From the Outside

by Ray Allen

Two schools I hoped to put in the final five were Clemson and UCLA. I fell in love with Clemson when I went to a basketball camp there one summer, and I was a Bruins fan during our years in California. With the ten national championships won by John Wooden in the 1960s and ’70s, no program was more successful than theirs. As a kid, I walked everywhere wearing a blue-and-gold Bruins hat and jersey.

  Neither made the list.

  Clemson was out because the Tigers were likely to go on probation, and I couldn’t take a risk. UCLA was out because the Bruins apparently weren’t in need of my services. I never heard a word from them.

  Early on, another possibility was Virginia. I was impressed by the coach, Jeff Jones, who wanted to play an up-tempo style, and the school was a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, which had North Carolina and Duke. You can’t get better exposure than the ACC. One day, though, out of nowhere, I received a letter stating that the Cavs were no longer recruiting me, as they had signed somebody else with a similar skill set.

  A place I didn’t consider was the University of South Carolina. No doubt I would have given it serious thought, but like UCLA, there were no letters or phone calls, which was surprising, since I was one of the best players in the state. Not until months later did the coaches reach out, and that was only because the school had failed to bring on other players it was recruiting and was under pressure from the local press.

  Too late. I had made up my mind. The final five were Alabama, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Kentucky, and the University of Connecticut.

  During my junior year, before I settled on those five, one coach after another came to our house, saying all the right things to Mom and me. Dad was in Korea. She didn’t pretend to know everything about the game of basketball or the world of academia, but she knew how to listen and ask good questions, and that was just as important.

  Dad offered his opinion on the phone, but there was little he could do that far away. You need to determine how sincere the coaches are, and the best way was to look them in the eye. They are no different from any traveling salesman.

  Do I wish that Dad could have been more involved in the recruiting process from start to finish? Absolutely. What teenage boy wouldn’t want his father to help him make such a potentially life-defining choice? At the same time, because I was often on my own, I’d learned to be independent and trust my instincts. They rarely let me down.

  Fortunately, in addition to Coach Smith, one of the football coaches at Hillcrest offered some advice.

  “Where do you think I should go to college?” I asked him.

  “I would never tell you where to go,” he responded.

  That’s different, I told myself. No one had hesitated to tell me before, and they knew a heck of a lot less about college than the football coach did.

  Then came the message that resonated:

  “Whatever you do,” he said, “make sure that you make the decision.”

  I know it seems obvious, but too many kids allow somebody else—a parent, girlfriend, agent, coach, etc., anybody except themselves—to make the decision.

  Listen to those close to you, I tell kids these days. They might see something you don’t. Yet always keep in mind that their goals are not necessarily the same as yours. You’re the one who will go to classes and take exams. You’re the one who must get along with your coaches and teammates. You’re the one who will earn a degree, or won’t. And you’re the one who will look back with pride or regret. I saw some phenomenal players in high school who should have been stars in college, and maybe in the NBA. But they chose what turned out to be the wrong school for them and weren’t heard from again.

  In October 1992, a week after Tierra was born, I made my first visit, to the University of Alabama. I spent two days in Tuscaloosa, and they were two of the best days I can remember.

  One of my hosts was Marvin Orange, a freshman point guard from Irmo High School in the Columbia area, who had been the best player in the state. I didn’t know Marvin, though I knew a lot about him. Seeing somebody from my part of the world fit in as well as he did, I thought Alabama could very well be the place for me.

  On my first night, I went to a Step Show, where members of different fraternities and sororities use organized step routines, mixed with incredible hip-hop beats, to compete against each other. It suddenly dawned on me: this was what I’d been dreaming about since I was 12 and saw School Daze, the movie about students at a black college. They were having a blast, and I couldn’t wait to join them.

  The following day, I went to a football game. Of course I did. On no campus in America was football perhaps bigger than at Alabama, where the coach for many years, Paul William “Bear” Bryant, was more well-known than the governor—and the pope as well. The Crimson Tide, as usual, rolled over South Carolina, 48–7.

