach Greg McDermott is complaining to Riley. After a touch foul on Xavier’s Remy Abell called by Hampton, Mack stands and shakes his head.
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And so it goes throughout the half. Xavier’s Jalen Reynolds gets called for a foul, diving for a loose ball with 14:28 remaining. Mack is visibly and audibly angry. Creighton’s Geoffrey Groselle is called for an offensive foul 26 seconds later when two players get tangled. McDermott takes off his jacket. During a time out with 13:27 remaining, Creighton assistant coach Steve Merfeld spends almost the entire time chewing out Hampton with Riley standing nearby. “He was mad about a foul,” Riley says later. “He was frustrated. He thought Xavier was fouling and didn’t think we were calling the fouls. That’s just coaches.” Come on! Nice work, ref! (sarcastic) Come on, McDermott. If you want to ref, put on a striped shirt. When the officials check the replay monitor to confirm who a foul was on, a fan behind the scorer’s table offers a beer. With less than six minutes to go, Mack is still looking for an illegal screen to be called. “That’s an illegal ball screen!” he shouts at Riley. “Are you kidding me? Are you watching?” The officials have to go to the monitor at least four times in the final minutes. Two police officers stand behind the scorer’s table each time. Most often the officials need to check the game clock and/or shot clock. It gets complicated in the final seconds.
“CRAZY, CRAZY GAME,” Breeding says in the officials’ locker room afterward. The three first talk about the final five minutes of regulation and the overtime, making sure they feel good about their calls during those decisive minutes (they do). “When you make mistakes in the first half or even in the first 30 minutes of the game, teams have more ability to recover,” Breeding says. “The last five minutes are absolutely critical.” “The closer you get to the end, your level of concentration should go up,” Hampton says. “There are decisions on almost every play,” Riley adds. “I don’t think we referee the end any differently than we do the entire game with the exception of the fact that we know if we blow the whistle, we absolutely have got to be right,” Breeding says. They talk about how they have to trust
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y G R E G R U S T
➔ ROB RILEY The 52-year-old from Hamilton, N.J., has a wife and two children and is a sales representative for
Dee Davis made one of two free throws to tie the game at 65 with 35.3 seconds left. The shot clock, however, was not turned off. (Note: College shot clocks don’t show tenths of a second.) “The shot clock does not turn off automatically,” Breeding says. “By rule, we would only instruct the table to turn off the shot clock if the game clock read less than 35.0 seconds. Since it read 35.3, we had to leave it on, not knowing if the shot clock was at 35.0 or somewhere greater since it doesn’t show tenths.” There are turnovers, blocked shots, and missed shots before time expires. We’re going to overtime. Creighton grabs a 71–67 lead. With 2:30 on the clock, Hampton blows his whistle after noticing the shot clock and game clock stopped. The officials have to go to the monitor again and time the replay with a stopwatch. They put 2:11 on the game clock and 24 seconds on the shot clock. Play resumes. The Bluejays pull away and win 79–72. An intentional foul is called on Xavier’s Reynolds with 1.6 seconds left. By that time, most fans at Cintas Center have left. The game ends at 11:50 p.m. There were 11 lead changes and 11 ties.
MAKING THE CALL
each other and how they have to make the obvious calls that are right in front of them. “I’m not looking to go be a hero and call something that’s not in my area,” Breeding says. “I think we did a good job of that tonight.” They review key plays in the game, including some tough out-of-bounds plays at the end of regulation. They talk about the clock malfunction in overtime and the discrepancy between the shot clock and game clock at the end of regulation. “There are a lot of things beyond our control that make the game hard,” Breeding says. They are grateful for the opportunity to review plays and timing on the monitor even though the crowd and coaches seem impatient. The officials would rather make sure the call is right. “Everything we went to the monitor for was confirmed,” Breeding says. The officials all say they don’t take barking from coaches personally, even if it includes some profanity. “We understand it’s their livelihood,” Breeding says. “Those guys are judged on wins and losses so every game is important regardless of what your team is and what your goal is—whether you’re trying to get your second conference win or you’re trying to get an NCAA bid.” Hampton says: “You know it’s not personal; it’s coaching. Part of it is the competitiveness of the game. There’s a lot on the line for both teams.… If it’s a dead ball and they’re just talking, that’s fine. If they start cussing you, that’s different. You get to the point where you know when it’s personal. That’s different.” “If the sentence starts with ‘You’ [followed by an expletive], we’ve got a problem,” Breeding adds. Overall, the officials believe they called a good game. “Until we look at the tape, we’ll never say, ‘We got it,’ ” Breeding says. “Our consensus is that we didn’t miss anything obvious.” Their postgame conversation is dominated by the clock differential at the end of regulation. At 12:12 a.m., Breeding’s cell phone rings. “This is our boss,” Breeding says.
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John Cahill, BIG EAST supervisor of officials, is on the line. He wants to ask about the end of regulation, exactly the topic being discussed. Cahill was at Georgetown University for a game, saw the end of regulation and overtime on TV, and wondered why the shot clock was not turned off. Once it was explained, Cahill understood. “He wasn’t mad,” Breeding says. “He said ‘great job.’ ” Riley gets ice for his knees. They are back to talking about the weather; it snowed outside during the game. By the time the three officials clean up, grab their sandwiches, and walk out of Cintas Center, it’s between 12:45 and 1 a.m., roughly five hours after they have arrived. Hampton gets home to Lexington around 2:15 a.m., does some laundry, and heads to the airport for a 6 a.m. flight out to New Orleans. “I basically laid down for 45 minutes,” he says. He works the Appalachian State at Louisiana-Lafayette game the next night. “I got some sleep on the plane and in New Orleans. The turnaround isn’t always this challenging. Sometimes you have to be creative about getting rest.” Breeding gets back to Louisville around 2:45 a.m. That night he officiates North Texas at Western Kentucky in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Riley drives to Columbus and arrives at his hotel at 2:20 a.m. He wakes up at 4:30 a.m. for a flight to Newark an hour later. Riley also catches some sleep on the plane and when he gets home, so he is wellrested by the time he officiates the Robert Morris at Long Island University game that night. “That was not a typical situation,” Riley says. “We find ways to get plenty of rest before games. But really, once you arrive at an arena for a game, you get recharged. Adrenaline kicks in and you’re ready to go. You know you have to be sharp. “We never want to have an off night. We never want to make excuses. We never want to be a deciding factor in a game. We work hard at it. We’re as passionate about what we do as the players and coaches.”
BEAT THE CLOCK ➔ AFTER OFFICIATING CREIGHTON’S 79–72 overtime victory at Xavier on February 4, 2105, there was one topic that dominated the conversation in the referees’ locker room after the game: the clock. With 35.3 seconds left in regulation, Xavier guard Dee Davis made one of two free throws to tie the game at 65. The 35-second shot clock did not turn off. That meant that technically, the game clock could have expired before the shot clock. Because college shot clocks do not show tenths of a second like the National Basketball Association, it was not possible to know the exact time on the shot clock. “It could, in theory, start at 35.9,” says James Breeding, the head of the night’s officiating crew. “We really started the possession with more time on the shot clock than we did the game clock with no way of knowing that. By rule, we can’t turn [the shot clock] off unless it’s below 35.” When Musketeers forward Jalen Reynolds blocked a layup by Creighton guard Devin Brooks and the ball went out of bounds, there were 1.8 seconds on the game clock and 2.0 seconds on the shot clock. If Creighton would have then made a shot after the buzzer sounded, it still would have been good according to the shot clock. One coach certainly would argue the shot counted; the other that it should not. Both would have a reasonable argument. Creighton ended up turning the ball over. Then so did Xavier. There was no last-second shot. Much to the relief of the officials. If there is a game-winning shot at 0.2, “We’re dead,” official Brent Hampton says. “We don’t have an answer for you.” “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good,” Breeding says. Just as they discussed calls in other games before their tipoff, the referees expected their game and the clock issue would be a topic in officials’ locker rooms all over the country for at least a few days. “No one made a mistake,” Breeding says. “The [scorer’s] table was awesome. They were spot on. It’s just a fluke.” —M.P.
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[ MAKINDÉ LONDON ]
DIARY OF A
REDSHIRT BY // RORY GLYNN PHOTOGRAPHS BY // GREG RUST
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THE DECISION MADE ALL THE SENSE IN THE WORLD. BUT THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT EASY. MAKINDÉ LONDON WOULD REDSHIRT HIS FIRST YEAR AT XAVIER. XavierNationMagazine.com
I
T WAS IN HIS BEST INTEREST.
He could spend a year getting physically stronger, which everyone agreed he needed to do. He could spend a year learning his role in Xavier’s offense and defense without taking pop quizzes in front of 10,250 people. He could spend a year learning Xavier, how to be a college student. And he could spend a year down the road playing big minutes and maximizing his gifts, instead of fighting for minutes here and there on a team well-stocked with big men. It was in Xavier’s best interest, for the same reasons. “It wasn’t a difficult decision in our coaching staff’s minds, but it’s still a hard thing [for the player],” says head coach Chris Mack. “So many kids, when they hear redshirt, tie into that, ‘Am I not good enough to play at this level?’ ”
THE DECISION It was in late October, London recalls, that he and Mack sat down to dinner and Mack brought up the topic of redshirting. Recalling the meeting months later, Mack says, “What we wanted Makindé to understand is it’s not a good-enough question; it’s a ready-enough question.” That’s largely because the Makindé seated across the table from Mack was not the same Makindé who first became a college basketball prospect. That Makindé was a 6-foot-1 guard; this version had grown nearly nine inches in little more than two years. That made London a tantalizing package of guard-worthy potential at a big man’s altitude. But the rest of his body hadn’t caught up yet. “The simple fact is, his development is delayed,” Mack says. “Even though he has amazing potential, it’s just not ready to manifest itself into being an impact player for us this year. I wouldn’t want to trade that first year, where he’s probably not going to see much playing time, for a fifth year, when he might be one of the best players in our conference.” Says London: “We talked about the pros and cons, and really the only con was not being able to play this year. It seemed idiotic not to think about the big picture. It was tough at first to sit there and put my ego aside.” But thinking about the big picture isn’t always easy when you’re 18 and every fall and winter have included playing in basketball games. As a developmental redshirt, London would be able to practice and travel with the team. But at tipoff, once the ball went up, he would sit down. “I felt like I could play,” he says. “But I had to focus on what was better for myself and better for the team.”
MUSKETEER MADNESS Makindé London was not shy about introducing himself to the Xavier fans at the team’s preseason event at Cintas Center.
