Speedy Claxton, Tom Parrotta and Mike DePaoli reunite with (and against) Tom Pecora today. Photo from Claxton's Twitter.
Speedy Claxton doesn’t spend too much time pondering the butterfly effect generated by his teenaged decision to attend Hofstra — partially because it’s hard for him or anyone else to remember a time when he wasn’t singularly connected with Hofstra.
“Nah, that’s way too far gone at this point,” Claxton said last week. “I’m glad I did come here. The rest is history. There’s no looking back.”
But even if he’d decided to go somewhere else beginning in the fall of 1996, it’s easy enough to envision his career playing out mostly the same way: Claxton parlaying a wildly successful collegiate career into a decade-long NBA career and subsequently taking advantage of the myriad opportunities in coaching and scouting afforded those who are veterans of the highest level of professional basketball.
But Tom Pecora knows how the butterfly’s wings flap. And this afternoon — when Pecora, an assistant coach at Quinnipiac, coaches against Claxton and the Flying Dutchmen for the first time the 28th anniversary of his first game as an assistant to Jay Wright at Hofstra — Pecora will get a uniquely up-close reminder of how so many careers and college basketball programs are linked to that hot summer day in 1994 when he first saw Claxton.
“I was watching him play in a summer league game (after) his sophomore year of high school at a place, Hoffman Park, in Queens, and he was about 5-foot-5, 110 pounds,” Pecora said Friday night from Quebec, where the Dutchmen and Quinnipiac are among the teams competing in the Northern Classic. “And I came back and I told Jay and Joe Jones ‘I just saw a kid who’s special, man.’ I said ‘Now, I know he’s little, but boy, he’s really good.’
“And obviously, the rest is history.”
Claxton said his first memory of meeting Pecora was at the Physical Fitness Center in the summer of 1994, when he and his Christ the King teammates participated in a camp put together by Wright and his staff months after they arrived at Hofstra.
“They started recruiting me, they took a liking to me when we were here for team camp,” Claxton said. “And from then on, it seemed everywhere I played, somebody from that staff was watching me.”
Claxton orally committed to Hofstra following a junior year in which he averaged 6.0 points and 4.3 assists per game. But everyone started watching Claxton as a senior, when the point guard — previously the overlooked fifth starter on a team featuring heavily recruited stars such as Rhode Island-bound Lamar Odom and St. John’s-bound Erick Barkley — averaged 15.1 points and 6.2 assists per game in helping Christ the King to the CHSAA championship game.
“I remember Villanova coming in late, Georgia Tech (was) coming in late, St. John’s started (messing) around with him,” Pecora said.
But Claxton remained committed to Hofstra, where he had one of the most impressive careers in school history. The Flying Dutchmen went 77-44 with Claxton, who scored 2,015 points, collected a school-record 660 assists and 288 steals, won a pair of America East Player of the Year awards and led the Flying Dutchmen to the NCAA Tournament as a senior — the first NCAA Tournament trip for Hofstra in 23 years.
“The loyalty he showed to Hofstra and to Jay was incredible,” Pecora said. “To just say 'No thanks, I’m going to stick with these guys’ — it just speaks volumes for the kind of man he is, the kind of kid he was, and the kind of family he came from.”
The Dutchmen repeated as America East champs in 2001, after which Wright departed for Villanova and Pecora moved down one seat to become head coach. Wright, of course, directed Villanova to two national championships, two additional trips to the Final Four and 520 wins before retiring in April.
Pecora was the first of at least eight Wright assistants to become Division I head coaches, a group that includes Jones (Boston University) as well as Quinnipiac head coach Baker Dunleavy, who is in his sixth season at the helm of the Bobcats. One of Dunleavy’s first hires was Pecora, who spent two years out of coaching after he was fired at Fordham. And two of Claxton’s assistants, Tom Parrotta and Mike DePaoli, served as assistants under Pecora.
How much of this happens if Claxton goes to college somewhere else? Without Claxton, how many opportunities does Wright — who was 19-36 in his first two seasons — get to rebuild the Flying Dutchmen? Does he establish himself enough at Hofstra to get the opportunity — at Villanova or elsewhere — to construct the country’s preeminent championship culture? Is he one of just 16 coaches to win multiple national titles and a Hall of Famer, all before turning 60?
What’s the parallel universe path for Pecora — whose Division I coaching experience prior to arriving at Hofstra consisted of one season apiece as an assistant at Loyola Marymount and UNLV — and the rest of Wright’s assistants-turned-head coaches?
What happens to Hofstra, which is 127 games over .500 since the 1996-97 season after being 68 games under .500 in the quarter century prior to Claxton’s arrival? Maybe Hofstra is playing Quinnipiac this afternoon in Canada, but neither program would look anything like it does today if Claxton played somewhere else.
The sight of one another on the opposite sideline will be a little unusual this afternoon for Pecora and Claxton, who talk weekly as peers and friends who have shared nearly 30 years worth of experiences together. Pecora spoke Friday of the admiration he has for Claxton’s late Mom, Yvette, and noted Claxton’s Dad, Steve, just celebrated his 73rd birthday.
“We’re in that no-fly zone,” Claxton said with a grin Wednesday afternoon. “If I bump into him out there, I’m sure we’ll chop it up. (Editor’s note: They did, see the picture accompanying this post) But we’ll probably talk after the game is played.”
Pecora doesn’t know how his career would have evolved if he hadn’t seen Claxton on the hot pavement in Queens in the summer of 1994. But 793 games as a head coach or assistant later, he has a pretty good idea of what wouldn’t have happened.
“I think every coach in their career — especially when you’ve been doing it a while — has an arc,” Pecora said. “There’s always one player that’s the reason why they turned the corner, or one team. And obviously, having Speedy play for us there was a life-changing experience on a lot of levels for all of us. It made all of our lives better.”
No comments:
Post a Comment