  Yet, as much fun as I was having, two things happened during my visit that made me question whether Alabama was the place for me after all.

  One incident occurred before lunch in Birmingham on the day I arrived. We stopped there to meet another recruit before going to campus. I got out of the car and was walking toward the restaurant when I made eye contact with the driver of a pickup truck. He stuck out his middle finger. He can’t possibly be mad at me, I told myself. I didn’t do anything wrong.

  I didn’t have to do anything wrong. I was black, he was white, and we were in Alabama. That was wrong enough. I went inside, had a nice lunch, and didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t see the point. There was nothing another player or a coach could have done about the guy in the truck. I’d have to decide for myself if I could live with that amount of racism around me. Because it wasn’t about to go away.

  The other incident took place at the football game. As a prized recruit, I figured I’d get a decent seat, perhaps close to the 50-yard line. I didn’t get any seat at all. I was forced to stand in the aisle the whole time. The basketball coaches didn’t have a lot of clout or they didn’t think I was important enough. Either way, I was concerned I’d be going to a school where, once again, basketball ranked far below football.

  Still, I didn’t take Alabama out of the running. As a matter of fact . . .

  “You had a great time, didn’t you?” said Gregg Polinsky, an assistant coach, before I headed back to South Carolina.

  “Yes, I had a great time,” I admitted.

  “Alabama is the only place for you,” Coach Polinsky added.

  Then, using what he knew about my situation at home, he made his closing argument. He was clearly a pro at this.

  “You have to start making mature decisions,” he told me. “You’ve got a daughter to take care of. You have to tell me you want to come here.”

  I don’t have to tell him a thing, I thought.

  Yet he kept going on and on about why I had to choose Alabama. Finally, I gave in. I committed. I didn’t want to let him down.

  Not surprisingly, the moment I got back to Dalzell, people told me I was crazy for making such a rash decision. The football coach who had given me great advice before put it best:

  “You may love Alabama, and in the end that very well might be the best place for you,” he said. “But how are you going to know unless you see what else is out there?”

  I knew he was right before he finished his sentence. I had four more visits I could make, and that was what I would do. Forget about not wanting to let down the Alabama coach. This was my future, not his.

  He didn’t take it well. I felt he’d been trying to manipulate me by saying how mature I needed to be to raise my child. Now he told me how immature I was because I had the nerve to visit other colleges. He also mentioned there was somebody else Alabama was recruiting, and if he signed—he later did—there would not be a spot for me.

  Nice try. It didn’t work.

  “This is what I have to do,” I told Coach Polinsky. “If that’s who you want, do what you have to do.”

  I shouldn’t be too critical. The man was trying to succeed in an intensely competitive
business, and when you consider the sleazy way some recruiters behave, his tactics were pretty mild.

  I agreed to one compromise: I would visit only two of the four schools, Kentucky and Connecticut. It was a mistake, I know, but it showed again how young and vulnerable I was.

  The University of Connecticut was next. Connecticut? What would ever possess me to put that school in the final five?

  A big-name coach? Nope.

  A big-time tradition? Not exactly.

  A big-city environment? Please.

  What then?

  Decency, integrity, honesty.

  I remember the first time I heard from them. On the phone was Howie Dickenman, one of their assistant coaches, who had watched me at an AAU tournament in Jacksonville. That day, he put a “P” next to my name. “P,” short for potential.

  “I’m from UConn,” Coach Dickenman told me during the call. “I’m very interested in recruiting you.”

  I was confused.

  “UConn? Wait a minute, isn’t that near Alaska?” I said.

  I’m not kidding. I thought he was calling from the Yukon territory. I didn’t know they played basketball up there!

