FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Evan O’Kelly Director of Communications O: (406) 657-2130 E: evan.okelly@msubillings.edu Wednesday, January 20, 2016 Truvillion’s service-focused life a function of legendary career as a Yellowjacket
Former Yellowjacket men’s basketball star Troy Truvillion will be inducted into MSUB’s Hall of Fame on Friday, and he continues to apply his positive experiences in Billings to his current career serving others in mental health and fitness. MSUB SPORTS – Though Troy Truvillion has returned to Billings numerous times since his All-America basketball career with the Yellowjackets, his arrival this weekend for Montana State University Billings’ 27th Annual Hall of Fame and Distinction induction ceremony will spark a different emotion. “It’s going to hit me after I get there,” said Truvillion, who spent 11 years playing basketball professionally after his two seasons in Billings from 1988-1990. “I grew up playing basketball, but coming to Montana was not something I ever thought about doing.” He plans to visit MSUB’s campus store and pick up the latest Yellowjacket gear, and make a trip down Rex Lane in the Heights where he lived during his sensational senior season at Eastern Montana College. A visit to the local YMCA, where summers spent working in the kids’ unit inspired his current passion for working with underprivileged children, seems to be in the cards as well.
He may pay a visit to the KULR 8 television station, where current sports anchor Chris Byers will evoke the memory of late nights spent splicing film together – no computers involved – into highlight reels to put Truvillion on the map in the professional basketball circuit. Truvillion will even set foot in Alterowitz Gym, the court where, in just two seasons, he scored more points (1,016) than all but 20 men in the 89-year history of Yellowjacket Basketball. He’ll be there Saturday to witness MSUB’s women’s team face Simon Fraser University, before watching the Yellowjacket men challenge Saint Martin’s University in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference doubleheader. But between the sentimental stops and friendly faces Truvillion plans to encounter this weekend, his most significant checkpoint will be at the Hilton Garden Inn on Friday where he’ll receive the top honor in Yellowjacket Athletics. Truvillion will be one of three former ‘Jackets inducted into the Hall of Fame and Distinction, along with men’s soccer NCAA Division II Player of the Year Sam Charles and Heartland Conference Volleyball Player of the Year Ali Watson. It will be an evening for celebration, a time where Truvillion will have the chance to reminisce and recount his favorite stories. From learning defense from then-hard-nosed senior and now Hall of Famer Pryor Orser to competing in the Big Sky State Games, Truvillion’s infectious personality and joyful spirit is guaranteed to command the crowd’s attention Friday. But most of all, he’ll reflect on what has truly fueled his desire to help others succeed, namely through his foundation of Youth Development Services, LLC, and trusevensports.com. He’ll cite a hand-written letter he received from a Billings Native American girl named Wynona while playing in Europe, that helped him realize it was the people he surrounded himself with in the Billings community who helped him to a successful career long after pouring in points for the ‘Jackets. TRU TO THE U After growing up in Detroit, Truvillion turned a promising career as a youth player at Detroit Pershing High School into a college stint in Southern California. After two seasons, Truvillion looked to transfer and was put in touch with EMC head coach Len Wilkens by his coach in California. Upon his initial visit to Billings during the spring, the prospect of having his own room in the residence halls immediately caught Truvillion’s attention. “Growing up with seven brothers and sisters, I liked the idea of having my own room,” Truvillion said with a laugh. “I told Coach I would sign right now if I could have my own room and he said, ‘yes, no problem.’” While the luxury of sprawling his 6-foot-5 frame out in his own private company sounded like a dream to Truvillion, it was a much more personal touch that ultimately sold him on packing his bags for Billings. “After my visit, Coach Wilkens wrote me a hand-written letter on a Yellowjacket card,” Truvillion said. “He was the only coach (recruiting me) who did that, and it was unbelievable. Others would just sign their name at the bottom of a typed letter, but he took the time to reach out to me personally.” Wilkens’ personal touch, along with the fact that the ‘Jackets were coming off an appearance in the Final Four the previous season, helped coax Truvillion to try a new scene closer to his home state of Michigan than California. Perhaps
