Bob Hurley on Tyshawn TaylorOne of the great parts of this job is the ability to be able to talk to and interview some of the real good guys in sports, and basketball in particular.
Friday was one of those days, as I was able to spend some time on the phone with none other than Bob Hurley, the famed coach at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, N.J.
Of course, the main topic of discussion was Tyshawn Taylor, a senior guard at St. Anthony who orally committed to MU earlier this week. But Hurley had plenty more to say, particularly about the rest of the players he'll be coaching this year, the New York Times bestselling book about he and St. Anthony - 'The Miracle of St. Anthony' - and the movie that it will soon be spawning.
Hurley had high praise for Taylor, who is entering his second season at St. Anthony. Hurley estimated Taylor averaged 8 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 steals per game as a junior on a team that, when it's all said and done, will have a total of nine players playing Division I basketball.
Here's a transcript of the interview:
What does Tyshawn bring to the table as a basketball player? He's a small 6-3, he's got extremely long arms. He gobbles up statistics. When we do our statistical things for games he's invariably going to have deflections, steals, defensive rebounds. He's going to block a shot during the game, he's going to get some loose balls. He's going to get the ball to people. He's a very good passer. He's a terrific finisher on the break - as good as we've had in a while - and he's also very, very good going to the basket and making plays. Finishing with either hand and getting in the lane, keeping the defense on him and at the last minute getting the ball to somebody for a score. Very team-oriented. His game is very, very much a team game. He wants to guard people. He's going to be a pass-first, shot-second guy.
What does he need to improve upon? What he needs to do is get physically stronger. He's a little bit under 170, probably could play in college between 185-190. He'll fill out when he gets to school. He's just got to become a much, much better shooter, and he's got to become a more consistent shooter. Tom (Crean) has seen it; it's just a matter of him shooting the ball the same way all the time. He has a tendency to go back to habits he had when he was younger and not shooting well. He's become a very good free-throw shooter. When he has the time to set up at the free-throw line, he's been a high 70s, low 80-percent free-throw shooter. So I think his jump shot is going to become more consistent as he gets more reps in college, and also more physically strong.
How has he developed in the time you've coached him? When he came to us he was just a basketball player. He transferred in as a sophomore. Moved back up here. Family was originally from the area here, they had moved down to Florida and he'd come back his sophomore year. When he came to us he was a basketball player who you saw had potential, but there was no way of knowing where he was going to play. He was kind of long, so we thought he might be a 2-guard because of the kind of size he had. He's been terrific at moving over to handle the ball, and he's shown a real feel.
Tyshawn said he's only been playing point guard for the last couple years. How has he made the transition from off-guard, in your opinion? He knows how to talk to people. So when he plays, he can be in a situation where he doesn't necessarily know everybody that he's playing with, like in a camp game or in a tournament someplace, but he can manage to get people together. That's a quality that sometimes people don't have, even after doing it for a long time. And I think it's just team with him. He likes being a good teammate, he wants to be a good passer, rarely will he take a bad shot; he's more inclined to pass up shots to get people the ball. Yet he's a big-time athlete. He really gets off the floor. He'll have follow-up dunks, he'll pin somebody's shot on the backboard. He does all kinds of stuff athletically, too, that really impresses you.
What kind of person is he? He does very well in school and has come a ways. A little bit goofy as a sophomore, as I think most sophomores are, but I think he's become considerably more reliable and responsible, and I think for his age right now he's really where you'd like a young person to be.
There were some big-time schools interested in Tyshawn, including Kansas and North Carolina. When did the recruiting process really pick up? We kept telling people last year who were recruiting our other kids, ‘You've got to look at this Tyshawn Taylor, because he's really coming along.' And it wasn't until July, when he went to the Reebok camp and just played phenomenal that all of a sudden people just started calling like crazy - including Marquette and Kansas and a bunch of other places.
What did you think about his commitment to MU? It's logical. They're in the Big East, so they're going to come back and play in the area. So he's going to come back and get a chance to play Rutgers, Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova, UConn. There's chances that people can see him play. He also really liked when he was out there (at Marquette) that the system is very guard-oriented based on the personnel that the coach has. Ty kind of felt that that's their strength, that's what they're going to play to. And he really liked the assistant coaches, particularly the coach that came up from New Orleans - he was really comfortable with him. I think there were a lot of things he liked. He visited two other places, so he knew what he wanted to compare with one to the other. When he came home he was sure. I talked to him six times. We talked about everything under the sun, and he didn't waver at all in his feelings basically about anything. So we were very comfortable. He made the decision that was good for him.
Mandy Johnson (1982-'85) is the last player from St. Anthony to play at MU, isn't he? Hank Raymonds was still the coach and Rick Majerus ultimately took over and coached Mandy at the end of his career there. Mandy works for me here in Jersey City now; he runs one of my rec centers in the city.
How many players would you say have earned Division I scholarships during your career at St. Anthony? Over 100. My team this year, at this point six seniors have accepted scholarships. I've never had this many. I think five was most we ever had before in one year. So there's six, and there's very possibly one more kid who has developed from last March until now unbelievably. He didn't always start on our JV team last year, but he has a famous name - Madut Bol, the son of Manute Bol. He's about 6-6 and rail-thin. He couldn't have been much more than 150 pounds. He's now 6-8 and he's probably about 170 pounds, and he's got schools really looking at him now as somebody they might want to redshirt. So we might wind up with seven seniors this year. We're very proud of the kids, but it also means the cupboards could be relatively bare next year. I do have two juniors who have already been offered scholarships, and one of them North Carolina's offered, Dominic Cheek.
"The Miracle of St. Anthony" is regarded as one of the best sports books of the past few years, and perhaps the last decade. What kind of feedback do you get from it? I think people have liked it. I think the most consistent thing is people are surprised at how long I've been at the school, No. 1, and No. 2, they didn't realize how poor the school is and how poor the kids are at the school. So I think it's more eye-opening about the nature of the school and the mission we have there. Ty's family, they're not tremendously well-off; mom works. But many of these kids are being raised by single parents and families below the national poverty level. They're just scrapping along. But I think only two kids now in the last 35 years haven't gone to college. So as much as it's not a prep school and we have poor kids, we are putting them in college and they're turning out to be, 10 years after high school, very productive.
The word is there's now a movie in the works based on the book. What do you know about it? They're completing the rough draft of the screenplay now. They have a director and a producer. The company is Walden Media from up in Boston. They have a financial backer, so they have money. They've started to make lists of people for the different roles. But until the screenplay's written, they've been giving the book out to read. Actors have been given the book to read for potentially playing myself or other leads in it.
OK, you touched on it, so I'll ask the question: who'd you like to see playing you in the movie? I always say my favorite sports movie was Remember The Titans, so then I would like Denzel Washington to play me. (laughs) That somewhat confuses the whole thing of the white guy from Jersey City coaching the inner-city kids. It completely turns it around. Tommy Lee Jones was one that was mentioned. They've given a book to Kevin Costner. They've also talked about Alec Baldwin. Mel Gibson was mentioned. William Hurt was another one. My wife wanted Julia Roberts to play her. But the amount of money that Julia Roberts would command for a role in the movie, they wouldn't be able to pay anybody else.
http://blogs.jsonline.com/muhoops/archive/2007/11/02/bob-hurley-on-tyshawn-taylor.aspx
