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4 golden days within the desert.
It sounds just like the setting for an old-school western, but it surely’s the center of Las Vegas on July 21, 2008.
Temperatures exterior Valley Excessive soar to close 100 levels. Contained in the health club, nonetheless, a hearth burns even hotter. Twelve of America’s elite athletes are right here for 4 days of Olympic prep, nonetheless smoldering over the state of USA Basketball.
Mike Littlewood, BYU’s future baseball coach, is right here too.
“There have been guards on the doorways and solely particular personnel had been allowed inside, and there have been no cameras,” Littlewood mentioned. “I walked in and the primary particular person I see is TBS broadcaster Craig Sager. Then I see Staff USA assistant coach Gregg Popovich, new head coach Mike Krzyzewski and director of USA Basketball Jerry Colangelo. Throughout the way in which, the blokes had been simply milling round and stretching.”
The “guys” embrace Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, Jason Kidd, Michael Redd, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Tayshaun Prince and Carlos Boozer.
The cornucopia of expertise contained in the health club is a direct response to 2004 when America’s greatest basketball stars opted out of the Athens Olympic Video games. As an alternative, a B-squad of NBA gamers took their stripes and limped house with an unprecedented and undesired bronze medal.
“Little doubt, all of the discuss when coach Krzyzewski acquired them collectively was about redemption,” Littlewood mentioned. “Coach Okay mentioned, ‘We owe America this. From one participant by way of 12, we have now to be locked in.”
Littlewood and a gaggle of 5 different recreation officers are right here to referee the drills and scrimmages whereas Krzyzewski works out a beginning 5 and bench rotation for what the media is looking the “Redeem Staff.”
As Littlewood seems to be on with rising anticipation for the times forward, he wonders to himself, ‘How on this planet did I get right here?’”
Two roads to Vegas
Bryant walked into Valley Excessive on the heels of a crushing defeat in opposition to the Celtics within the NBA Finals. Boston gained the sequence 4-2. Surprisingly, the Lakers had dropped two of three video games at Staples Heart in Los Angeles — simply 12 miles south of the place Littlewood’s journey started — 42 years earlier.
Eight months after the notorious 1965 riots that had been sparked by tensions between police and residents in and across the Watts space, Michael Ruybalid was born at John Wesley County Hospital, within the coronary heart of Watts. His mother, Kathy, remembers her son as the one white toddler in the complete facility.
Previous to his start, the organic father walked out and by no means returned, leaving Kathy and her new child in south-central Los Angeles to fend for themselves.
Kathy moved to Utah to be nearer to household. She was launched to Don Littlewood, a firefighter within the Sugar Home space of Salt Lake. They married and Don adopted Mike and raised him as his personal son, and among the many issues he taught him was a love of sports activities.
Littlewood honed his expertise with Little League baseball in Kearns and highschool ball at Taylorsville. He was good, however arrived at commencement with only one scholarship supply, from Utah.
A turning level
“I went and watched BYU play Utah at Derks Subject,” Littlewood mentioned. “I sat above the primary base dugout and noticed Wally Joyner, Gary Cooper, Cory Snyder and Rick Aguilera play. I assumed, ‘That is such an unimaginable group’ and I wished to be part of it. That was the turning level for me.”
The 1983 Cougars gained 54 video games and earned the nation’s No. 1 rating.
A proposal finally got here by way of a telephone name with coach Gary Pullins. He supplied a scholarship for tuition and books (a 1984 worth of $820) and it was instantly accepted.
Littlewood married Dani Good, additionally from Taylorsville, after his freshman yr. He grew right into a full-time resident at third base and was twice named All-WAC. Three and a half many years later, he stays No. 10 all-time in program historical past for many video games performed (201); No. 3 in runs scored (220); and No. 2 in profession walks (140).
“Thirty-five years in the past, all the pieces was in regards to the batting common. Now it’s all about on-base percentages and runs scored,” Littlewood joked. “Clearly, I used to be forward of my time.”
Weekend work
Littlewood began officiating basketball video games whereas in highschool together with his good friend Gary Zielinski. Trying to earn a number of further bucks, they labored the town league video games in Taylorsville on Saturdays.
“We had no clue what we had been doing,” Littlewood mentioned. “However we liked being across the recreation.”
The 2 figured it out. Littlewood developed right into a premier school basketball official, whereas Zielinski officiated 18 seasons within the NBA and remains to be working for the league in associated capacities.
By the point Littlewood arrived at Valley Excessive for the Olympic exercises, he had officiated about 500 Division I basketball video games, together with a number of NCAA tournaments. He did it whereas juggling head baseball teaching duties at Dixie Faculty in St. George, the place the Rebels gained the 2004 Junior Faculty World Collection, and he was named nationwide Coach of the Yr.
Throughout these exhaustive years, between teaching baseball and officiating basketball, the NBA supplied Littlewood a full-time job, however he turned it down. Refereeing within the NBA would take him away from teaching and he simply couldn’t do it.
Joe Borgia, NBA senior vp of referee operations, wrote to Littlewood, “You're the first particular person to inform me no. We're normally those saying no.”
Saying ‘no’ again then made it simpler for Littlewood to say ‘sure’ when BYU supplied him the top baseball teaching place in 2012. He begins his ninth season, with longtime assistants Trent Pratt and Brent Haring, on Friday when BYU faces Indiana State in Port Charlotte, Florida.