the key returning player from EMC’s Final Four team was senior Pryor Orser, who quickly got Truvillion up to speed on the defensive aspect of the game he had been lacking. “I wasn’t focused on the defensive end of the game when I got there, but Pryor made sure we put an emphasis on defense,” Truvillion said, citing the most important takeaways he had from the program. “He was a no-nonsense, hard-nosed guy, but I respected him because he wanted to win and gave it everything he had. He was unbelievably smart and played hard all the time, which was very important for that team.” Orser, an EMC/MSUB Hall of Famer in his own right, played a big role in molding Truvillion into the type of player he needed to be to pursue his hopes of continuing to play after college. The results were clear by Truvillion’s second season with the ‘Jackets, as he quickly played his way to All-American honors and closed his career on perhaps the most torrid scoring spree ever witnessed at the school with an average scoring line of 32 points over his final six games. Truvillion remembers the night of Feb. 15, 1990 well, as a matinee matchup against conference rival Seattle Pacific University was further elevated by the chatter among players in the week leading up to it. “They (SPU) had a guy from Billings on their team who was talking trash during the week,” Truvillion recalled. Then a senior, Truvillion proceeded to post the third-highest singlegame point total in school history by pouring in 45 in a statement victory over the Falcons. Since having been surpassed, the point total still stands today as the sixth-best in EMC history, while his 17 made field goals in the game are thirdmost ever. GOING PRO “I never went up (to Billings) thinking I could turn pro. The first thing I knew was that we needed to have a winning program and I would have to get some attention through that. None of that happened without Channel 5 and Channel 8 news.” – Troy Truvillion on developing his presence en route to turning professional. Jeff Rickard joined ESPN Radio in 2006, slotting in as a late-night co-host and cracking into the big-time sports world after 10 years working his way up. One of his first stops along the way was working the nightly sports broadcasts in Billings, where he ultimately became an invaluable resource to Truvillion in his last year at EMC. “Jeff would get off at 11, and he would let me into the back of the studio so I could go in, cut up tape, and splice it together,” Truvillion recalled. “He helped me put together a 20-minute highlight tape that I was able to send out to NBA scouts and that I took to Europe.” Truvillion claims the exposure he received through the camera work of Mikal Young as well as Rickard’s willingness to painstakingly piece together tape is what brought his talent on the court to life in front of the right people. Among
staffers who reached out to Truvillion was Chris Byers, who continues to serve as the KULR 8 sports anchor and hasn’t stopped covering the Yellowjackets since. Though he never got a stint in the NBA, Truvillion spent more than a decade competing in professional leagues in Europe, France, Italy, and Australia. “Chris, Mikal, and Jeff were all so nice to me,” Truvillion said. “They were at the games, had all of my news clips, and they helped me put that footage together into a highlight reel. That really helped me enhance my image in the eyes of pro scouts.” While the connections Truvillion made outside of EMC stand out among his fondest memories, he cited former Yellowjacket great and current Hall of Famer Shelley (Altrogge) Emerson as a fellow athlete he looked up to. “If there had been a WNBA back then, Shelley would have been the Lisa Leslie before her,” Truvillion recalled. “She was a beast. If I scored 40, she would score 42.” In an ‘Athletes of the Quarter’ article for EMC’s student newspaper, The Retort, dated February 28, 1990, Truvillion and Altrogge are featured as the top performers for their respective teams on the season. Truvillion remembers the photo shoot, which yielded the two stars beaming side-by-side, well. “We had to do this article for the school paper and she hated that sort of thing,” Truvillion chuckled. “We were the total opposite of each other; she was the big country girl and I was the city boy. She was unbelievable, though. On the court she was mean.” DEDICATED TO SERVICE What Truvillion represented as a player at EMC carried over not only into his professional career but beyond as he has established two businesses focused on service to individuals in need. His trusevensports.com website is focused on helping people of all ages maintain fitness and live healthy lives. His Youth Development Services business was created to help treat children with mental illnesses, and stemmed from his involvement at the YMCA in Billings. In the summer before his senior season, Truvillion worked a 3-11 p.m. shift at Billings’ Rivendell Psychiatric Center, using his presence as a local athlete to help inspire children and struggling families in the community. “I worked with the same kinds of kids there who I work with now,” said Truvillion. “Whenever Coach Wilkens called me to help recruit players, I would tell them about the experience I had in Billings. Basketball is what you make it, but it’s the people there who make the college experience exciting. My experience off the court was much more invaluable than my experience on the court.” In 1994 Wynona’s letter was delivered to Truvillion, a subtle token of appreciation that helped lead him into his current career path of helping others. “I was in Paris when I got that letter, and I got interviewed after a game and asked what I would be doing if I wasn’t playing basketball,” Truvillion said. “I started thinking of Wynona and some of the other children I worked with in Billings, and I answered that I would be working with kids. That is why I do the work I do today, and it has affected my life one thousand percent.”
Among those present Friday night will be Truvillion’s old coach, Len Wilkens, who he maintains contact with to this day. Wilkens will have the honor of introducing the latest men’s basketball inductee, a fitting personal touch just as he had within the letter he scribed to Truvillion that ultimately began the career of one of the Yellowjackets’ finest.
Truvillion signing autographs for children during a basketball camp at Alterowitz Gym.
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