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BUILDING BLOCKS Makindé London is from Nashville, but played his last year of high school ball at Montverde Academy in Montverde, Florida, where his team went 28–0 and won the national championship. He averaged 5.7 points and 2.8 rebounds for Montverde.
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THE PRESEASON Because his freshman year coincided with Xavier’s offseason trip to Brazil, London was able to play in four games in August. He saw double-figure minutes in each, scoring 10 points and grabbing five rebounds in 16 minutes in an 81–53 victory against Macae. But the Brazil trip was about much more than basketball. It was a chance to bond with his new teammates. “We had six freshmen coming in, and we didn’t know the older guys, and really ourselves,” London says. “We couldn’t put a face with a name. But that made our bond right there. It was sort of like soliders, where you come from all over the country and you’re thrown together on the battlefield. Except we weren’t on the battlefield; we were in paradise.” His favorite memory: watching the sun come up with fellow freshman J.P. Macura from the beach across from Xavier’s hotel. London’s other preseason highlight came during October’s Musketeer Mad-
ness. He juggled three basketballs while jogging toward the rim, and then dunked two of them. He earned a draw with Jalen Reynolds for the dunk contest crown. “I knew I was going to have to come up with something special to compete with Jalen,” says London, who learned to juggle as a kid in an afterschool program. As the promise of the preseason eventually gave way to the routine of the season, London adjusted to college life better than most; he had spent his senior year of high school away from home at Montverde Academy, a college preparatory school about 25 miles west of Orlando. “It’s a different environment, not being in your parents’ keep,” London says. “A lot of people, you go through elementary school, high school, you’re in that same environment. You just have to be able to adapt, make new friends, be social. I didn’t really get to go home that often. “Being away from home was stressful at times, and I could see a lot of the things that I was going through when I first got to Montverde in my [Xavier freshman] teammates, being homesick...I definitely felt like I could help those guys out, how I found my way through it.” Academically challenged at Montverde, London transitioned well to the rigors of Xavier, balancing his classes and coursework with practices and workouts. He would earn a 3.0 grade-point average for his first college semester, freeing him of studytable obligations, and he didn’t get less than a B on any of his finals. “It wasn’t as big an eye-opening experience as it was for some of my other teammates,” he says. “You just have to learn to attack every day, from the court to the weight room to the books, just having that mentality of taking no days off.”
THE REGULAR SEASON Everything was fine as long as the Musketeers were winning, and they started 5–0, then rebounded from two losses at the Wooden Legacy tournament in southern California with three straight wins, two over Southeastern Conference teams in Alabama and Missouri.
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But a double-overtime loss just before Christmas—by a point, to a third SEC team, Auburn—stuck with London. His father, Robert, helped cheer him on the drive back to their Nashville home for the holiday break—“He’s a good dude,” London says—but still, when he got home, the loss lingered. He didn’t tell any of his friends he was home for a few days. Then in January, the Musketeers dropped their first four BIG EAST road games, and London could only watch. That’s when only watching got harder. “I’ve become addicted to winning,” says London, whose Montverde team, which also featured Ohio State All-American D’Angelo Russell, went unbeaten in his senior year. “Losing just hurts. And then sitting there and not being able to contribute. ... That’s why I give my all whenever I’m on the sidelines, encouraging my teammates.” Mack knows well the feeling of helplessness in sitting out. He sat out a season after transferring from Evansville to Xavier, then sat out the next one when he tore up his knee eight seconds into the Musketeers’ first exhibition game. “There are going to be times where guys are talking about experiences in the game, and you’re going to sort of feel left out,” Mack says. “You’re going to feel at times like you’re not part of the team. There’s really nothing that can be done about that, other than to prepare for it. “We certainly value Makindé. His teammates value Makindé. At the end of the day, it’s still hard, when you’ve played basketball virtually your whole life, and now you’re not.” Texts of encouragement from Montverde teammates helped; six of them, including Russell, went on to Division I college basketball. And if there was any silver lining to the knee tendinitis that sidelined fellow Xavier freshman Edmond Sumner, it was that London wasn’t alone anymore in redshirting. London tried to fill the void by challenging himself to competitions of sorts. He kept a journal, and each day he’d write a specific thing he wanted to work
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on in practice: holding his seal when boxing out on a rebound. Staying in defensive stance for an entire possession. Holding the follow through on his jump shot. Being more aggressive. To reinforce his messages, he wrote them on a white board in his dorm room as well. The work London did in the weight room was just as important. Under the guidance of strength coach Matt Jennings, he began adding some muscle weight. By his count, “maybe 200, soaking wet” when he arrived at Xavier, London was up to 218 pounds by midseason; he improved his reps bench-pressing 185 pounds from one to eight, and pull-ups from six to 18. “Coach Jennings, he looks after you like a son or a brother,” London says.
THE POSTSEASON The BIG EAST Championship is a staple of basketball’s Mecca, Madison Square Garden. Not many get to play there at all. Fewer still play there before college. London did. He and his Montverde teammates beat Oak Hill Academy there in the championship game of the Dick’s Sporting Goods High School National Tournament. “You can really feel the energy there,” he says. “It’s a great environment.” The postseason, London says, is all about energy. “There’s a lot to play for in the regular season,” he says, “but in the postseason, that urgency, that intensity, from the starters to the guys on the bench to the managers, everybody feels it.” With multiple possible matchups and less turnaround time between games in March, London took seriously his role in helping the Musketeers prepare. “That’s part of doing your teammates justice,” he says. “Your teammates trust that you know what to do. You could just throw [the scouting report] on the nightstand and forget about it, but that’s where that trust comes in.” After a runner-up finish to Villanova at the BIG EAST tournament, XU was sent to the West Region and played its first two games, victories over Mississippi and
Georgia State, in Jacksonville, Florida. To be sure, it was a business trip, but there was some fun to be had. Especially with a pool table in the hotel. “Some of the managers are really good,” London says. “Remy [Abell], he can rack ’em.” But who was best? “I don’t want to toot my own horn,” London says, “but I’m a force to be reckoned with.” For the Sweet 16, it was out to another storied basketball building, the Staples Center in Los Angeles. For the Musketeers’ matchup with Arizona, London took a familiar spot on the bench, always between forwards Kevin Coker and Tim Stainbrook. “My road dogs,” he says. XU battled hard but fell 68–60. And the redshirt season was over.
EPILOGUE When Mack first broached the subject of redshirting to London, he had an example in mind: Derrick Brown. By his fifth year in the program, Brown developed into a second-round NBA draft pick. “Ironically, I had shown Makindé Derrick’s development in a DVD we had put together during his recruiting visit,” Mack says, “not because we had grand plans of redshirting him at the time, but just the growth Derrick had as a player during his career. We left it up to Makindé, but that was the example we showed him.” Like many in Division I basketball, London, too, dreams of the NBA. But he’s also committed to getting everything he can from his Xavier experience. “I just want to play basketball at the highest level I can,” he says, “but I also want to maximize my time at school. I know a lot of people aren’t given the things that I’ve been given, and I’m grateful for it. I want to put those talents to good use.” London will get his chance to play next season. And he thinks that difficult decision he made will help him. “Everybody has a different path,” he says. “What are you going to do to make yours better? That’s what this [year] has been about—working every day to make my path better.”
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SELECT COMPANY Andy Fleming has coached Xavier to NCAA tournament appearances in four of the past five seasons, including a trip to the program’s first-ever Sweet 16 in 2014. The Musketeers are just one of 19 programs nationally to appear in four of the past five NCAAs. PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG COCHRAN
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SPOTLIGHT ANDY FLEMING
MORE THAN A GAME
COACH ANDY FLEMING IS DRIVING XU MEN’S SOCCER TO A NATIONAL PROFILE AND TEACHING HIS PLAYERS IMPORTANT LIFE LESSONS ALONG THE WAY.
BY // BILL THOMPSON
SUCCESS CAN BE MEASURED IN MULTIPLE WAYS. In sports, it’s usually by the numbers. Here are some that coach Andy Fleming’s Xavier men’s soccer team posted in 2014: 15, the school record for wins (the Musketeers advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, the school’s best performance ever); 11 shutouts in 23 games—the team did not allow a goal in regulation from September 7 to October 7 (723 minutes, 25 seconds); three goals allowed in 11 BIG EAST games, including the conference tournament; and 3.44, the top grade-point average for private Division I men’s soccer programs in the nation.
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— M AT T H I L L
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mandate was clear, but it would take hard work and patience to turn boys into men. “The first practice I had here was at 10 a.m.,” Fleming says. “I get on the field at 9:58 and nobody’s there. They weren’t on time, they had different clothes on, and they just stood there when they did come out. I literally had to teach them how to get dressed the same way, come to practice on time, things like that. “That first year, when everybody registered for classes on time, we celebrated that.” Small victories lead to bigger ones, but it can take time. Xavier started the Fleming era 0–2–2, with zero goals scored in the four matches. The team was decimated by injuries during the 10 days from the first exhibition game to the regular-season opener. Fleming began his first year as a
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y G R E G R U S T
“HE BRINGS IN 17-, 18-, 19-YEAR OLD KIDS AND TURNS THEM INTO MEN BY THE TIME THEY LEAVE XAVIER UNIVERSITY.”
As impressive as those numbers are (and the ones from his first four seasons are impressive as well), it’s the impact that Fleming has made on the program, on the lives of his players and coaches, and on his own family that might be hard to quantify, but easy to prove. “He sees [college] as four extremely formative years,” says Matt Hill, a senior defenseman from Sycamore High School, who finished his career last season and is headed to Boston College for grad school. “He brings in 17-, 18-, 19-year-old kids and turns them into men by the time they leave Xavier University.” Fleming, a Massachusetts native, spent eight years as an assistant at Boston University and three at Northwestern before he was hired after the 2009 season. The Musketeers won two games that year. His
SPOTLIGHT ANDY FLEMING
XAVIER’S MLS CONNECTIONS
LUKE SPENCER (2012 SENIOR SEASON) 23rd overall draft pick by New England Revolution in 2013. Winton Woods High School grad tore his ACL during training camp before rookie season. Retired after four knee surgeries.