A face within the crowd
If there was a single recreation amongst these 500 that helped deliver Littlewood to Las Vegas in 2008, it was the hotly contested showdown between San Diego State and Wyoming in Laramie on March 1, 2003.
The Cowboys blew an enormous lead and head coach Steve McClain blew his cool.
“He walks towards me throughout a day out and calls me ‘this and that’ and I gave him his second technical foul and threw him out of the sport,” Littlewood mentioned. “Then, I am going over to the scorer’s desk to report it and a water bottle comes flying out of the stands towards me. I had the general public deal with announcer warn that if anything is thrown all the way down to the ground, the gang would additionally get a “T.” Effectively, down comes a can of tobacco so I tee’d up the gang.”
After the sport, which San Diego State gained 86-73, Littlewood and his crew of Gary Burks and Ron Zatcher acquired a police escort all the way in which out to I-80.
What Littlewood didn’t know till the next day was that Ed Rush was sitting among the many Cowboys followers on the recreation. Rush was the NBA’s director of basketball officiating. He knowledgeable Littlewood’s supervisor that he was impressed with how he dealt with the scenario. From that time ahead, Littlewood was on their radar.
“That’s how I acquired invited to Vegas,” Littlewood mentioned. “That and the FIBA coaching I had acquired in June of 2008 on the principles, mechanics and philosophy of officiating worldwide basketball.”
The telephone name
“Mike, that is Sam Gibson. How would you want to come back work the Olympic group?”
The telephone name of all telephone calls got here to Littlewood in mid-July 2008, from one other referee assigned to place a gaggle of officers collectively for Staff USA.
“Yeah, I’d like to,” Littlewood mentioned, regardless of the invitation included no pay for the work or for bills. “I figured it will be such an incredible expertise that I'd have paid them for the chance to do it.”
Attending to work
With everybody in place, the guards shut and safe the health club doorways. The perfect basketball stars within the nation settle into the confines of a highschool that hasn’t produced a star of their caliber because the commencement of Corridor of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux in 1984.
A whistle screeches and similar to that, Littlewood and his colleagues turn out to be a small a part of Staff USA and go to work.
“We labored by way of the drills and scrimmages and there have been instances we simply sat and watched,” Littlewood mentioned. “It was fascinating to see these NBA superstars and multimillionaires hanging round one another, however when coach Okay spoke, they had been all ears.”
Krzyzewski orders a drill the place the officers put away their whistles. He tells Littlewood to shout “foul” when there's an infraction. This manner, he can cease the group and have Littlewood clarify to Kobe, LeBron and the others why he made the decision. That is coach Okay’s means of teaching the roster to the worldwide model of competitors.
“Kobe was the toughest employee in camp,” Littlewood mentioned. “He would come up and lock down on my arm and ask, ‘Is that this OK underneath FIBA guidelines? Or ask ‘Is it OK to place my arm on a man, or maintain him this manner? Can I try this?’ It was superior. That was the setting I used to be in. It could by no means occur anyplace else.”
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday is all enterprise. On Thursday, the ultimate day of camp, the Olympic B-team arrives at Valley Excessive for a scrimmage, together with rising star Kevin Durant.
“That was most likely essentially the most enjoyable. I keep in mind LeBron hitting a 3-point shot and I turned to run again down the ground. Then I really feel his hand on my head,” Littlewood mentioned. “My head felt like just a little pingpong ball inside his hand. It was large. Then he pats me on the butt and says, ‘See that?”
Including to the second was Littlewood befriending the safety guards to permit Dani and their son Marcus in to see the spectacle for themselves.
The ‘Redeem Staff’
USA Basketball took on the mantra of the “Dream Staff” in 1992 when Larry Chook, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Karl Malone, John Stockton and the largest names in basketball suited as much as win gold in Barcelona. It was the primary time america despatched its NBA gamers to Olympic competitors.
Staff USA gained one other gold medal 4 years later in 1996 in Atlanta and once more in 2000 in Sydney.
The derailment in 2004 triggered a name-change. As an alternative of “Dream Staff” this group was forged because the “Redeem Staff” and Littlewood may really feel their motivation.
“I assumed, how may this group probably lose? They had been all utterly invested in going to China and profitable the gold medal,” he mentioned. “They listened to teach Okay after which truly coached one another. It was so cool to see gamers teaching gamers. They needed to win. There was no different.”
Able to play
With the four-day camp over, Littlewood returned house to St. George whereas Staff USA destroyed Canada the next evening, 120-65 in an exhibition recreation on the Thomas & Mack Heart. Wade, Anthony and Redd every scored 20 factors. It was the primary of three dominating exhibition victories main as much as the Beijing Video games.
When the Olympics started, the beatdowns continued and on Aug. 24, one month after wrapping up their minicamp at Valley Excessive, Staff USA beat Spain 118-107 to win the gold medal and restore American basketball to the highest of the world. Wade, who as we speak has an possession stake within the Utah Jazz, led the way in which with 27 factors.
Not stunning, the officiating crew that helped get them prepared, had been disregarded of the celebration. That’s life as a referee. In case you are simply forgotten, you most likely did a superb job.
“No gold medal for us,” Littlewood mentioned with a smile. “Not even a kind of with chocolate inside, however what an expertise!”
Certainly, for Littlewood and his officiating crew, these 4 golden days within the desert had been fee sufficient.
Dave McCann is a contributor to the Deseret Information and is the studio host for “After Additional Evaluation,” co-host for “Countdown to Kickoff” and the “Postgame Present” and play-by-play announcer for BYUtv.