George Dohrmann - Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine

Copyright 2010 by George Dohrmann

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B ALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dohrmann, George.
Play their hearts out : a coach, his star recruit, and the youth basketball machine / George Dohrmann.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-52316-7
1. BasketballUnited States. 2. Youth league basketballUnited States. 3. Keller, Joe. 4. Basketball coachesUnited States. 5. Walker, Demetrius. 6. Basketball playersUnited States. 7. Basketball playersRecruiting United States. I. Title.
GV885.D64 2010
796.3230973dc22 2010015470

www.ballantinebooks.com

v3.1

For my parents,
who encouraged and enabled grand pursuits

This book is the result of more than eight years of reporting, and I witnessed most of the events and conversations depicted. I tried to avoid using material for which I was not present, though in some instances it was central to the narrative and had to be re-created through interviews with those involved. Relying on others to recall past events is an imperfect method of fact-gathering. I was left to trust that they would provide an honest version of what occurred. In cases where differing accounts were offered, I noted that in the text or went with the version relayed by the majority of those present.

Joe Keller

O n a clear and warm Sunday afternoon in September of 1996, a basketball game was played in the gym at Riverside Community College in Southern California. No one from the school knew the game was scheduled, and the organizer, twenty-six-year-old Joe Keller, thought he would have to break into the gym and open the doors from the inside. At the last minute, a friend procured a key, but Keller was unable to turn on the scoreboard or the clock, so the score and the time were kept manually. There was no advance advertising of the game, no newspaper articles or Internet postings, yet fans filed in as soon as the doors opened. Estimates vary as to how many people filled the worn bleachers, but the crowd numbered at least 300 and might have been as large as 500, a considerable audience for a game in which none of the participants was older than fourteen.

Of the two teams playing that day, the Southern California All-Stars (SCA) were by far the most well known. Their coach, Pat Barrett, cut a wide swath in the world of grassroots basketball. Nike paid him more than $100,000 annually to assure that his players were aligned with that brand and gave him another $50,000 in shoes and other gear. His skills as a basketball instructor were limited, but his ability to identify and acquaint himself with the best young basketball players in Southern California was legendary. Given the considerable talent flowing annually from that part of the nation, this made him one of the most powerful figures in basketball, courted by college coaches, NBA scouts, and sports agents. A year earlier, after UCLA won the national title with a team that included several SCA alumni, including Final Four most valuable player Ed OBannon, the teams coach, Jim Harrick, gave Barrett a championship ring. A prominent UCLA booster also donated $200,000 to a nonprofit organizationValues for a Better Americathat Barrett controlled.

Barrett had coached since the mid-1980s and operated teams in various age groups, but the team of seventh- and eighth-graders competing in Riverside that Sunday may have been the most impressive hed ever assembled. There was Jamal Sampson (who would go on to play for Cal Berkeley and then the NBAs Milwaukee Bucks), Josh Childress (Stanford and then the Atlanta Hawks), Cedric Bozeman (UCLA and the Hawks), and Jamaal Williams (the Washington Huskies). The point guard, Keilon Fortune, was considered the best of the lot, even though he was a year younger than the other players. Two months earlier, SCA had claimed the 13-and-Under Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national title, fueling talk that Barretts assemblage of young stars was among the best ever.

SCAs opponent that day, the Inland Stars, was considerably less distinguished, and its coach, Joe Keller, paled in comparison to the mighty Barrett. A full-time welder and a part-time coach, Keller was considerably better at the former than the latter. When he started coaching a few years earlier, he couldnt even demonstrate a proper defensive stance. In his first season, his team played an SCA squad and lost by almost 100. While Barrett was flush with Nike money, financial stability constantly eluded Keller. He had only recently moved out of an apartment he shared with his mother in Riverside and often asked people hed just met: Do you know any rich people who could sponsor my team?

Kellers squad in Riverside that Sunday was not without talent. Forwards Lance and Erik Soderbergthe sons of former Kentucky player Mark Soderbergwere capable players and would go on to earn college scholarships, as would the Inland Stars best guard, Josh Dunaj. But they were no match for SCAs kids, and the swagger of Barretts players was unmistakable as they entered the gym in matching Nike sweat suits. Kellers playersdressed in yellow uniforms he had borrowed from another coachwere already warming up when Barrett and the SCA kids arrived. They stopped and watched as fans streamed down from the bleachers to greet the recently crowned national champions.

Basketball games are often framed as battles between coaches, as if the players on the floor are chess pieces easily manipulated by the men on the sidelines. At the youth level, this is an especially foolish line of thought. Kids make mistakes. They act unpredictably. Coaching them requires an understanding of their fallibility. The biggest influence Keller and Barrett would have on the outcome of the game would come long before it began, in the procurement of players: The coach who assembled the most talent would likely win. Barrett had few peers in that regard, least of all Keller. If a bookie had set odds on the game, SCA would have been favored by at least 20, and it wouldnt have surprised anyone if Barretts collection of future NBA players whipped the Inland Stars by more than 50.

But Keller would not have scheduled the game had he not believed in his teams chances. In the days before, he boldly predicted victory and became convinced that the game would be his defining moment as a coach. The reason for his optimism became apparent to the SCA players as they shed their sweat suits and began their pregame routine. Glancing toward the Inland Stars end of the court, they saw the players that had long been part of Kellers team, but amid them was a boy they had never seen before. He was the tallest player in the gym, nearly six foot five, with impossibly long arms and a nimbleness unseen in a player so tall for his age. They watched as he executed a layup, jumping so high that it was clear he could dunk every time if he wanted. In a bit of showmanship scarcely seen from a player so young, he repeatedly surged upward toward the basket and, just as everyone anticipated him slamming the ball home, merely dropped it through the rim. He was letting the crowd and the SCA playersmost of whom could not yet palm a basketballknow that dunking came so easily to him that hed grown bored with it.