Coaches and sons thriving in college basketball

“Pistol Pete” scored an NCAA-record 3,667 points in three seasons at LSU while playing for his father, Press. He averaged 44.2 points per game and led the NCAA in scoring in his three seasons. His father, who also coached at Clemson and N.C. State, began teaching Maravich the fundamentals at age 7. The story goes, he told his son upon offering him a scholarship to LSU, “If you don’t sign this … don’t ever come into my house again.”

AL AND ALLIE MCGUIRE, MARQUETTE

Allie McGuire was pictured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1973, wearing Marquette’s No. 12 next to the caption: “Man who Makes Marquette go” and the subhead “Coach Al’s Boy.” Coach Al’s boy was team captain and averaged 11.2 points per game his senior season in 1973. Four years later his father coached Marquette to the 1977 national championship over North Carolina at the Omni before retiring from coaching.

BOB AND PAT KNIGHT, INDIANA

Pat Knight wasn’t deterred by the short fuse and disciplinary tactics of the “General” — otherwise known as his father — even after Bob Knight allegedly kicked him in the shin during a timeout in frustration over an errant pass. Pat played for the third winningest coach in Division I men’s basketball history from 1991-95 at Indiana, then followed him into coaching. He served as Knight’s assistant at Texas Tech, before taking over as head coach after his father resigned. Pat now coaches at Lamar.

HOMER AND BRYCE DREW, VALPARAISO

Bryce Drew got his “one shining moment” with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer against Ole Miss in the first round of the 1998 NCAA tournament and then wrapped his father, his head coach at Valparaiso, in a bear hug. Bryce succeeded his father as head coach at Valparaiso. Homer had retired once before to make way for Bryce’s brother, Scott, but when Scott left to coach Baylor, Homer returned to Valpo, where he stayed until Bryce’s professional playing career ended after six NBA seasons.

WADE AND ALLAN HOUSTON, TENNESSEE

Allan Houston turned down a scholarship offer from Louisville, a national powerhouse and his hometown team, to play for his father at Tennessee from 1989-93. Houston scored 2,801 points in his career, second only to Maravich in SEC history, and developed into a first-round draft pick, taken 11th overall by Detroit. He was a two-time NBA All-Star in 12 seasons with the Pistons and Knicks. Wade Houston was the first black basketball coach in SEC history. He made the NIT twice in five years before parting ways after a 5-22 season in 1994.

The scenes play out on college basketball sidelines around the country for everyone to see.

The father, who also happens to be the coach, stands nose to nose with his son, who also happens to be his player. Spittle is flying, displeasure is dispensed, and the son tries desperately to find an interesting spot on the floor.

Awkward, yes, but it’s hard to look away, whether it’s from a few seats over, in the stands, or on YouTube.

Just how and why would a son play for his father? What must it feel like in that moment? What happens the next night at dinner?

If you ask Georgia State coach Ron Hunter, whose freshman shooting guard also is his son, sometimes not a whole lot. That’s because even when his wife is not at a road game, such as last week in Wilmington, she still hears about those exchanges.

“He only calls her when I yell at him,” Hunter said laughing, looking over at the one he calls a “mama’s boy.” “Then I don’t eat at home.”

R.J. scored 26 points against North Carolina Wilmington, making six of seven 3-pointers, but the Panthers lost. Apparently, R.J.’s defensive effort was lacking and he heard about it, which meant Amy Hunter was in no mood to cook the next night at home.

“I haven’t seen the wild side until this year,” R.J. said. “Usually he talks to me. That’s why I’m always like ‘Just talk to me, just tell me.’ But that’s his passion, and it’s something I’ve got to deal with.”

Tell Doug McDermott. The Creighton forward and national player-of-the-year candidate not only got his father in his grill during a loss to Wichita State, but ESPN's cameras caught the show.

“That’s just the way he coaches,” said McDermott, who ranks second in the nation in scoring with 23.3 points per game. “I took it as a way of getting our team to play harder. Maybe it got caught on national television, but there were no hard feelings between us.”

It helps that he’s a junior and has had time to adjust.

“Our challenge was early in his career, as he tried to figure out the difference between — this guy talking to me, is that my dad or is that my coach?” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said. “Once he was able to differentiate between his dad’s voice and his coach’s voice, it’s become much easier for him.”

One thing his dad doesn’t want to see?

