Rodney English
(The first of two articles)
Several college basketball recruiters showed considerable interest in a strapping 6-foot-4 forward at Olar High School in Denmark, South Carolina. Morehead State, South Carolina, Clemson, Jacksonville, Florida and South Carolina State wanted the promising senior.
But Dell English, whose son Rodney was luring those recruiters to Denmark, a small town with a population of 3,500 about 70 miles south of Columbia, the state’s capital, wasn’t convinced her son was “mature enough” to handle the rigors at a four-year university.
“My mom said I was all about girls and basketball,” says Rodney English, now the head coach at East Hamilton High School about to take the Hurricanes to their first appearance at the state tournament in Murfreesboro on Wednesday. “She wanted me to be a little more well-rounded.”
Momma Dell sent Rodney to Houston, Texas, where he would live with an aunt and uncle for a summer so he could play against “better competition” to improve his basketball skills.
Upon English’s return to Denmark, he and Dell visited Anderson (S.C.) Junior College and picked out his classes for the first of a two-year stay where he would play for coach Steve Lytton.
“That,” English said during a recent interview, “was the best decision she ever made.”
English played his way into national prominence and was named a junior college all-American in his second year at Anderson.
Lytton, who had a strong friendship with Sonny Smith at Virginia Commonwealth, routinely sent his best players to Richmond to play for the Rams. It was only natural that Rodney and Dell pay a visit to the VCU campus to scope out the school and Smith’s basketball program.
“Let’s just say some not so good things happened that involved Sonny Smith when I was on my visit,” English recalled. “My mom said Virginia Commonwealth was not going to happen.”
But English was also attracting interest from Alabama, Maryland and Clemson was back in the picture as well. English also had some interest in Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, because Dell thought Rodney should pursue a business degree and Samford’s business school was widely respected.
Dell English also got her hands on information about East Tennessee State University in the northeast corner of the Volunteer state. Rodney, however, did not share her enthusiasm about ETSU. “I had no interest in ETSU,” he said. “None whatsoever.”
On a spring break, mom and son nevertheless visited the Johnson City campus. Dell loved the place and thought it was be the perfect fit for her basketball-crazed son to extend his athletic career. Despite Rodney’s respect for assistant ETSU coach Buzz Peterson, who was handling his recruitment, he still was hesitant to believe the Bucs had a place in his future. Or, at least that’s what he thought up to the point of meeting the ETSU players.
That changed everything.
“Then I loved the guys, the school and basketball program,” he said. “So it happened.”
In English’s two seasons with coach Alan LeForce, he became a star. As a junior, English averaged 13.8 points and helped ETSU reach the NCAA tournament where Iowa ended the Bucs’ season with a 76-73 win in the first round. ETSU finished 28-5.
As a senior in 1991-92, the Bucs again played their way into the “Big Dance” as the No. 14 seed – that was about normal for the Southern Conference champion back then – and faced No. 3 Arizona, coached by Lute Olson, in the opening round.
“I was the leading scorer and rebounder (7.5 per game) and led us in about everything except steals,” English says. “I was good but played with two guys – Calvin Talford and Greg Dennis – that had all the name recognition. Because of my time with coach Lytton, I was all right with that. It was more about the winning for me. They got more of the pub, but I enjoyed the times when coach LeForce called a timeout when we needed a bucket and he called a play for me.”
English’s greatest moment at ETSU during the program’s “Glory Days” when the Bucs won four straight conference titles while registering 99 wins, was the Arizona game. Nobody gave the Bucs a chance, especially the Wildcats. But from the moment the game started ETSU had other ideas. The Bucs got the game-opening tip and English knocked down a 3 for an early lead.
English went on to score a game-high 21 points as the Bucs shocked Arizona 87-80. The Wildcats, ranked in the Top 5 most of that season, shot 36.8 percent and the Bucs made 13-of-25 3-pointers.
The account of English’s heroics in that March 20, 1992, classic played at the Omni in Atlanta, Georgia, was published by the Arizona Daily Star in connection with a rematch on Dec. 22, 2012, between the Bucs and Wildcats at the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, Hawaii, the first meeting between the teams since 1992.
In reliving his own “glory days” as a player, English was able to “grow up” as a young man, just like momma Dell thought her son would after leaving Denmark to embark on the next phase of his life.
ETSU’s time in the college basketball spotlight ended when Michigan’s “Fab Five” ousted the Bucs 102-90 in the second round.
But English credits LeForce with helping greatly with his maturation process – on and off the court – in two years with the Bucs and a lot of LeForce can be seen in English’s way of coaching his Hurricane players.