P H OT O G R A P H C O U R T E S Y T H E F L E M I N G FA M I LY
CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES (Opposite) The Musketeers celebrate a goal against the University of Cincinnati. Xavier beat the Bearcats 3-0 in front of a school-record crowd for soccer of 2,178. (Above) Andy and Amy Fleming, middle, with their children, from left, Braden, Fiona, Devin and Quinlan.
head coach with 12 healthy players. “My son [Braden] gets baptized in September, my family comes out, and my brother and I are at dinner,” Fleming says. “He says, ‘How you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m good, Chris.’ He said, ‘You seem good, but I can’t believe it. You’re the most competitive guy I know, I thought you would be going crazy.’ “I said, ‘Chris, we have great guys, we got rid of the problems, practices are good, guys work hard, I like the staff, I love Xavier. Everything that we’re in control of, we’re doing a good job.’ ” That period was a testament to Fleming’s experience and his relationship with mentors Neil Roberts, the coach at BU, and Jerry Yeagley, the longtime coach at Indiana. Fleming still turns to them, but they especially helped keep him calm during the
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dark days of that first season. “Fast forward to the end of the year,” Fleming says. “We win four of our final six, we sneak into the Atlantic 10 tournament as the bottom seed. Then we win Thursday night, Friday night, and Sunday, three games in four days. We win the championship and the lightning stayed in the bottle. “We were just trying to win more than two games, get everybody to practice on time. I look back on that day [when Xavier beat Fordham in the regular-season finale to make the league tournament]; that was a great day.” Fleming gives much of the credit for the program’s early success and continued progress to Kris Bertsch, former associate head coach who left in February for Louisville. The New Jersey native was lured from Syracuse to the Midwest as Fleming’s first hire.
NICK HAGGLUND (2013) 10th overall draft pick by Toronto FC in 2014. Lakota West High School grad played in 25 games as a rookie and scored two goals for Toronto, which finished seventh in the 10-team Eastern Conference. MATT WALKER (2013) Signed by Columbus Crew in 2014. Batavia High School grad was loaned to the Crew’s Dayton Dutch Lions affiliate for the 2014 season. ERIC OSSWALD (2014) Made his professional debut for Salt Lake City’s Real Monarchs (USL) in April. WILL WALKER (2014) Has had tryouts with several teams and could be invited to a training camp.
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“He told me when I was at UConn he wanted to hire me,” Bertsch says. “I asked how that was possible because I didn’t know who he was. I only kind of learned about him a month before he got the [Xavier] job.” Bertsch might not have known Fleming, but Fleming saw himself in Bertsch. “My whole thing as an assistant coach was envisioning what my program would look like, what type of school it would be at, and who I would hire,” Fleming says. “I would always carry a list of guys, whether I met them at a camp or recruiting. “I finally met him in December 2009 on the sideline in Arizona watching a game. I talked to him for about a half hour and he was just one of those people that you feel like you knew [forever].” Fleming and Bertsch turned the program around in just one season. Optimism reigned as spring practice began. The upcoming season would include the arrival of their first full recruiting class, and Fleming and his wife, Amy, were expecting their second child. Fleming’s patience was rewarded that
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first season when he controlled everything he could. But sometimes, life surprises people. Amy went into labor 12 days early and delivered the couple’s daughter, Devin, who was born with Down syndrome. “We’re not from here; we’re on an island, with no family around,” Fleming says, recounting the day Devin was born. “Next day, I come in to have a meeting with the team to tell them what happened. Then I come back to my office and I look out the door and there’s a player standing there. “Then I get up and look out the hallway and there’s a line of them down the hallway. These kids are coming in one by one—19 years old some of them—telling me why I’m going to do a great job at this, how I’m ready to do this, some of the things I’ve helped them overcome and why I was picked to do this.” Kyle Martin wasn’t one of the players in the hallway that day. The junior midfielder from Missouri didn’t arrive until 2012. But one of the reasons he chose Xavier was Fleming’s emphasis on the program as family. “Things aren’t always going to go your
way, and you have to be prepared for the next thing in life,” Martin says. “It speaks volumes about how much he is able to handle. He wants to make sure that we have the best experience from a soccer standpoint, but also growing up. “He does a great job of preparing us for all aspects [of life]. We’re all here if he ever needs anything, but more often he’s always there to help us.” The spring of 2011 was not an easy time for Fleming, for Amy, or for the team. “I was trying to get work done for the fall, but I was emotionally exhausted,” Fleming says. “I lost about 20 pounds. I told the guys, ‘I don’t know what I have in the tank for this fall; you guys are going to have to carry it.’ ” Bertsch and the players were up to the challenge. And of course, so was Fleming. He didn’t sit back and watch, although maybe he could have, since the team had learned how to do things the Xavier Way in just a year. “I came in as a freshman,” Hill says. “There was a lot of pressure after the pro-
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P H OT O G R A P H C O U R T E S Y B I G E A S T C O N F E R E N C E
TEAM TOGETHERNESS Xavier huddles up before facing Georgetown at the BIG EAST Championship in Philadelphia.
SPOTLIGHT ANDY FLEMING
P H OT O G R A P H S ( T O P) C O U R T E S Y B I G E A S T C O N F E R E N C E ; (B O T T O M) B Y D O U G C O C H R A N
GETTING THEIR KICKS (Top) Eric Osswald takes a goal kick at the BIG EAST Championship in Philadelphia in a game at the home of the Philadelphia Union; (bottom) Will Walker is on the move during the firstever NCAA tournament home game at Xavier Soccer Complex. Xavier defeated Monmouth 2–1.
gram had done a full 180 [degree turnaround]. We were a championship program now.” The regular season came down to the final game again. Xavier tied Dayton, the team had a tailgate party, and the seniors gave their speeches because they thought their careers were over. “The next day, there were a couple more A-10 games, the tiebreaker went our way, and we’re in the [league] tournament again,” Fleming says, his voice cracking as he recalls the events. “We beat Charlotte, who is No. 6 in the country, and who got to the national championship game that year. “We win the [A-10 tournament] trophy and the guys start screaming, ‘This was for Devin, the trophy’s for Devin.’ ” Fleming is barely able to finish the story before wiping his eyes. The fact that the Musketeers lost to West Virginia in the first round of the NCAA tournament for the second straight year doesn’t matter now. That was when he discovered that the years of work paid off. He built a soccer program that was about so much more than soccer.
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“I personally feel that Devin came to us because Andrew is the coach of a men’s soccer team,” says Amy Fleming, who is now the mother of two more girls: Quinlan, 2, and Fiona, 8 months. “For those kids [the Xavier players] to grow up and see how we’re parenting Devin and how things in life happen.... We didn’t expect this, we didn’t know this was happening,” she says. “But she has taught us so much and I think she has taught the guys so much.” It took Fleming, who was named Ohio Collegiate Soccer Coach of the Year for 2014, longer than he thought to become a head coach. His accomplishments have raised his national profile and it would be naïve to think that bigger schools with more resources haven’t or won’t make a run at him. Amy admits to missing her family back east. But she says she has truly grown to love Cincinnati and it would be hard to leave. And Fleming won’t say never, but… “Every time other jobs come up, or what does that [career] road map look like, or what’s the big picture goal here, Devin’s well-being and Devin’s quality of life trump a lot of that,” he says. “One thing that’s interesting is this is considered to be the best place in the country to live with a special needs child. “Sometimes you wonder how things all come together or why things happen, and I think there’s something funny about that.” He’s right. You can only control so much.
FLEMING BY THE NUMBERS 61–28–17 (.656) // Record in five seasons at Xavier. Winningest coach in school history by wins and percentage 2 // Atlantic 10 tournament championships (2010, 2011) 4 // NCAA tournament appearances (in five seasons) 15 // School-record number of wins (2014) 9 // Tied for highest poll ranking (2012, 2014)
5 THINGS
YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT ANDY FLEMING
1
He deeply regrets not serving in the military. “I think about it often and the honor that it carries. This might be the only ‘what if’ in my life.”
2
He spoke at a rehearsal dinner in Dallas for a close friend’s wedding in 2000. “I was introduced to Ross Perot, who told me he thought I was a great speaker and leader, and wanted to put me in touch with some prominent military people. I declined the offer, perhaps too young to appreciate what he saw in me.”
3
He is an avid reader, but like most parents of young kids, is sad that he doesn’t have more time to read. “I savor the long bus rides for the time to catch up on books.”
4
He is a big college basketball fan. “I have used connections to see Duke, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Florida, and other top teams practice. I enjoy seeing the personalities of programs and the teaching styles employed by their coaches.”
5
He doesn’t have a big social life. “I am obsessed with my yard, but I rarely do anything without my family during free time.”
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CENTER S T
HE CHANGES COMING TO CINTAS CENTER WILL ENHANCE THE experience for fans and players—as if Xavier games could be any more exciting—and ensure that Cintas Center remains one of the premier basketball venues in the country for years to come. It’s all part of a seven-year, nearly $25 million renovation of the important Xavier landmark, a makeover that’s well underway, as fans discovered this past season. If you liked the new D’Artagnan’s Deck and the skyline silhouette on the court, you’ll love what’s coming next. Already this school year, $450,000 in improvements have been completed at the 10,250seat arena, including new premium seating at courtside and on the bridge outside the banquet rooms, a “fueling station” in the weight room, and a modernized point-of-sale system at all concession stands. That’s just the beginning of a panoply of renovations and improvements to be staged over the next seven years. For the fans, the makeover will create a more welcoming experience, or “sense of arrival,” as they head to the game. New signage. New lighting. Redesigned concourses.
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CINTAS CENTER.
Other improvements will target the game experience itself. New club seats and party suites. A redesigned, more fan-friendly Joseph Club. New hospitality areas. Cup holders! For student-athletes from all 18 of Xavier’s sports teams—not just basketball and volleyball—the renovation will bring major expansions of practice courts, locker rooms, strength and conditioning facilities, plus a consolidation of academic tutoring space and study halls in one locale. And the entire building—including the Schiff Conference Center and James & Caroline Duff Banquet Center—will benefit from significant technical upgrades and structural improvements.
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y P H I L G R O S H O N G
BIG CHANGES ARE COMING TO
R STAGE BY // SUE VONDERHAAR
Xavier Athletics Director Greg Christopher said that while the nearly $25 million expenditure will include a portion of the revenue from the BIG EAST/FOX-TV, the largest portion of the funding will come from private-gift fundraising. Already more than $10 million in commitments have been secured from donors, he says, including a generous leadership gift from Robert J. Kohlhepp, chairman of Cintas Corporation and a former chair of Xavier University’s Board of Trustees. “Bob and his wife, Linda, have provided a gift that will provide resources for numerous projects in coming years,” Christopher says, “and will also create a permanent endowment to ensure the upkeep of Xavier’s
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most visible and most trafficked building.” Kohlhepp, who received his MBA from Xavier in 1971, is an avid supporter of Xavier athletics. He was a major force behind the creation of Cintas Center, and his name graces the Kohlhepp Family Auxiliary Gym in the center. “Cintas Center is Xavier’s front porch,” Kohlhepp says, “and making sure it is in top condition for the next two decades is one of my top priorities. Xavier has been an important part of our lives, and Linda and I are happy to be a part of its long-term success.”
