How Dusty May became Michigan basketball's ultimate connector
"He took me in under his wing, man," Michigan basketball star Yaxel Lendeborg said. "Switching from coach mode to dad mode, which has been great."
INDIANAPOLIS − Will Tschetter is a big-time fisherman, but this time he needed Dusty May's help. Four Michigan basketball players − Tschetter, Oscar Goodman, Charlie May and Harrison Hochberg − had all agreed to do a polar plunge in the depths of the winter cold in January, and the U-M coach agreed to let them use his land. Behind his house is a pond, completely frozen over, so Tschetter used an ice auger to carve out a hole large enough for the 6-foot-8 hoopers to jump in.
But Dusty May didn't just let them use the waterhole – he jumped in with them, before everybody went sprinting back to the coach's hot tub in the back of his house. SHAWN WINDSOR: Dusty May's quest for beautiful basketball began in driveway games It was just one of the "random little things" that make May unique for a college basketball coach. What else?
"I think his connections," Goodman said. It's fitting, really, that Goodman used the word connections . May preaches about the importance of "connectors" on any basketball team − guys like Tschetter and Roddy Gayle Jr.
, who don't necessarily pop on the stat sheet but jump off the screen when watching film. May has always been a connector. After a stint as a student manager at Indiana, he got his feet wet in the college hoops coaching world as a video analyst at USC under Henry Bibby, after IU assistant coaches Mike Davis and John Trealor told Bibby, "We've got a guy for you," according to May.
Continue to the original source for the full article.