Sticking to the program - Rising star: Dwayne Wade

WHAT DOES MICHIGAN State mentor Tom Izzo have to do with Marquette's sudden success? More than you'd think. "When coach Crean was sitting in my living room recruiting me, I didn't know anything about him," Golden Eagles' superguard Dwayne Wade says. "But I did know a lot about the kind of stuff they accomplished, and how they ran things first-class, at his previous job." Which, of course, was as the Final Four-flavored Izzo's chief assistant at State.

Wade, of course, was not recruited by the Spartans--or any other big-time school for that matter. A sleeper's sleeper--in an all-televised era of "no more sleepers," natch--he did not even make the varsity at Richards H.S. in Robbins, Ill. until his junior year.

So Wade had zero rep as a blue-chip prospect. Naturally failing to catch college coaches' attention until the following summer--when he perfed awesomely with the Illinois Golden Eagles and in camps a year earlier he couldn't even get into--he barely got a D1 sniff until the very last minute.

Except from Marquette, which had stuck to him like a plastic slipcover for more than a year by that point. "He didn't have the numbers, or anything," Crean says. "But there was just something about him that I had to have."

And a good thing, too. Ploddingly star-less Marquette--26-7 last season and off to another sizzling start this year--needs an ultimate "breakdown player" such as Wade like Keith Richards needs new blood every two weeks. "Before Dwayne, we used to have a layup contest during Midnight Madness," Crean jokes. "Now we can have a dunk contest."

"Tom Crean was smart to see something in Dwayne the rest of us didn't," agrees Memphis mentor John Calipari. "And he was even smarter to stay with him. Without Wade, he'd win about 16 games."

Yes, Crean was not only the first big-time coach to recruit Wade hard, he was also the only one to stick with him through hard times. "I asked coach straight up, `Will you still want me if I don't qualify academically?'" Wade recalls. "And he said, 'Don't even worry about it. You're the kind of guy we want in this program. We're committed to you 1,000%.'"

Another good call: Wade is now a superstar in the classroom as well, proudly carrying a 3.2 cumulative average to every class he goes to. "And he goes to every class," Crean says.

Yup, Wade is a superstar-plus. He plays higher above the rim--both physically and mentally--than any other player in the country. He improved immensely by not playing throughout his redshirt freshman year through a neverending multitude of Izzo-inspired individual workouts with the Marquette staff. He played assistant coach during games by consulting Crean during timeouts. ("And he had some darn good ideas, too," the coach smiles.) He's team-first to a fault, an offensive supertalent who is also a devastating defender. "His serious, unselfish demeanor on and off the court, makes him Mr. Intangibles," Crean says. "Watching him play, I can't sit down. He gives me shivers up my spine."

Watching true greatness can do that: last year, in his initial college season, Wade led the Golden Eagles in scoring (17.8 ppg), rebounding (6.6), assists (3.4), steals (2.47), and blocked shots (36). Amazing as this is--and we can't recall another player doing such all-around work for a top team since, well, ever--the results were even better: Wade's work propelled the Golden Eagles from utter mediocrity (15-15) to total terrific-ness (26-7).

And he did all that on a bad knee; after foreign parts were cleaned out from his patella this summer, he's off another dominating start this season (25.6 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 4.3 apg, 1.75 spg). In one game, he hit his first 11 shots. In another, the opponent's star was destroying Marquette in the first half. At halftime, a fuming Wade asked to cover the culprit--and shut him down to zero points in the second stanza.

And this guy has never even considered turning pro? "I was never the best," Wade says with a smile. "I was always the best of the rest. So I'm happy right here. I've got things to do at Marquette."

In, dare we say, a Michael Jordan-like manner.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Century Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group