March Madness: Hofstra’s Speedy Claxton had coaching instincts as player

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 court docket for a exercise together with his staff at Benchmark International Arena carrying a black hooded garment with a Pride emblem 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 cannot refuse.

Hofstra has grow to be a faculty identified for producing star gamers in that place. Claxton rattled off a couple of 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 cannot keep in mind the final time somebody known as him “Craig,” which is his precise title). Now he has a brand new one.

That actually 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 yr, occurring to play within the NBA for a decade, successful a title there with the Spurs and nonetheless holding the Hofstra information for steals and assists, his legacy was already etched in marble. Some of those that adopted him ended his manufacturing, positive, however none have been in a position to eclipse his stardom or his standing.

This callback of returning to educate Hofstra and bringing it to the extent he reached as a player places him in a very totally different stratosphere. Perhaps the most recent section of his time on the college 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 match victory.

No one appears extra stunned than Claxton that this second act is going down, though two Hall of Famers appeared to have a reasonably good concept it was potential.

The first was Don Nelson, his coach with Golden State throughout his remaining season enjoying 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 worked briefly as a scout for Golden State after retiring as a player, but in 2013, he returned home and joined Joe Mihalich’s inaugural staff at Hofstra. For eight seasons, he was in the background, helping to recruit and develop players in the position who would try to measure up to him. In the beginning, however, he said he had no idea what he was getting himself into.

“I’m not going to lie; my first years it was form of tough,” he said. “It’s totally different, going from being a player to being a coach and being within the workplace from 9 am to six or 7 pm It was a change in way of life for me. But as soon as I received used to it, I beloved it.”

The different Hall of Fame believer in him was Jay Wrightwho 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 told Newsday. “And he additionally had nice management qualities, very quiet management qualities… Once he received in it, I knew he’d be nice. But earlier than he received into coaching, I believed he was so quiet that I did not assume he would wish to do it.”

Wright was so impressed by Claxton’s eye that he said when they were together at Hofstra — and even during his time at Villanova — he would rely on Claxton’s assessments.

“He is the only player I ever truly trusted when I evaluated an incoming recruit,” Wright said. “I’d at all times ask him earlier than I’d provide a man a scholarship: What do you assume? And he was at all times useless on. To the purpose the place when he grew to become an assistant at Hofstra and I used to be at Villanova, I’d sit with him at occasions and ask him to take a look at gamers as a result of I had such an incredible respect for his analysis. It’s actually distinctive. He has a tremendous clear capability to evaluate gamers with out the interference of emotion or hype. I feel that has proven within the groups he has put collectively at Hofstra yearly.”

In 2021, after Mihalich suffered a stroke and Mike Farrelly served as acting head coach for one season, Claxton was given Hofstra’s head-coaching job.

During those five years, he has won 105 of his 167 games, and his .629 winning percentage is the highest among anyone at Hofstra with more than one season running the program (Jack McDonald, who coached in 1943, went 15-6 during his one year). If he maintains the pace he is on, he should surpass Tom Pecora (155) as the program’s winningest coach in two or three years.

And isn’t it nice to see a mid-major coach reach the NCAA Tournament and know he’ll be back simply because there is no place he’d rather be?

“He has ‘it,’ ” said Mihalich, who made the trip to Tampa with the team. “He is real.”

His players — his basketball descendants, really — seem to think so, too.

“He’s a guard, I’m a guard,” Edmead said. “He provides us essentially the most confidence you may play with. Coming right here, it was the perfect determination of my life.”

Added Davis: “He developed me loads as a player. He’s helped me be the perfect model of myself on and off the court docket. He’s simply modified my life, helped me out loads.”

Claxton said there is “extra meaning” for him to be here at this tournament representing the school for which he played. He is not just coaching but winning and continuing a tradition that he essentially started.

“Hofstra is a very special place, always will be a special place,” he said. “We’re talking about legacy right now . . . It means so much more to me.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone meaning more to Hofstra than Claxton.