Set Free Richardson orchestrated the biggest headache for high school head coaches across the country. When the And1 Mixtape thing spread to California I was a young head coach at Crawford High School in San Diego. I was still in college and got dragged into the gym because the coach the school hired had issues with his paperwork and the season started in less than a week. I was walking into a situation with his team although I knew all of the kids. I was only a year removed from playing JUCO ball against guys like Charles Dinkins aka Skeletor, who was from Brooklyn and had played against guys like Rafer “Skip to my Lou” Alston who played JUCO in Fresno, CA.
In the mid 90s a wave of New York players had arrived at various JUCOs throughout Cali. Up and down the coast we heard about these NYC ballers, and we were amped to compete. This takes me way off topic, but Dinkins played in Chula Vista at Southwestern College. He eventually ended up at Kansas State. I played my best JUCO college game against dude before getting injured and not playing anymore ball after my sophomore season. I know this is off topic a bit but stay with me. Before the And1 Mixtape series took off like a rocket, New York basketball had already infiltrated California JUCO basketball, so we knew these dudes were good. We had no idea they would end up shifting hoop culture only a few years later.
When I was called in the office to become a replacement head coach, it made me the youngest head coach in San Diego at the time. I wasn’t much older than the players and I didn’t have their ears because they were all set to play for a different coach. That season was doomed from the start, and I had to learn how to coach. My experience grew just as the first And1 Mixtape was dropped. Those players who wanted their coach would spend the first 15 minutes of practice dancing with the ball, skipping down the court, doing Shamgods, I couldn’t yell at, or get them organized well because there was a friendship there since I worked on computers at the school. I wasn’t a teacher. My authority wasn’t set in stone. I played JUCO ball and to be honest, some of those kids were better than I was as high school seniors. Many of them went on to play at various levels of college basketball. In the following years, the high school left me as the coach, and I had to play catch up. My teams struggled but they played hard. We learned and improved every year. Under the surface of the growth was my players, and my own, interest in streetball and the And1 Mixtapes.
I had been coached by traditional basketball coaches, so I tried to be like them. I didn’t want to have all of the things I watched on ESPN leak into my practices like they had the first year. By the third year the headache, not Tim Gittens, but the real headache of my players practicing rolling over on the floor, or throwing the basketball under their shirts, had to be integrated simply to keep the players engaged. They wanted to be like Bobbito Garcia would say, basics to boogie. I was getting better as a coach and the team I finally put together was playing much better. I began to let my players “get off” streetball moves in the games. On average my teams had hardly anyone over 6’1″ tall. We were a small, scrappy team and schools started to know that they would be in for a battle with my undersized squad. Teams also knew there would be a few And1 moments…
I watched the 30 for 30 last week when it released. It was good to see the players again and to hear the stories. Set Free created a monster. It was a headache for coaches everywhere, but when I embraced the culture and stopped fighting against it, I learned how to work with my kids, and we all got better. My coaching journey arrived with the Mixtape era, and I’ll always remember where I was when I heard “Ohhhh Baby,” ring through my tv. I wanted to act like my coaches when I was thrown into the job. By the time I was finished, we had a winning record and before games I was bumping Hip-Hop and unafraid of being a young, inexperienced coach helping young hoopers live in their truth of being ballers who loved Hip-Hop and the game of basketball. Shout out the And1 Mixtape Tour, now and forever.
