Not many people have much insight into how the University of Virginia and coach Tony Bennett have made such recruiting inroads in Georgia lately, but Jann Adams has a pretty good idea.
She was cooking dinner in her Norcross home when she heard her son Malcolm Brogdon, then a senior at Greater Atlanta Christian and soon-to-be Mr. Basketball in Georgia, in the other room, having a phone conversation with Bennett.
Brogdon was talking about Job. That’s Job, with a capital J, as in the book in the Bible. Job was the righteous one whose faith was tested with immense suffering and loss and somehow, he had made his way into a conversation between a college basketball coach and a 17-year-old recruit.
“Coaches are calling and asking about your girlfriend and talking to you about basketball on TV,” Adams said. “It’s sort of the same stuff. [Brogdon] felt like he connected with Coach Bennett very personally. I think it made a huge difference.”
Brogdon, now a freshman at Virginia, said Bennett had asked him before if he was a Christian and brought up Bible verses from time to time. This time, he was talking about Job in the context of basketball, about how players strive through trials if they maintain faith.
“I really liked that about him, that he was a Christian man, because I share that faith,” Brogdon said.
Bennett said he doesn’t push religious beliefs on recruits, but he does try to find common ground. That particular conversation worked both ways, too, telling Bennett something about Brogdon’s character.
“You’re going to be with these young men for four years,” Bennett said. “You’re with them in the ups and downs. ... Shame on me if I’m not trying to pour into their life things of character. If it’s someone who has a faith and we share that, it’s just being able to talk about common things. That’s something that I liked about him when we were recruiting him.”
Brogdon committed to Virginia before Bennett even made an in-home visit. He visited campus the first weekend possible. He wanted to commit the first day there, but his mom wanted him to make his four other official visits. He tried commit again the next morning, hoping to tell the coaches at a meeting before they left. Then, he wanted to call them on the drive home.
His mom finally relented the day after they returned home, after Brogdon had called his GAC coach and his grandfather, among others. He never visited Vanderbilt, Harvard, Minnesota or Clemson, nor did he take his unofficial visit to Georgia.
Brogdon, who graduated from GAC with a 3.6 GPA, grew up running the halls at Morehouse College, where his mother has been a psychology professor for 22 years and is now the dean of science and math. She’s always encouraged her three sons to go wherever they wanted, like her parents encouraged her.
“Honestly I’m grateful he’s as close as he is,” said Adams, who cheered on Brogdon against Georgia Tech last Thursday at Philips Arena with 14 other friends and family. “If he had found Coach Bennett in California, I’d never see any games.”
That relationship and Bennett’s system, as much as academics and playing in the ACC, are what prompted Brogdon to become a Cavalier. He started a trend: Milton’s Evan Nolte, one of the state’s top recruits, committed to Virginia in April as a junior.
By the time Bennett came to Norcross last year, he and Brogdon were already building their relationship.
His second visit came on Brogdon’s 18th birthday, the night Greater Atlanta Christian got blown out by powerhouse Milton. Brogdon had a rough game and there Bennett was, coming to his house for dinner. The ups and downs started early.
Instead of acting embarrassed or withdrawn, Brogdon asked Bennett what he could have done differently.
“It became a teachable moment,” Adams said. “It seemed like he was meant to have been there.”
Brogdon is No. 19 Virginia's sixth man, no small feat for a freshman on a team that starts three seniors. He's averaging 6.6 points in 20.8 minutes per game, fourth on the team in both categories.
He’s also learning to adjust to the energy Bennett wants in his pack-line defense, a demanding style requiring defenders to sag to prevent dribble penetration but still rush out to challenge outside shooters.
Brogdon said Bennett gets on him for being casual, reading his attempts at poise as nonchalance. Bennett didn’t like it when he caught Brogdon yawning one day on the bench. The two are still getting to know each other, but their foundation is solid.
“He told me when he came, ‘Look, I want you to push me as hard as you can to make me as good as I can,"' Bennett said.
Brogdon thinks Bennett might be harder on him than anyone else on the team. But he laughs when he says it.
“After a couple days of getting after him, I’ll say, ‘Now you told me; can you handle this?’” Bennett said. “And he’ll say ‘Yep, absolutely.’”
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