  After we got a chuckle out of that, the coach and I enjoyed a wonderful chat. I don’t recall exactly what he said, but there was something about his raspy northeastern accent that made me feel comfortable. He and the other Connecticut coaches, I could tell, didn’t believe in BS. How refreshing. I’d heard enough already from other recruiters. At Alabama, for example, they said I would go from there right to the NBA. I appreciated their faith in me, but no one is guaranteed a future at the next level.

  The UConn coaches, on the other hand, said nothing about the NBA. They didn’t even make promises about my freshman year.

  “We’ll give you the opportunity to be as successful as you want,” they explained, “but it’s up to you how much work you put in.”

  Those were precisely the words I wanted to hear. It had been up to me to put in the work at Ebenezer, at Shaw, at Hillcrest, in the AAU games. And if I went to UConn and I wasn’t successful, at least I would know I’d been given a fair shot. You can’t ask for anything more.

  After my conversation with Coach Dickenman, I did some research of my own. Before then, I had known little about the school, and what I did know did not make me fond of the place. That’s because, in the 1990 NCAA Tournament East Regional Semifinals, UConn defeated my beloved Clemson Tigers on a miracle jump shot by Tate George at the buzzer. I was devastated. Two days later, in the final, UConn lost a heartbreaker of its own, to Duke, Christian Laettner hitting a jumper as time ran out. Justice served, in my opinion.

  I could tell it was a program on the rise, even if it had yet to make an appearance in a Final Four, let alone win a national championship. Under Jim Calhoun, who took over as the coach in 1986, the Huskies were 118-73, a more than respectable record, especially in a conference as competitive as the Big East.

  Connecticut, as you’d expect, did some research of its own as well. Coach Calhoun came over to our house and watched a game at Hillcrest. Safe to say, it wasn’t one of my better performances. I scored just nine points, though it wasn’t the other team that held me back; it was my own. Hoping to get noticed themselves, my teammates would not pass the ball to me. Mom was beside herself. Good thing—for them!—she stayed in her seat; her nickname was Truck, in case you forgot. I calmed her down afterward: “Mom, if I’m good, nothing can hold me back.”

  I knew I’d get more opportunities at tournaments during the summer, and as I said before, there’s a lot more to the game than scoring. Coach Calhoun would pay attention to everything I did on the court, and I was confident he’d still want me to join his program.

  If only I could decide what I wanted. That would depend on whether I liked the place when I went for my visit.

  As it turned out, I loved the place. I loved the state of Connecticut, the town of Storrs, the campus itself, everything.

  I showed up on a typically gorgeous fall weekend. On Friday, I sat in on some classes the players attended. I thought that it was so cool they hung out together away from the court. I wasn’t as close to some of my teammates in high school. Lots of times, remember, they went out while I was more comfortable staying home.

  On Saturday, I attended another football game. Granted, football in Storrs, Connecticut, was nothing like football in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The Huskies would wind up 5-6 that season. No matter. I had a seat this time, on the 50-yard line no less, and when I got back to South Carolina, I found out that a photo of me at the game had appeared in the local paper in Connecticut. And I hadn’t even made my decision yet!

  The moment that meant the most to me occurred while I was in a bar with several of the guys and the song “Wooly Bully” came on. One player, who was black, started to sing along with the white players. I was blown away that he knew the lyrics and that he didn’t refuse to listen to the song because it wasn’t rap. There didn’t seem to be the same racial barrier I was used to in South Carolina. This was the place for me.

  Sound familiar? It should. That’s exactly what I said after my visit to Alabama, even after the guy gave me the finger, and after I had to stand in the aisle at the football game. I was getting a bit concerned: Was this how I was going to feel after every school I saw?

  That’s when I knew I had to make the one last visit, to Lexington, Kentucky. As much as I loved Connecticut, I needed to be sure.

  Besides, Kentucky was not just any school. Under Adolph Rupp, the Wildcats won four national championships in the 1940s and ’50s. Now led by Rick Pitino, another coach making a name for himself, Kentucky was back among the elite just a few years after going on probation for academic and recruiting violations.