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Constructed at a cost of $46 million, the state-of-the-art Cintas Center opened in the fall of 2000, thanks to private donations raised as part of XU’s Century Campaign. For years, it ranked among the best in the region. But after 15 years, it has started to show its age around the edges. Christopher likens it to watching a new house begin to age. “The first 10 years,” he says, “you don’t have to do anything to the house. It’s all brand new. But after that, you need to start making fixes and repairs. And you want to modernize it, too.” Cintas Center is approaching middle age now, he says, which means some things have to be fixed or replaced. And it needs some updates to keep up with changing tastes and needs. If you built a new arena today, Christopher explains, it would offer some new and different features. For instance, where suites were the only option 15 years ago, there is greater interest these days in club seating, like the Reds’ Diamond Club section at Great American Ball Park. And craft-beer decks have started to replace traditional concession stands. Perhaps more pressing, though, is the need for new technology. Cintas is not HD-compatible, Christopher says, and
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its developers back in 2000 could not have envisioned thousands of students using smartphones at the same time during a basketball game. So technical upgrades, including more robust WiFi and enhanced LED video boards, are a big priority. This project won’t be disruptive, though. Not like the University of Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium renovation, which forced UC to play last fall’s home football games at Paul Brown Stadium during construction. “We won’t close it and start from scratch,” Christopher says. Instead, each November for the next few seasons, fans will return to Cintas Center and find new features and improvements. But fans shouldn’t come back expecting anything like a mammoth Staples Center. “Our intent is not to add capacity,” Christopher says. “Cintas Center is already a terrific venue for basketball and other events, and it’s an important homecourt advantage.” Indeed, Cintas Center ranks as one of the country’s toughest venues for visiting teams, and the university wants to ensure that reputation endures. During the first 15 seasons at Cintas, the men’s basketball team has compiled a 201–30 home record, thanks in large part to a packed arena every game and the Musketeers’ frenzied following.
“Cintas Center provides us with a tremendous home-court advantage,” says Chris Mack, Xavier men’s basketball head coach, “and it’s one of the nation’s best on-campus arenas. The improvements at Cintas Center will continue to enhance an already exciting atmosphere and fan experience.” Attendance at Cintas Center now exceeds 2.3 million fans for men’s basketball, and the Musketeers have averaged 10,013 fans for the 231 games played inside the arena since it opened (including 126 sellouts). That’s 97.7 percent capacity. “I’d much rather have a smaller arena with a great atmosphere,” Christopher says, “than a huge impersonal facility. We don’t want to weaken that home-court advantage.” When Christopher joined XU two years ago, his first priority was to develop a strategic plan for Xavier athletics. The Musketeers were about to join the BIG EAST, and the men’s basketball team was enjoying increasing success in the NCAA Tournament. This season was no exception. Since 2000, every freshman class has been a part of a run to the Sweet 16. Christopher and his staff recognized that Cintas Center building, while in need of updating, was a key strategic re-
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RENDERING COURTESY MSA ARCHITECTS
WORKIN’ OUT A concept rendering of a new weight room facility for Xavier student-athletes.
RENDERINGS COURTESY ROSSET TI
THE RESULTING MASTER PLAN WAS BROKEN INTO FOUR MAJOR “BUCKET LISTS” OF PROJECTS ROUGHLY CORRESPONDING TO: 1) FAN EXPERIENCE 2) TEAM AND STUDENT-ATHLETE IMPACT 3) FACILITY PRIORITIES 4) LOOK AND FEEL source for the university—and not just for the home-court advantage. Unlike other schools, such as Georgetown, which pays rent to use Washington, D.C.’s Verizon Center, the Musketeers play on their own campus in their own house. So not only does Xavier have that special on-campus advantage, it also gets to keep the revenue from sports, concerts, banquets, and other Cintas Center events. It costs roughly $500,000 a year to maintain and operate Cintas Center, Christopher says, and thanks to basketball revenue and the standalone conference center, it essentially breaks even. Christopher’s staff also saw a need to improve the facilities for Xavier’s studentathletes. Cintas Center originally was designed only for basketball and volleyball, he says, but now, 18 different XU teams use its facilities for various purposes, including practice courts, strength and conditioning, and training. A big goal of the renovation, he says, was to expand those facilities. Another goal, he says, was to consolidate the academic-support program. Right now, study halls and tutoring are spread out across campus. But when Cintas Center expansion is complete, all of those programs will be concentrated in one place within the center.
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To devise a master plan for the renovation and expansion, Xavier turned to Detroit-based Rossetti, a leading architectural and design firm in the sports industry. Rossetti was asked to evaluate the aging center’s needs and explore renovating Cintas with two primary objectives: 1) maximize fan experience and explore untapped revenue ideas; 2) make the most effective use of space dedicated to student-athlete practice, training, and academic support. The resulting master plan was broken into four major “bucket lists” of projects roughly corresponding to: Fan Experience, Team and Student-Athlete Impact, Facility Priorities, Look and Feel. Over the next seven years, individual projects within each of those broad categories will be prioritized to coincide with available funding and cash flow. And while Rossetti handles the big picture, a Cincinnati firm, Michael Schuster and Associates, will help turn the vision into reality. Already in the works for next season are plans to convert the old Hoff studentdining hall into the new student-athlete academic area, where players will find new tutoring rooms, a computer lab, and study halls. Also, the first floor of Cintas Center soon will include a build-out on the north end to allow for brand-new strength and
conditioning facilities and an expanded sports medicine area. Both spaces will almost double in size. “I’m especially excited,” Mack says, “about the planned improvements to our strength and conditioning area, training room, locker room, and academic facilities and resources. All of these improvements positively impact our recruiting and our ability to develop student-athletes to compete at the highest level.” Once those projects are completed, the Joseph Club will be redesigned. That project entails removing the glass wall, lowering the counter to loge height, and adding loge seats. Also high on the list for next season: making Cintas Center HD-compatible and resolving the center’s WiFi shortcomings. In addition, more club-seating options will be addressed. After that, fans and players can expect a steady stream of surprises each fall for years to come.
FUN SPOTS (Above, left) A concept rendering of what a Courtside Club might look like; (above, right) A concept rendering of a potential design for the Joseph Club on the main concourse.
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The Class that Matters
P H OT O G R A P H B Y WAY N E D O E B L I N G
WINNING SMILES (From left) John Shimko, Dexter Bailey, coach Bob Staak, Jeff Jenkins and Victor Fleming pose with the Blackburn/McCafferty Trophy after a victory over Dayton.
1980 FRESHMEN GAVE THE MUSKETEERS A HIGHER-PROFILE IMAGE. BY // RODNEY McKISSIC all them simply “The Class”—Dexter Bailey, Victor Fleming, Jeff Jenkins, and John Shimko. There was talk in the late ’70s of deemphasizing Xavier’s basketball program, perhaps even dropping to Division III, but that was before the hiring of Penn assistant coach Bob Staak, fresh off a Final Four appearance in 1979. After Staak went a disappointing 8–18 in his first season, The Class arrived on campus in 1980. As freshmen they dropped hints of things to come—the Musketeers captured the Midwestern City Conference regular-season championship in just their second season in the league—then suffered through the requisite growing
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pains as sophomores while finishing with an 8–20 mark. But as juniors—along with senior Anthony Hicks, who was Staak’s first recruit—they won 22 games and reached the 1983 NCAA Tournament, the program’s second NCAA berth in school history. The following season, the Musketeers added 21 more victories and advanced to the quarterfinals of the National Invitation Tournament. The Class transformed the program from one with regional appeal to national curiosity while never abandoning its provincial roots. Assistant coach Wayne Morgan—a Brooklyn native who peddled a dream and playing time—cleared a path into New York with the signing of Flem-
ing, who lived in the Queensbridge Housing projects in Long Island City. Fleming would peek out of his bedroom window and often find Richie Harris peering back at him. “Whatever Victor was going to do,” says Harris, who followed Fleming to Xavier in 1981, “I was going to do.” Bailey was a local product who Ohio State coach Ralph Miller wanted to pair with All-American forward Clark Kellogg. Jenkins was a star in New Jersey, while Shimko was an all-stater out of Cleveland. The Class was a prelude to the signing in 1984 of a player whose brother, Barry, was helping Michigan win Big Ten baseball titles and whose mother was the mayor of Silverton: Byron Larkin, still the school’s career scoring leader. “When those guys were seniors and they beat Nebraska and Ohio State in the NIT, I was there for those games,” Larkin
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says. “That was a time when I was trying to make my decision. I went to the Cincinnati Gardens, and it was electric. People were going crazy, and those guys were kicking butt. I wanted to be a part of that. It’s what they accomplished that helped me want to go to Xavier. That and Wayne, who was relentless in recruiting me. Everywhere I played, he was there. I walked to go to the bathroom and there he was, ‘Hey, what’s up B?’ He forged a relationship with me that I couldn’t say no to.” On the 35th anniversary of their signing, Xavier Nation asked some of the key people to reflect on how The Class was assembled and the ways in which it propelled Xavier into one of the more respected programs in the country.