“Coach LeForce was the first coach that actually got in my face and held me accountable for every single thing I did, and I liked it,” English said. “That’s why I do the same thing with my kids today. He was so honest with me that sometimes it hurt. When I think back and my time at East Tennessee, I appreciate it because I knew exactly where he stood and what he wanted, when he wanted it and how he wanted it.
“He loved his players and they knew it. I love my players and they know it. My kids know when I ask them to do something a certain way there’s a reason I’m asking them and that’s what coach LeForce did for me. He had more influence on me than any coach I had and that’s true to this day.”
The respect English’s current players have for their coach is obvious in how they play for him and what they say about their leader. When East Hamilton fell behind 20-9 in the first quarter against Blackman and still trailed by 31-21 midway through the second, the ‘Canes never wavered from English’s plan.
Sophomore Cam Montgomery’s 3-pointer with 1:21 left in the game gave East Hamilton its first lead and Montgomery’s two free throws with 3.1 seconds remaining sealed a 72-68 victory that clinched the school’s first trip to the state tournament.
“Coach English talks about embracing a moment like that Arizona game as being a really important time in his life,” said Montgomery, who left the tumult at Ooltewah as a freshman and transferred to East Hamilton prior to this season. “His team was the underdog just like we were against Blackman and will be against (defending champion) Memphis East at state. His team overcame that and beat Arizona.”
After leaving ETSU, English, then in his early 20s, had a free-agent tryout with the NBA Dallas Mavericks. He received about $4,000 to eat on for seven days, but didn’t fare well while trying to showcase his talents and returned to Johnson City and graduate school at ETSU, something that was always a part of his long-range plan.
Shortly thereafter, telephone calls from the Harlem Globetrotters, the most famous basketball team on Earth, started coming English’s way.
The Globetrotters called LeForce, who summoned English to his office and expressed strong displeasure about how his former player handled the calls. When told English thought it was a friend’s practical joke, LeForce said, “Nope, it’s not.”
LeForce called Mannie Jackson, chairman and owner of the Globetrotters, and acted as a go-between for the team and English.
English was offered two dates for a tryout. The first didn’t work because he had finals. It was worked out that English would begrudgingly head to Minneapolis the following weekend. “I didn’t really want to do it because I loved being in college,” he said. “My mom was giving me a little stipend, I had a little job and nice place to live and I was loving it.”
But he did go to Minnesota.
English breezed through the interviews and went to the on-court portion of the tryout with no expectations one way or the other. During the tryout other players began trash-talking and that was right in English’s wheelhouse, like a high fastball to Babe Ruth. “If you start talking to me that way, I’m in heaven. The next thing I know they’re offering me a contract.
English, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, went back to East Tennessee, called momma Dell and discussed the offer.
“I came to the conclusion that playing for the Globetrotters might not be a bad thing,” he said. “If it didn’t agree with me, I could walk away and come back to grad school.”
English signed a two-year, $90,000 contract that had him playing domestically on the West Coast and hitting the global circuit during the overseas portion of the schedule. Like many of the Globetrotters, English was tagged with a nickname – “Hot Rod.”
Nicknames are a time-honored tradition with the clowns of basketball: Reece “Goose” Tatum, 7-3 Shagari “Skyscraper” Alleyne, John “Hot Plate” Williams, 7-8 Paul “Tiny” Sturgess or Sharavjamts “Shark” Tserenjanhor, a 7-footer from Mongolia.
In his two years with the ‘Trotters, they lost one game to the Generals, which for a two-game stint were comprised of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar All-Stars, guys with NBA experience. Losing is unacceptable in Globetrotter circles. While team owner Jackson was not at that particular game in England, he was at the hotel the following morning when English and the other players woke up.
“It was not a good thing,” English said. “We had the hardest practice I had ever been through that day and tricks weren’t included; strictly basketball. We went out the next day and beat Abdul-Jabbar’s team by 25 points.
When his contract was up, the Globetrotters tried to re-sign English for three to four more years. English declined that offer.
English and his wife, Kimberly, had been married about a month when Rodney decided to play basketball in Europe with the Salin Basketball Club in the French Federation Basketball League. Then the Englishes wound up in China. Rodney played with the Tianjin Basketball Club on the mainland in the Chinese Basketball League.
“I think all of China, except for Hong Kong, is like a third-world country,” he said. “Basketball extended into the rainy season and many times I went from our hotel to the arena with somebody rowing a boat to get me to a basketball game. And we played in arenas where the smoke from cigarettes was so thick it dimmed the overhead lights.”
It was a chance for make some money, play basketball and be exposed to different culture, so it was an enjoyable experience.
However, English could not deny that his playing days were winding down.
(Sunday: One career leads to another and it also revolves around basketball)
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)