  I met Coach Pitino earlier that year, when he came to our house. The man knew how to sell himself, and his program, better than anyone. I felt special, wanted. Too bad I didn’t feel the same once I got to Lexington. Especially when you consider how I was treated in Storrs.

  Two examples stand out:

  I was having lunch with the team’s star forward, Jamal Mashburn, and his roommate at a restaurant Pitino owned. He happened to be there that afternoon, sitting with some friends a few tables away. Perfect, I figured, he’ll stop by for a few minutes to say hello, and I’ll learn more to help me make my decision. Only he didn’t stop by. He waved, and that was it. Coach Calhoun would never have ignored us. He and I, in fact, enjoyed several meals together on my visit to Storrs.

  The second incident took place the next day. I was leaving the dorm and walking to the practice facility when I saw Pitino drive by. He waved again but didn’t pull over to chat. I could draw only one conclusion from these two similar situations: go where you are valued, where it’s clear somebody wants you to be an essential part of what they’re doing. That goes for deciding between colleges or job offers.

  No offense to Pitino, but to him I was one of many. If I went to Kentucky, wonderful, he’d find a way to make good use of me, but if not, the program wouldn’t suffer one bit. He was accustomed to signing the best high school players in the nation, and that would be true again that year.

  In any case, I was sure now: Connecticut it would be.

  I can’t overstate how excited I was. I’d be playing in the Big East, and I used to love watching those epic battles on TV between Georgetown, Syracuse, Villanova, and St. John’s. In my opinion, the Big East, not the ACC or Big Ten, was the best conference. I’d also play in Madison Square Garden in New York City, which wasn’t known as the mecca of basketball for nothing.

  New York, Philly, Boston—I would see all the big cities, and the big cities would mean big stages and big possibilities. I learned that in the summer between 10th and 11th grades, during the AAU games in DC. If I could hold my own in the Big East, I could set my sights on the NBA, and Coach Calhoun would be the perfect man to prepare me for that move. Look what he did for Reggie Lewis, whom he coached at Northeastern in the mid-1980s. Lewis, may he re
st in peace, went on to play six years for the Boston Celtics, which was quite an accomplishment, coming from a college so under the radar.

  What’s more, in choosing Connecticut, I’d receive the best of both worlds: playing in the city and going to school in the country, away from the distractions that have kept too many young men from reaching their dreams. I thought of my teammate in high school who told people I’d spend four years on the bench and return to Dalzell an alcoholic. I couldn’t predict how well I would do at UConn, but he’d be wrong about me.

  The Connecticut coaches, from the start, cared about me as a human being, not just as a basketball player. Coach Dickenman made sure he knew the names of my brothers and sisters, and to this day, he sends Tierra a text every year on her birthday. Dave Leitao, another assistant coach, would later open up to me about how much he loved his family. These were grown men who would help me grow.

  The decision final, I began to spread the word. For the longest time, no one could believe it.

  “Connecticut,” they’d say. “Why in the world are you going there?”

  I couldn’t have shocked them any more if I’d said I was going to the moon. I tried to explain my reasoning, but it never seemed to satisfy them.

  Months later, when Connecticut fell to Jackson State—Jackson State!—90–88 in the first round of the NIT, which is far less prestigious than the NCAA Tournament, they let me have it again.

  “Connecticut sucks!” they told me.

  “It’s going to be different when I get there,” I said, and I truly believed it.

  My father also couldn’t understand why I didn’t choose Kentucky, and he expressed his displeasure over the phone from Korea. I wasn’t in the mood to hear it.

  “You weren’t here when Rick Pitino came to the house,” I told him. “You don’t know what the coaches said or what it felt like to sit in those dorm rooms. Are they going to take care of me? You think I should go to Kentucky for no other reason than it’s Kentucky.”

  Mom wasn’t thrilled either. Earlier in the process, she told me: “I don’t care where you end up as long as you don’t go to Connecticut.”