BAILEY: “We wanted to come to a school to help build a program. Everyone knew that Xavier at the time wasn’t at a high level, but we wanted in and we wanted to be part of a good program and help them build. All of us could have gone to other schools that were already established.” STAAK: “My contacts were always in the East: New York, New England, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and we primarily tried to concentrate in those areas along with doing our homework in the tri-state area of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. We really looked at two key guys in the metropolitan New York area in Jeff Jenkins and Victor Fleming, and we got John Shimko from Cleveland. The last guy we got in the class was Dexter Bailey, who was Player of the Year in Ohio. The last couple of weeks we were recruiting him it was between us and Ohio State head-to-head.” BAILEY: “I remember Coach Miller at Ohio State said to me, ‘How could you do this?’ It was like a given that I would go to Ohio State and it was probably a step back in his eyes. They had [Kelvin] Ransey, Kellogg, and Carter Scott; they had a pretty good squad. Coach Staak really sold
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the program and I got a lot of letters from alums and there was pressure to stay home quite naturally.” MORGAN: “We were playing Cleveland State and lost by about 35 points and I kinda said, ‘I’m going home and I’m not coming back until I get these guys.’ I would literally go home and stay in New York for two weeks—I would stay in my mother’s house—and I would go see Jeff and Vic every day. When I was in Cincinnati I made sure to talk to them every day, even if the conversation was, ‘Hey, how is everything going? Did you have a good day? OK, bye.’” STAAK: “Wayne had a great impact. He was from Brooklyn and I knew him from Dartmouth, where he was an assistant. I always had great respect for his recruiting ability and his basketball ability as well. He was very influential in recruiting Victor and Jeff in particular, and certainly some of the guys we got later on like Ralph Lee and Eddie Johnson. Wayne and I had a great blend on what he was about and what I was about and we sold a good situation to the players we recruited.” MORGAN: “I had a good relationship with Jeff and thought unless Kentucky came in or something like that, he was coming to Xavier. Victor was very competitive because Syracuse was after him, St. John’s was after him, a bunch of schools were after him. His brother, Vern, had signed with Georgia and I happened to go over to his house that night and everyone was celebrating and happy. I said to Vic, ‘Everyone is really happy, you should just come to Xavier. This should be over. I mean, where else would you go?’ All of the sudden his mother said, ‘Yeah, you should go to Xavier,’ and his girlfriend said, ‘Yeah, you should go away, you should go to Xavier.’ Everyone in his family said he should go to Xavier and he said, ‘Alright, alright, I’ll go to Xavier.’ ’’ HARRIS: “If it wasn’t for Victor, I would have gone to St. John’s or Marquette;
that’s where I was looking. When you look at someone you respect who committed the context of which you view a school is different. When I knew that Vic was there, I stopped and listened. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done that. I would have been like, ‘Who? Where? Are you kidding me? Are you serious?’ Then Coach Morgan comes in, the quintessential coach/ salesman, and he wasn’t selling basketball per se, he was selling life changes and development.” MORGAN: “The night we signed Victor and Jeff, Bob came to New York and we went and signed Victor first. It was like 10 inches of rain in New York and New Jersey and we paddled over to New Jersey and signed Jeff. Then Bob called somebody and they told him that they actually interrupted the news and announced that Xavier University had signed Dexter, Victor, and Jeff. It was a big thing. Xavier really wasn’t on the map at all before Bob got there.” BAILEY: “I think a lot of times when people think when it got started they always think toward Pete Gillen. But it was Bob Staak and the athletic department to get the right people in place. To have everyone in the class get drafted was something special. It was a blessing and something I’ll always remember.” STAAK: “We always thought that each one of them would be very good players in their own right, and they were. All four were drafted by the NBA and they all contributed very heavily. We thought they were going to be good players and they turned out to be.” HARRIS: “Byron had the option of choosing from a lot more high-profile schools and had a bunch of offers. But Byron came by during the summer and played with us before he committed.” MORGAN: [Laughs] “The last gift I gave to Xavier was Byron Larkin.”
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The Visionar y Xavie r Natio n aske d 79-y ear-o ld Bill Dail y—re tired faculty mem ber, form er athle tic boar d chair, Hall of Fam er, and one of the unsu ng hero es of the athle tic prog ram—to reco unt the beginnin g of the succ essf ul men’s basketba ll prog ram. AS TOLD TO // BOB JONASON
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y M A RY B E T H B R U N S
MUSKETEER FOR LIFE: Bill Daily was a Xavier student who was cut from the basketball team as a freshman, then later became an assistant basketball coach for Don Ruberg and a freshman coach for George Krajack. He was chairman of Xavier’s Athletic Board from 1975-84.
or athletics to be successful at Xavier, I believed the men’s basketball program had to be at the cornerstone of our efforts, even though the program had experienced only one winning season in 10 previous years. In the late 1970s, I was chair of the athletic board. We spent considerable time developing six goals that showed our commitment to a strong, winning basketball program. They had always been our goals, but I wanted the board to make a definitive public statement, so in February 1979 we outlined them in a press release:
P H OT O G R A P H B Y M A RY B E T H B R U N S
1. There is a definite commitment to winning at the Division I level. By “winning,” the committee means a program that, at the end of three years, is winning 75 percent of its games. 2. The schedule should be a national one, with exposure in the East, South, and occasionally the West, as well as the Midwest. This goal is to be accomplished as soon as possible. 3. At the end of four years, the goal is participation in a postseason tourney appearance at least once every four years. 4. Financially, the basketball program will be expected to break even within three years, with the aim of making money by the fourth year. 5. By the end of a five-year period, the goal is for Xavier to appear on regional and/or national TV. 6. Keeping in mind all of the above goals, Xavier is seeking a suitable conference affiliation as soon as possible. Immediately, people in town laughed at us. But I knew enough about basketball— having played and coached the game—that I, and a few others at the university, had no doubts that the basketball program could reach a highly competitive level. We had to believe, because if we weren’t successful, the athletic program possibly could drop to Division III and become a non-scholarship program. Around this time our basketball coach had announced he would not return. We formed a search committee, and again I
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insisted on a “process approach.” We put together a list of criteria. We wanted a head coach with a 65 percent winning percentage, or an assistant coach at a successful major school. We wanted someone who was a combination of a coach and recruiter, and someone who was an effective communicator. And our top candidate had to be a poorat-best golfer, as we wanted him to devote his time to coaching and recruiting. I kept the letters and applications from candidates with me at all times in a Shillito’s shopping bag. I was the only one who knew who had applied. I didn’t want us to judge applicants simply by their résumé. I wanted all of the facts about each coach and weigh them against our criteria.
GOING PUBLIC Bill Daily released lofty goals for the men’s basketball program on Feb. 3, 1979.
People kept trying to intersect the process. They’d ask, “Who’s applied?” I’d say, “I don’t know.” If someone had looked in my shopping bag, I’d have been in deep trouble. I sought the opinions of a number of people about potential candidates. One was John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach. He didn’t give me any names, but advised me to “make sure the coach has a good family situation.” I spoke with Al McGuire, the head basketball coach of Marquette. He gave me two names, including Rick Majerus, an assistant coach at Marquette. The Marquette athletic director denied us permission to talk with him.
After the groundwork was laid, the search committee looked at information about all the candidates and selected 10 they wanted to interview. We asked the majority of candidates the same questions, and we taped the interviews. Then we transcribed the answers and compared them side-by-side. A leading candidate was Bob Staak, an assistant coach at Penn. We invited him for an interview on campus. Mike Bachman, a Xavier student on the search committee, and I drove to the airport in a snow and ice storm to pick him up. We were in my VW, and the car’s defroster wasn’t working. Bob had to scrape the inside of the windshield as we headed to the Quality Inn in Norwood. During our conversation, Bob mispronounced the name of Xavier, calling us “Eggs-avier.” I reminded him: “Bob—it’s Xavier!” Bob did well in his interview. After the search committee finished its work, it was obvious that Bob was our coach. I signed him at The Final Four, where Penn was playing. I told Bob he had to win one game in his first season—UC. He turned out to be the perfect man for the job. His teams won more than 50 percent of their games and an MCC championship. They made an NCAA appearance. Just as important, they beat UC during Bob’s very first season and three more times during his tenure [1979–1985]. Bob had an excellent relationship with players, students, and the rest of the campus. He indeed was the man to get us back on track. I knew a successful basketball program would give us national exposure, enhance the recruitment of students, help university fund-raising, and most important create a rallying point for students, alumni, and friends. I believed in what Xavier basketball could become, and I was naïve enough to not let anything stop us. We were successful because everything we did was extremely well-planned. We set goals and had a process to achieve them. Everyone who needed a say had a say, and most important, we had the support of President Mulligan every step of the way. To me, he was the real hero in this process. The rest is history.
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COOL DOWN
COMPLIANCE 101
THE ENFORCER CAITLIN CARDUCCI MAKES SURE XU STAFF AND FANS KNOW THE RULES. BY MICHAEL PERRY
C
CAITLIN CARDUCCI’S JOB IS AT THE SAME TIME BOTH SIMPLE AND COMPLICATED.
Complicated? There’s a 290-page NCAA Division I Manual to review and understand. There are roughly 275 Xavier University student-athletes and close to 100 coaches and staff members to help manage. There are more than 30,000 boosters/ alumni/fans in the Greater Cincinnati area alone to help educate. Simple? Don’t violate the rules. “There are little things that not everyone will know or think of, and there are questions that aren’t asked,” says Carducci, XU’s director of compliance. “There are honest mistakes that can be made just because it’s impossible for every one of our student-athletes, coaches, staff, and fans to know every single rule. My job, and our job as a university, is to help teach, educate, and create awareness.”
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Xavier has never had a major NCAA violation, Carducci says. She credits the coaches, student-athletes, staff, and fans who “are committed to doing things the right way.” “With our internal personnel we have a comprehensive education program, but it is more difficult to reach our fans,” she says. “This magazine is another way for us to get the message out and provide reminders about NCAA rules.” Carducci has created two documents to help: “Dos and Don’ts for Boosters” and “Are You a Xavier Booster?” “The more people who read these, the better,” Carducci says. “We want to be transparent, proactive, and boil down the massive NCAA manual into some key messages. That’s why we like to distribute these.” Xavier Nation is happy to help. You can also get these by going online to goxavier.com/ compliance/xavi-compliance.html
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y G R E G R U S T
“We want to be transparent, proactive, and boil down the massive NCAA manual into some key messages here,” says XU Director of Compliance Caitlin Carducci
ARE YOU A
DOS AND DON’TS FOR
Xavier Boosters DOS
DON’TS
YOU MAY
YOU MAY NOT
• Forward information about a prospective student-athlete to the appropriate coaches.
• Become involved in making arrangements to receive money or financial aid of any kind for a prospect or his/her relatives.
• Have contact with a prospective student-athlete regarding permissible pre-enrollment activities such as summer employment, provided the prospect has signed a National Letter of Intent and the Compliance Office is aware that you are making these contacts in regards to employment. • Have a telephone conversation with a prospect only if the prospect initiates the call. Such a call may not be pre-arranged by an institutional staff member and you are not permitted to have a recruiting conversation, but may exhibit normal civility. You must refer any questions about athletics programs to an athletics department staff member or coach. • View a prospect’s contest at your own initiative provided you do not contact the prospect or his/her relatives. In addition, you may not contact a prospect’s coach, principal, or counselor in an attempt to evaluate the prospect. • Continue established family relationships with friends and neighbors, as long as these relationships were started prior to the prospect entering the ninth grade. Any contacts with prospects of these families are permitted as long as they are not made for recruiting purposes or encouraged by Xavier University coaches.
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• Make contact with a prospect and his/her relatives while the prospect is on campus for an official or unofficial recruiting visit. • Transport, pay, or arrange for payment of transportation costs for a prospect and his/ her relatives or friends to visit campus (or elsewhere). • Pay or arrange for payment of summer camp registration fees for a prospect.