“The coach doesn’t want to have his eyes rolled at him like most 18-year-olds roll their eyes at their dad when (he has) asked him to do the same thing 100 different times,” Greg McDermott said.

Greg McDermott talked to other coaches who played for their dads, such as Pat Knight (Bob), Tony Bennett (Dick) and Saul Smith (Tubby). He came away believing the easiest way for it to work was if the son was either a star player or a walk-on. There were enough issues without pressures over playing time.

His theory is playing out for many father-son duos in college basketball, including Tyler Self, a walk-on for Bill Self at Kansas, and Niko Roberts, also a walk-on at Kansas, where his father and former St. Johns’ coach Norm Roberts is back as an assistant.

Originally Greg McDermott didn’t think his son had the skills to play for him when he was coaching at Iowa State. So he didn’t recruit him, in part because he wasn’t happy there,and he soon resigned. But when he started talking to Creighton, and his son wanted to ask out of his commitment to Northern Iowa, he agreed to it.

“I feel like it was kind of meant to be,” said Doug, who had said he also didn’t see himself as a “Big 12 type” for Iowa State.

McDermott grew up riding in the back of the team bus with his father’s players. He was the kid shooting baskets on the other end of the court at practice, whom his father had to shush if he was trying to make a teaching point.

R.J. Hunter has the same memories of shooting on side baskets at IUPUI in Indianapolis, where his dad coached. His dad might tell him to hold the ball for a minute, but otherwise left him to develop his skills at his own pace.

“I see a lot of fathers who want to go browbeat their kids into doing something, and it destroys the kid,” Hunter said. “I wanted him to have a love of the game, and then the skill level will take care of itself. What I wanted to do was to get in his brain all the time.”

That meant after games his first question would be “Do you want Dad, or Coach?” Translation from R.J.: Do you want to hear something nice or critical? But Hunter gave him the choice and even did his best to stay “Dad” throughout the recruiting process.

He’d told Amy for years, “I want to coach him when it counts.” But he had assistant Darryl LaBarrie make recruiting calls to their Indianapolis home, where R.J. and Amy stayed for him to finish high school.

Ron might ask Amy to make sure the Georgia State letters got to the top of the pile. And he couldn’t resist pointing out to R.J. that bigger schools recruiting him such as Wake Forest, Iowa and Virginia Tech, might have All-Star recruiting classes, and if he played for his father, he wouldn’t have to look over his shoulder.

But he didn’t push it. And when R.J. called at 11 o’clock one night to tell him he was coming to Georgia State, he told R.J. to sleep on it, something he never told recruits. Then he walked across the street from his condo in Atlantic Station to celebrate.

“I don’t drink a lot, but I had a lot of drinks that night,” Hunter said.

R.J. had to want it, and he did. It’s why he can put up with the earfuls and laugh when his dad admits to watching film after every game as a father, but even after noticing how well R.J. played, still hesitate to tell him so.

“Then the coach kicks in and says ‘Nah, he didn’t play enough defense,’” Hunter said.

R.J., who ranks third in the Colonial Athletic Association with 17.6 points per game, said having his dad push him has made him a “completely different player” than six months ago. He scored 38 points against Old Dominion, the most by a freshman this season, and 28 of those came after hearing from his dad at halftime.

“Every time I get mad and I score, I want to scowl at him,” R.J. said.

Niko Roberts gets it. He said he and his father talk trash during Kansas practices.

“The coaches always used to make fun of me because whenever he used to come to our practices (before returning as coach) they’d say I always played harder,” Roberts said. “I always want to impress him and make him proud of me.”

Roberts said the time together at Kansas has brought them closer together. That goes for all these sons and fathers, who don’t have to make hard choices anymore about seeing recruits play instead of their sons.

“Most parents send their kids off to college and they see them three or four times a year,” Greg McDermott said. “I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to see Doug every day.”

Ron Hunter missed R.J.’s high school senior year to coach last season at Georgia State. That makes him relish this time all the more. He’s also come to see it as a coaching tool for five of his players who don’t have their own fathers in their lives.

“It gives me another way of not just being a coach,” Hunter said. “But to teach them about what it’s like to be a father.”

Amy, a former elementary-school counselor, backs him up on that, no matter how many phone calls she gets from R.J.

“Moms are supposed to tape everything back up and fix all the ‘owies,’” she said. “But it’s the point where he’s 19. It’s really important that a man shows a man how to be one.”