TAMPA, Fla. — If anybody had questions on Speedy Claxton’s place within the historical past of Hofstra basketball, the sweatshirt he wore into the NCAA Tournament on Thursday answered them.
He walked onto the courtroom for a exercise along with his crew at Benchmark International Arena carrying a black hooded garment with a Pride brand and swoosh, a custom-made one-of-one that he had designed for him this week. The phrases throughout the entrance proclaimed him merely as: “The Guardfather.”
“It speaks for itself,” he mentioned of the hard-to-miss outfit and the moniker he can’t refuse.
Hofstra has turn into a faculty recognized for producing star gamers at that place. Claxton rattled off just a few of these names, from Justin Wright-Foreman, Desure Buie and Aaron Estrada to Tyler Thomas, Charles Jenkins and the 2 present ones who’re sustaining the custom, Cruz Davis and Preston Edmead.
“We’ve raised good guards,” he mentioned. “I’m the one who kind of started that. So I’m The Guardfather.”
He’s been going by a nickname most of his life (he mentioned he can’t bear in mind the final time somebody known as him “Craig,” which is his precise title). Now he has a brand new one.
That definitely would have been an apt honorific if Claxton, who final performed at Hofstra in 2000, had by no means once more set foot on the Hempstead campus.
After main the Pride to the NCAA Tournament in his senior 12 months, occurring to play within the NBA for a decade, successful a title there with the Spurs and nonetheless holding the Hofstra data for steals and assists, his legacy already was etched in marble. Some of those that adopted him topped his manufacturing, certain, however none has been in a position to eclipse his stardom or his standing.
This callback of returning to educate Hofstra and produce it to the extent he reached as a player places him in a very totally different stratosphere. Perhaps the newest section of his time on the faculty ought to rightly be known as one thing else.
It’s extra like The Guardfather Part II.
Better than the unique? We’ll discover out Friday when Hofstra faces Alabama within the first spherical with an opportunity to earn its first event victory.
No one appears extra stunned than Claxton that this second act is going down, though two Hall of Famers appeared to have a fairly good thought it was attainable.
The first was Don Nelson, his coach with Golden State throughout his last season taking part in within the NBA.
“One day after practice he pulled me to the side and he asked me if I ever thought about coaching,” Claxton mentioned on Thursday. “Up until that point, I hadn’t. He was like, ‘You should think about it. I think you would make a hell of a coach.’ That’s what prompted the idea. Here I have a Hall of Fame coach tell me that I should think about coaching, so I said, all right, let me start thinking about coaching.”
Claxton labored briefly as a scout for Golden State after retiring as a player, however in 2013, he returned residence and joined Joe Mihalich’s inaugural employees at Hofstra. For eight seasons, he was within the background, serving to to recruit and develop gamers on the place who would attempt to measure as much as him. In the start, nonetheless, he mentioned he had no thought what he was getting himself into.
“I’m not going to lie; my first years it was kind of rough,” he mentioned. “It’s different, going from being a player to being a coach and being in the office from 9 a.m. to 6 or 7 p.m. It was a change in lifestyle for me. But once I got used to it, I loved it.”
The different Hall of Fame believer in him was Jay Wright, who coached Claxton at Hofstra.
“He was always, and even to this day, one of the smartest players I ever coached in terms of basketball IQ,” Wright instructed Newsday. “And he also had great leadership qualities, very quiet leadership qualities . . . Once he got in it, I knew he’d be great. But before he got into coaching, I thought he was so quiet that I didn’t think he would want to do it.”
Wright was so impressed by Claxton’s eye that he mentioned after they have been collectively at Hofstra — and even throughout his time at Villanova — he would depend on Claxton’s assessments.
“He is the only player I ever truly trusted when I evaluated an incoming recruit,” Wright mentioned. “I would always ask him before I would offer a guy a scholarship: What do you think? And he was always dead on. To the point where when he became an assistant at Hofstra and I was at Villanova, I would sit with him at events and ask him to look at players because I had such a great respect for his evaluation. It’s really unique. He has an amazing clear ability to assess players without the interference of emotion or hype. I think that has shown in the teams he has put together at Hofstra every year.”
In 2021, after Mihalich suffered a stroke and Mike Farrelly served as performing head coach for one season, Claxton was given Hofstra’s head-coaching job.
During these 5 years, he has gained 105 of his 167 video games, and his .629 successful share is the best amongst anybody at Hofstra with multiple season operating this system (Jack McDonald, who coached in 1943, went 15-6 throughout his one 12 months). If he maintains the tempo he’s on, he ought to surpass Tom Pecora (155) as this system’s winningest coach in two or three years.
And isn’t it good to see a mid-major coach attain the NCAA Tournament and know he’ll be again just because there isn’t any place he’d moderately be?
“He has ‘it,’ ” mentioned Mihalich, who made the journey to Tampa with the crew. “He is real.”
His gamers — his basketball descendants, actually — appear to suppose so, too.
“He’s a guard, I’m a guard,” Edmead mentioned. “He gives us the most confidence you can play with. Coming here, it was the best decision of my life.”
Added Davis: “He developed me a lot as a player. He’s helped me be the best version of myself on and off the court. He’s just changed my life, helped me out a lot.”
Claxton mentioned there may be “extra meaning” for him to be right here at this event representing the college for which he performed. He is not only coaching however successful and persevering with a convention that he basically began.
“Hofstra is a very special place, always will be a special place,” he mentioned. “We’re talking about legacy right now . . . It means so much more to me.”
It’s exhausting to think about anybody which means extra to Hofstra than Claxton.
Tom Rock started overlaying sports activities for Newsday in 1996 and have become its NFL columnist in 2022. He beforehand was Newsday’s Giants beat author starting in 2008.