XAVIER BOOSTER? NCAA DEFINITION A “representative of the institution’s athletics interests” or “booster” is an individual, independent agency, corporate entity (e.g., apparel or equipment manufacturer), or other organization who is known (or should have been known) by a member of the institution’s executive or athletics administration to: A) Have participated in or to be a member of an agency or organization promoting the institution’s intercollegiate athletics program; B) Have made financial contributions to the athletics department or to an athletics booster organization of that institution; C) Be assisting or to have been requested (by the athletics department staff) to assist in the recruitment of prospective studentathletes; D) Be assisting or to have assisted in providing benefits to enrolled student-athletes or their families; or E) Have been involved otherwise in promoting the institution’s athletics programs.
THIS MEANS YOU ARE A BOOSTER IF YOU (NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE LIST) • Are a former student-athlete at Xavier;
• Provide or promise anything to a prospect or his/her relatives without prior approval from the Compliance Office.
• Have donated to the athletic program or one of its clubs (All for One Club, etc.);
• Interact with a prospect via social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.), including tagging a prospect in a Facebook post or tweeting/retweeting, direct messaging, or using a prospect’s Twitter handle in a tweet.
• Are a current or former Xavier athletic department employee;
• Have employed a student-athlete or helped arrange the employment of a student-athlete;
• Have purchased season tickets for any Xavier sport; • Have ever been involved in any way in promoting the Xavier University athletics program. Once a booster, always a booster. If you meet the definition of a booster at Xavier, you retain that identity indefinitely.
CONSEQUENCES OF BOOSTERS VIOLATING NCAA RULES Under NCAA rules, Xavier University is responsible for the actions of its boosters. Therefore, it is the school’s responsibility to make people aware of the consequences for violating BIG EAST and/or NCAA rules. Boosters found in violation of those rules are subject to losing benefits and privileges (in addition to the penalties the university may face), including disassociation and loss of season ticket purchases.
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COOL DOWN
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
CHASING ANOTHER RING XAVIER GRAD JAMES POSEY GOES FROM GUARDING LEBRON TO COACHING LEBRON. BY MICHAEL PERRY
I
IT WAS LATE NOVEMBER, AND THE CLEVELAND Cavaliers were struggling. They dropped to 5–7 after blowing an 18-point lead and losing by 17 to the Toronto Raptors. Expectations were high, of course, after the return of LeBron James. But the season was not going according to script. Cavs assistant coach James Posey, a 1999 Xavier graduate, was watching practice—and kind of seething.
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“We were bushing around in practice and we hadn’t done anything,” Posey says. “Our attitude was all wrong. We had to nip it in the bud right away.” After practice, in a corner of the courts at the team’s practice facility in Independence, Ohio, Posey shared his feelings with the players. He talked about the big picture, how the team could not fulfill expectations without a better approach to practice. “We can’t be special if we’re [messing] around,” he told the guys. “Maybe it wasn’t my place, but I just couldn’t hold it anymore,” Posey says. “I apologized to Coach [Dave Blatt] because I probably overstepped my boundaries. I could’ve been out of line. But he didn’t have a problem with it.” Posey’s Hall-of-Fame career at Xavier was marked by some spectacular game performances, his unselfishness and a relentless approach to practice where he routinely dove for loose balls, took charges, and defended as though a league title were on the line every day inside of aging Schmidt Fieldhouse. He finished his career with 1,455 points and 801 rebounds, led the team in rebounding each of his three seasons, was Most Outstanding Player of the 1998 Atlantic 10 tournament, was the conference’s Sixth Man of the Year twice, and first-team all-league and defensive player of the year in 1999. All of which led to his being selected 18th overall in the 1999 NBA draft (by the Denver Nuggets). Posey then played 12 seasons in the NBA with Denver, Houston, Memphis, Miami, Boston, New Orleans, and Indiana. Most notably, he won NBA championships with the Heat (2006) and Celtics (2008). His championship rings, and the fact that he spent time as a player guarding LeBron, gives him some credibility with current Cavs players.
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y J O H N K U N T Z , T H E C L E V E L A N D P L A I N D E A L E R
Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach James Posey works with star Kevin Love before a game at Quicken Loans Arena.
P H OT O G R A P H B Y (L E F T ) C O U R T E S Y C L E V E L A N D C AVA L I E R S ; (R I G H T ) M I C H A E L P E R RY
LEFT: Former Xavier star James Posey, right, has gone from defending LeBron James, left, to helping coach the NBA superstar. RIGHT: The motto on the floor of the Cavaliers’ practice facility in Independence, Ohio, should sound familiar to Posey: It’s the same as the Xavier Musketeers’ motto.
“He can definitely help all the guys as far as his knowledge of the game,” James says. “He’s a guy who’s won championships. So he’s been there, he knows what it takes. And it definitely adds to our coaching staff and adds to the players, as well. He’s seen it all. It’s great to have him.” “I think there is respect,” Posey says. “[I’m] showing them I am serious about this. I have a little basketball knowledge and I can help.” Posey’s NBA career ended in 2011. He opted to retire rather than accept some 10day contract offers. He spent the next two years enjoying family time he never had been afforded. He hosted Thanksgiving at his home in Houston. His third child, a son, was born in 2012. (His children are 9, 6, and 2.) Posey has a home in Houston. He worked with former Texas star TJ Ford, who started the TJ Ford Academy that included basketball camps, an AAU team, and the TJ Ford Invitational tournament. Posey enjoyed coaching. It confirmed his interest in sharing his basketball knowledge. He says he always knew he would end up coaching. Basketball is what he knows. David Griffin, the Cavaliers general manager, called in 2012 just after Posey’s son was born and asked if he’d be interested in being an assistant coach for the Canton Charge, the Cavaliers D-League affiliate. The timing was bad for Posey, who did not want to leave his newborn. So he declined but made sure Griffin knew
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he’d be interested in the future. The call came again in 2013. Griffin invited Posey to the Cavs summer league and ended up offering him a job with the Charge. This time, Posey accepted. “We had a bunch of good guys,” he says. “They were open to learning, being coachable.” Posey had always watched film to prepare for games. Now, he was the one breaking down film and helping players get ready. The more he did it, the better he got. And the more he enjoyed it. He watched what other teams did, jotting down plays and keeping track of things he liked. He says he learned a lot from Jordi Fernandez, now Canton’s head coach, and Steve Hetzel, the former head coach who’s now an assistant with the Charlotte Hornets. Last summer, the Cavaliers again invited Posey to summer league. On August 19, Griffin offered him a position on the Cavaliers as an assistant. Posey, a Cleveland native from Twinsburg, was thrilled. Even as he accepted, he had no idea that a day later his homecoming would be upstaged by someone else’s. LeBron James announced his return to Cleveland on August 20. All Posey could think: “I’m back here. I grew up five minutes from downtown. My home team. Then the icing on the cake: LeBron’s coming back. The best player. Wow.” And so now Posey, who played and won
championships with guys like Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Shaquille O’Neal, Dwyane Wade, and Gary Payton, is coaching LeBron. Well, kind of. “What can you tell that man right there?” Posey says with a smile. “I get in his ear just a little bit—I pick and choose my spots. He responds with, ‘Thanks JP,’ or something like that. I know how I guarded him when I was a player; you try to get in his head and [mess] with him. Guys are going to get into him, be physical. I tell him to be ready, keep a steady head, be confident, ‘you’re the best player.’ “I’m still a fan. Just to see him. It’s amazing some of the things he does in practice. And his basketball knowledge. He’s smart. The plays he makes…he’s very unselfish in how he plays the game. Every day I pretty much leave here like, wow.” Posey knows this much: He definitely wants to be an NBA head coach. He thinks he relates well to players, since he was so recently playing himself. He believes he has a lot to offer, from mental preparation to game situations. He can help big guys with screens, help perimeter players learn how to get open, how to come off screens. “I just help out however I can,” he says. “I have fun with it every day. Every day it’s been special—learning what Coach Blatt wants, doing scouting reports and video … I played with some of these guys. LeBron, we battled. I’m on the other side now, but I understand the game.”
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
AT EASE OVERSEAS
JOSH DUNCAN’S INTERNATIONAL CAREER PATH LEADS HIM TO A GERMAN TEAM. BY RODNEY McKISSIC
Josh Duncan was averaging a teamhigh 13.8 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.9 assists for Brose Baskets in Bamberg, Germany, through its first 28 games.
J
JOSH DUNCAN REMEMBERS WATCHING THE 2008 NBA DRAFT IN AGONY AS 18 POWER forwards were taken without hearing his name. He was the lynchpin in what was arguably Xavier’s finest season ever with a 30–7 record and an appearance in the Elite Eight. The fruits of that success appeared to be a handshake with David Stern and a spot on a NBA roster. But after being left undrafted, Duncan has continued his basketball career internationally. “You work hard and you want to make it to that level coming out,” says the 6-foot-8, 228-pound Duncan. “I just had to move on and accept the situation and make the best out of what I could do, and that’s making teams over here. I think I’ve made a pretty good career here overseas. I’m enjoying where I am now.” Duncan’s travels have taken him to Germany for the 2014–2015 season. He’s now played in four different countries, first in France and Belgium before a four-year stint in Israel. “I get to play the game that I love, and it’s been a good ride,” says the 2008 Xavier graduate, a Cincinnati native from Moeller High School. In Israel, Duncan spent the 2013–2014 season playing for Haposel Jerusalem while former Xavier teammate and longtime friend Stanley Burrell played with Bnei Herzliya.
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“It was great being around a guy like Duncan,” Burrell told The Jerusalem Post last year. “He was always positive and a great person. I was always around Duncan and that kept me on the right path.” This season, Duncan is playing with Brose Baskets in Bamberg, Germany, a first-tier franchise in the 18-team Basketball Bundesliga (a.k.a. the Federal Basketball League)— the highest league of professional club basketball in the country. “It’s been a little different here as far as the weather and the language,” Duncan says. “I wasn’t fluent in Hebrew, which is what they speak in Israel, but I understood a lot more just being around it. Here it’s quite an adjustment to try and learn some words here in German, but it’s been a good place and I’ve had a good experience so far.” Duncan is the starting power forward for Brose. He averages 6.7 points and 2.9 rebounds, and is shooting 83.3 percent from the free-throw line. “We’re in first place and everyone wants to chase after you, so sometimes it’s hard to maintain first place,” he says. After a strong senior season at Xavier, which included an outstanding postseason that featured his elevated play, Duncan finished his career with 1,210 career points, good for the 26th position on the all-time scoring list. He averaged 18.3 points and 5.3 rebounds to lead the Musketeers into the 2008 Elite Eight. “The first year I played in the summer league with the Miami Heat and did OK,” Duncan says. “I had an injury and I only played one or two games and then I went to France.” Duncan returned the following summer and performed well with the Utah Jazz, but they were already set at power forward with Carlos Boozer and Paul Millsap. Duncan set his eyes on an international career and hasn’t looked back. “I think that was my best chance to make the NBA,” Duncan says. “They said I played well but it was one of those situations where… it wasn’t the right place and the right time for me. I just ended up making a career overseas, and I’m happy where I am right now.”
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y DA N I E L L O E B / B R O S E B A S K E T S
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Nikki Drew coached Lakota East High School to the 2011 Division I girls basketball regional finals. She is no longer coach of the Thunderhawks.
BORN TO COACH
FORMER XU POINT GUARD NIKKI DREW WORKS WITH STUDENTS IN THE CLASSROOM—AND ON THE COURT. BY RODNEY McKISSIC
P H OT O G R A P H B Y B A R B T R I M B L E
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IT’S A CLICHÉ—USED REPEATEDLY WHEN DESCRIBING A CLEVER POINT GUARD—BUT when Nikki Kremer starred for the Xavier women’s basketball team, she was truly a coach on the floor. Maybe that’s why she easily made a transition into teaching and coaching. After a successful career as a high school girls basketball coach, Kremer—now Nikki Drew—took her passion to the classroom, where she’s a health and physical education teacher at Lakota East High School. “A lot of people will tell you that a lot of teachers make good coaches and coaches make good teachers,” Drew says. “They’re hand-in-hand. I’m not going to highlight a bad test grade or a missed shot.” Drew is big on positive reinforcement, especially during her basketball training sessions and while coaching her third-grade team, which features her daughter, Samantha. “I want to make sure girls stay in a game that was so good to me,” says Drew, who is also director of girls development for the Cincinnati Shock AAU program. “They have one bad experience and they want to stop playing. I feel like I can try to keep their heads on straight.” Drew played for the Musketeers from 1995 to 1999 and left as the school’s career assist leader (541). She is perhaps best remembered for her performance in the 1999 NCAA Tournament against Connecticut in the final game of her collegiate career. She finished with 23 points, six assists, and two steals in 40 minutes while playing on a swollen knee the size of a softball. Xavier led UConn into the final minutes before losing 86–84. “Nikki did things that even surprised me,” then-XU coach Melanie Balcomb told
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reporters after the game. After graduating from Xavier, Drew played in Germany and France before suffering a career-ending knee injury. “You can only do so much with your body, and it had been my third knee surgery at the time,” says Drew, who earned 11 varsity letters in basketball, softball, volleyball, and track at Mercy High School. “That’s when I poured my passion into coaching, when I couldn’t quite play at the level that I wanted to.” Balcomb left Xavier for Vanderbilt after the 2001–2002 season, and Drew joined her staff as the director of basketball operations. Drew set up travel, on-campus recruiting, finances, and video exchange and loved every minute—but realized a college coaching career would be short-lived. “It was probably one of the best things I did, and at the time I loved the experience,” Drew says. “But I always knew I wanted to teach, and college basketball obviously doesn’t work with that. I knew I wanted to have a family someday, and it’s a hard profession to have a family. People make it work, but it’s harder.” Drew turned her focus to high school basketball and coached at Colerain and Lakota East. Her 2010–2011 Lakota East team went 19–6 and reached the Division I regional finals. “I will be the first to admit that in order to be successful you have to surround yourself with good people and good kids,” Drew says. “I hate to take all the credit for that. Of course, when you find your niche and you find success it’s hard to walk away.” But that’s exactly what she did two years ago to spend more time with Samantha and her husband, Jeff. “I’m doing the normal motherly thing at this point, where I’m teaching during the day and getting my kid off to where she needs to be,” Drew says. Drew has taught a sports medicine class at Lakota East for the last seven years. “I still feel like I’m coaching in my classroom because that’s kind of who I am,” she says. “The personal training, which I do on the side, keeps my heart into coaching.”
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RECAP
SEASON HIGHLIGHTS BASEBALL IS STILL COMPETING, BUT XAVIER’S OTHER 17 SPORTS ARE DONE FOR THE 2014–2015 ACADEMIC YEAR. HERE IS AN UPDATE ON EACH TEAM.
EAST Championship game appearance. Earned a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament where the Musketeers knocked off Ole Miss and Georgia State to advance to Xavier’s fifth Sweet 16 since 2008, one of only nine schools that can say that. Finished 23–14 overall, 9–9 BIG EAST. KEY LOSSES: Dee Davis, Matt Stainbrook NEWCOMERS: Kaiser Gates, redshirt freshmen Makindé London and Edmond Sumner NOTEWORTHY: The Musketeers moved up to No. 22 in the final USA TODAY Coaches Poll. Xavier has now finished with a .500 or better record in conference play 33 consecutive years, a longer streak than any other school in the country.
WOMEN’S COACH: Brian Neal (Northern Kentucky ’91), second season
BASEBALL MID-SEASON
zny, Alex Westrick, Jacob Bodner, Joe Forney
2014–2015: Xavier is in the top 50 nationally in both steals and steals per game through early April. Andre Jernigan leads the team with 11 swipes, while 11 different Musketeers have recorded a stolen base in the 2015 season.
NEWCOMERS: Roger Danison (Ohio), Sam Flamini (Illinois), Ryan Fournier (Ohio), Chris Givin (Colorado), Stephen Haring (Missouri), Matt Kent (Indiana), Mitchel Makarewicz (Wisconsin), Noah Malone (Pennsylvania), Trey Schramm (Illinois), Shane Melbrod (Missouri), Taylor Williams (Colorado)
KEY LOSSES: Brian Bruening, Tim O’Conner, Patrick Jones, Eric Stiene, Derek Hasenbeck, Selby Chidemo, Adam Hall, Sean Campbell, Zach Johnson, Chase Puente, Daniel Przenic-
NOTEWORTHY: Junior catcher Daniel Rizzie listed as one of the candidates to watch for the 2015 Johnny Bench Award, presented to the top catcher on the Division I level in
COACH: Scott Googins (Ohio Wesleyan ’92), 10th season
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the NCAA. The Musketeers are riding a streak of eight consecutive 20-win seasons under head coach Scott Googins. Senior Eric Stiene and junior Dan Rizzie were selected preseason All-BIG EAST.
BASKETBALL MEN’S COACH: Chris Mack (Xavier ’92), sixth season 2014–2015: In the BIG EAST Tournament, the Musketeers knocked off Butler and Georgetown to earn Xavier’s first BIG
KEY LOSSES: Maleeka Kynard NEWCOMERS: Tierra Floyd, redshirt freshman Imani Partlow NOTEWORTHY: When Xavier defeated St. John’s, 74–61, on Senior Day at Cintas Center, the Musketeers solidified their first winning season since 2010–2011. Xavier’s 18 wins in 2014–15 more than doubled the win total from the previous season (eight).
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P H OT O G R A P H B Y B I G E A S T
Sophomore pitcher Trent Astle leads the Musketeers in starts, innings pitched and strikeouts.
2014–2015: Defeated Georgetown to advance to the quarterfinals of the BIG EAST Tournament. Earned a berth to the 2015 WBI Tournament where the Musketeers defeated William & Mary at Cintas Center before falling to Siena in the quarterfinals. Earned an overall record of 18–15, 8–10 BIG EAST.
RECAP
CROSS COUNTRY MEN’S COACH: Ryan Orner (Towson ’99), third season 2014–2015: Finished seventh in BIG EAST championships. Best finish of the season was fifth in Queen City Invitational. Finished 24th in NCAA Great Lakes Regional. KEY LOSSES: Connor Buchholz, Aaron Moore, Matt Orlando, Corey Zielinski NEWCOMERS: Sean Farnan NOTEWORTHY: The Xavier men earned the distinction of All-Academic team from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. The Musketeers posted a team grade point average of 3.21 to earn the distinction. The Xavier women earned the honor as well with a 3.48 GPA, making Xavier one of six BIG EAST schools to have both teams earn the distinction.
WOMEN’S
NEWCOMERS: Caroline Gosser NOTEWORTHY: At the Notre Dame Invitational, four Musketeers finished with 5K times that rank among the top 20 in Xavier history: senior Audrey Ramos, No. 2, 17:34.30; freshman Allison Sinning, No. 6, 17:44.20; redshirt freshman Meghan Vogel, No. 9, 17:48.60; and sophomore Delainey Burnett, No. 20, 18:06.70.
GOLF MEN’S COACH: Doug Steiner (Capital ’83), 27th season 2014–2015: Jose Montaño won his second tournament of the year on Sunday, April 12, at the NYX Hoosier Invitational in Bloomington, Indiana. The freshman shot 6-under, including a season-best 67 on April 11. The Musketeers finished third at the BIG EAST Championships, nine shots behind champion Marquette. Xavier had two players post top-10 finishes: senior Tanapol Vattanapisit (sixth) and Montaño (seventh). KEY LOSSES: John Burger, Vattanapisit, Korey Ward
2014–2015: Finished sixth in BIG EAST championships. Best finish of the season was second in Queen City Invitational. Finished 16th in NCAA Great Lakes Regional.
NOTEWORTHY: Montaño was selected to participate in the NCAA Tournament. Montaño started his college career strong, taking the top spot at the Firestone Invitational in October, the second tournament of his Xavier career. Montaño has posted a team-best
KEY LOSSES: Abigail Smith NOTEWORTHY: Junior Shane Crutchfield was named to the All-BIG EAST Team for the second straight year. Crutchfield placed second at the Yale Intercollegiate, the best individual finish of the season for the Musketeers. This season marks the last for Elfers, who announced his retirement in fall 2014. Elfers spent 12 seasons with the Musketeers, including three as an assistant coach before he was named head coach prior to the 2006–2007 season.
SOCCER
2014: Advanced to the championship game of the BIG EAST Tournament. Defeated Monmouth and No. 5 Indiana in the NCAA Tournament. Finished 15–6–2 overall, 6–1–2 in BIG EAST play. KEY LOSSES: Will Walker, Eric Osswald, Garrett Halfhill, Matt Hill, Owen Steinwall NEWCOMERS: Dallas Jaye
Women’s swimming lines up on the starting blocks during the Senior Day meet against Wright State on Jan. 23, 2015.
COACH: Woody Sherwood (Xavier ’91), fifth season
2014–2015: The Musketeers finished third at the BIG EAST Championships, just seven strokes behind champion Seton Hall with a team score of 921 (+57) through 54 holes. XU freshman Hanna Lee tied for fourth place, the best finish of her Xavier career.
COACH: Andy Fleming (Marist ’97), fifth season
P H OT O G R A P H B Y J O E S I M O N
WOMEN’S
COACH: Tom Elfers (Ohio State ’72), ninth season
MEN’S
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knocking off Indiana in Bloomington, 2–1, after senior Will Walker converted the game-winning penalty kick in the final 20 minutes of the match. Xavier traveled to BIG EAST foe Creighton for the third round of the tournament, where the Musketeers fell, 2–1.
WOMEN’S
COACH: Ryan Orner (Towson ’99), third season
KEY LOSSES: Emily Kuhn, Audrey Ramos
average score of 72.11 through 27 rounds, including shooting four rounds in the 60s. Former Musketeer Jason Kokrak is enjoying a successful season on the PGA Tour, including two top-10 add finishes. Kokrak’s best finish of the season came during the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where his 13-underpar score of 275 tied for sixth.
NOTEWORTHY: The Musketeers advanced to the first NCAA Sweet 16 in program history by
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2014: Went 3–0 to open the month of September. Didn’t allow more than two goals in a single game all season. KEY LOSSES: Margaret Woods, Alyssa Tindal, Katie Schweer, Katie Markesbery, Meredith Gleichert NEWCOMERS: Emily Calvani, Andie Kennard, Jessica Miller, Libby Grace, Colleen Grace, Samantha Dewey, Kylie Hohlt, Katelyn Cooley, Addie Englehart NOTEWORTHY: Senior goalkeeper Katie Markesbery capped off one the most prolific careers in Musketeer history in 2014, finishing with a Xavier-record 23 career wins and 481 career saves, also an XU record. Markesbery’s career GAA of 1.29 ranks third in Musketeer history.
SWIMMING MEN’S COACH: Brent MacDonald (Valparaiso ’03), sixth season 2014–2015: Repeated as BIG EAST Champions, taking first in 14 of 18 racing events over four days in Ithaca, New York. The Musketeers collected 904 points, topping second place Georgetown by more than 140 points despite not competing in the diving events. KEY LOSSES: Armando Moss, Kiernan McGeehan, Eric Dirvin, Will Oswald, Michael Gordon, Carter Clark NEWCOMERS: Michael Pettinichi, Sam Johanns, Enrique Hernandez, Nathan Runyon, David Bunnell, Chase Baldwin, Matthew Dyer
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RECAP
WOMEN’S INTERIM COACH: Doug Matthews (Xavier ’09), first season 2014–2015: The Musketeers finished the regular season with a 17-4 overall record and a 6-1 BIG EAST mark to earn the No. 2 seed in the BIG EAST Tournament. The team had eight shutouts this spring, tying the team high for most shutouts in the past five seasons. Xavier was upset by No. 4 seed St. John’s, 4-3, in the conference tournament to end the year. KEY LOSSES: Lizzie Oosterbaan, Daniella Patton NEWCOMERS: Sophia Abelson, Zoe Manion Freshman Kristen Massa (14), a Cincinnati native, finished her season with 267 kills, third-most on the team. NOTEWORTHY: Junior Nick Foster was named the BIG EAST’s Most Outstanding Swimmer for 2015 after collecting two individual gold medals (500 freestyle and 1,650 freestyle) and totaled 56 points as an individual at the BIG EAST Championships. Foster was among the 12 Musketeer men who earned a spot on the All-BIG EAST team.
Carolyn Stewart and Jacquelyn Misanik took second and third respectively. All three were among the 10 Musketeer women who were selected to the All-BIG EAST team. Twenty-two Xavier swimmers total earned the honor.
TENNIS MEN’S
WOMEN’S COACH: Brent MacDonald (Valparaiso ’03), sixth season 2014–2015: The Musketeer women collected 555 points at the 2015 BIG EAST Championship, taking third place despite not competing in the diving portion of the event. KEY LOSSES: Maddie Day, Kelsie Johns, Carly Davis, Carolyn Stewart, Jacquelyn Misanik NEWCOMERS: Caroline Gaertner, Annie Cummins, Maggie Kauffeld, Becca Titterton, Laura Dicus, Jenna Wilkes, Katie Kerr, Tianna Vozar, Anne Locker NOTEWORTHY: The Musketeer women swept the top three spots in the 100-yard backstroke at the BIG EAST Championship. Freshman Paxtyn Drew took the top spot, setting a new school record with a time of 55.43. Seniors
NOTEWORTHY: Put together a nine-match win streak mid-season, starting with a 4–3 win at Toledo on March 14. The Musketeers collected wins over Dayton (7–0), Marquette (5–2), Seton Hall (6–1) and Providence (7–0) before closing out the home season with a 7–0 win over Cincinnati on Senior Day. The Musketeers then went on the road, winning at NKU (5–2), St. John’s (6–1) and Fordham (6–1). Two Musketeers have been named BIG EAST Player of the Week, Sydney Liggins (twice) and Amina Ismail.
INTERIM COACH: Doug Matthews (Xavier ’09), first season 2014–2015: The Musketeers earned the fourth seed going into the conference championship after posting a 12-8 overall record and 3-2 mark in BIG EAST play. Xavier defeated Butler, 4-1, in the quarterfinals of the championship meet before falling to No. 1 seed St. John’s, 4-1, in the semifinals. KEY LOSSES: Freddy Abunku, Michael Moe NEWCOMERS: Trent Smith, Nick Werner, Jack Dykema NOTEWORTHY: Won four straight matches in midspring, starting with a 7–0 victory over Wright State on February 25. The Musketeers then defeated Abilene Christian, 5–2, and Dayton, 5–2, on the road before returning home to knock off Western Illinois, 7–0.
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TRACK AND FIELD (INDOOR & OUTDOOR) MEN’S COACH: Ryan Orner (Towson ’99), third season 2014–2015: Placed fifth at the BIG EAST Indoor and Outdoor Championships KEY LOSSES: Nick Bartram, Connor Buchholz, Ryan Konstanzer, John Kolibab, Aaron Moore, Matt Orlando, Corey Zielinski NEWCOMERS: Sean Farnan NOTEWORTHY: The Musketeers finished fifth at the BIG EAST Indoor and Outdoor Championships – an improvement of two spots over their seventh-place finishes during Xavier’s inaugural BIG EAST season. Russell Platt and Zachary Polk combined to
capture eight medals at the championship meets.
WOMEN’S COACH: Ryan Orner (Towson ’99), third season 2014–2015: Placed eighth at the BIG EAST Indoor and Outdoor Championships KEY LOSSES: Emily Kuhn, Audrey Ramos NEWCOMERS: Caroline Gosser NOTEWORTHY: The Musketeers collected two individual titles at the BIG EAST Indoor Championship. Mercedes Oliver improved upon last season’s second-place finish in the weight throw, taking first and setting a school record with a distance of 18.67m. She also finished second in the discus at the outdoor championships. Freshman Margaret Barrie won the 60-meter dash at the indoor championships, finishing with a time of 7.68 seconds.
VOLLEYBALL COACH: Christy Pfeffenberger (Dayton ’05), first season in 2015–2016 2014–2015: The Musketeers closed out the regular season with a four-game win streak to finish 12–6 in the BIG EAST and 19–12 overall. KEY LOSSES: Alex Blair, Aubree Smith, Sariah Suryadevara NEWCOMERS: Morgan Finn, McKena Estes, Laura Grossman, Olivia Hart, Brooke Betts NOTEWORTHY: Xavier announced Christy Pfeffenberger as the program’s 10th head coach in January. Senior setter Aubree Smith earned honorable mention to the AVCA All-American Team for the second straight season after leading the BIG EAST in hitting percentage (.344) and ranking fifth in assists (9.66 a/s). Smith becomes only the second Musketeer to earn AllAmerican honors on multiple occasions, joining Stephanie Vorherr, who also earned honorable mention honors twice.
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POST GAME INTERVIEW
PLAYING THROUGH JASON KOKRAK, BIG-HITTING FORMER MUSKETEER, IS TURNING HEADS ON THE PGA TOUR. BY DAN GUTTRIDGE
ranked No. 9 in April in driving distance on the PGA Tour with an average of 303.1 yards per drive. Xavier Nation asked the 2007 graduate about his journey—and the hashtag he created that’s grabbing attention and helping him give back. When did #DroppinBombs start? Initially it came out of
playing round after round with friends. They gave me grief for hitting the ball far. It’s just one of those phrases we kept saying, so I started using it on Twitter (@jaykokrak). A friend who helps with some marketing recently had fun with it and made an official logo. This year we’re going to be #DroppinBombs via a “Drives for Lives” campaign with the Humane Society of Charlotte. I’ve always been an animal lover, and we plan on donating $100 for each 300-plus yard drive I register during the 2015 season. Favorite Xavier memory?
There isn’t one memory that stands out. Between team wins on the course, hanging out with my teammates, and getting rowdy at basketball games, I had a lot of fun at X. Pre-round or in-round superstitions? Every golfer has a
pre-round routine, but I don’t consider myself a superstitious person. Making sure my clubs are always put back in particular pockets in my bag isn’t superstitious, right?
guys will help on certain courses. Entering my fourth season, I’m starting to create some relationships with veterans who are willing to help. Peter Jacobson has been a great influence recently. Your fantasy golf foursome? Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus,
and a player to be named later. The King and Golden Bear are no-doubters. I’d invite a celebrity or comedian to keep us loose and provide some extra entertainment. If you could win only one major in your career, which would you choose? Why?
The U. S. Open. It’s the most difficult event every year. It truly separates the individual who is playing the best golf. What’s the best golf tip you ever received? Don’t
ever get too high or too low. When things are going great, don’t get overly excited and stay within yourself. On the flipside, stay confident, be patient, and don’t get down on yourself. How many aces have you recorded in your career?
Four, but the last one is the one everyone likes to hear about. It was during The McGladrey Classic Pro-Am in 2013. I hit driver on the par-4, 409-yard fifth hole at the Seaside Course in Sea Island, Georgia, and found the cup.
Has anyone on the PGA Tour taken you under his wing? I’m
If you could pick a walk-up song to introduce you on the first tee, what would it be? “Hells Bells” by AC/DC, “Calm
the only Xavier graduate on the PGA Tour and most guys tend to stick with others from the same alma mater. Certain
Like a Bomb” by Rage Against the Machine, or “Bawitdaba” by Kid Rock.
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P H OT O G R A P H C O U R T E S Y G E T T Y I M AG E S
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FORMER XAVIER GOLF STANDOUT JASON KOKRAK
Cheer Louder. Play Harder. Live Better. Whenever Xavier competes, they have the support of their loyal fans and the TriHealth system. As the official health care provider for Xavier, our entire system of physicians, nurses and specialists are here to help Xavier fans and athletes stay in the game and live better. To learn more, go to TriHealth.com. The official health care provider for
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