I hope Tom Izzo doesn’t mind me telling this story. If he does, I’ll apologize next time I talk to him. But, after watching the Michigan State coach share a special moment with his son, Steven, following Wednesday night’s 53-49 win over Northwestern, I really want to tell this story even though it comes from a private conversation between us more than a decade ago.
So here it goes.
It was July 2011 and I was working on something that involved spending a few days on the recruiting trail with the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach. When I tell you we were together basically every moment we weren’t sleeping, I mean we were together basically every moment we weren’t sleeping. In gyms watching games. In restaurants having lunch. On private planes. In rental cars. We spent hours and hours and hours just talking and talking and talking. After a while, we weren’t really a columnist and a coach spending time together anymore as much as we were two husbands and fathers living on the road. Eventually, we ran out of basketball stuff to discuss and the conversations naturally turned more personal.
We talked a lot about family.
I remember him using the word “conflicted.”
It was a long time ago, and I don’t have a transcript, but at one point I remember Tom asking me something along the lines of what word I thought he’d use to describe himself. I went with “successful” or something like that. I made some more wrong guesses. Eventually, Tom said, “conflicted.”
Again, I don’t have a transcript. But what I remember is Tom more or less saying that every time he was at the park with his son, or just enjoying time with his family, he felt like he should be watching film, and that every time he was late in the office watching film, he felt like he should be at home with his family. He seemed to imply he just never truly felt like he was where he was supposed to be.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about that Wednesday night.
Have you seen the clip?
After Michigan State’s final home game of the season, Andy Katz interviewed Tom and Steven Izzo. Each had tears in his eyes. They’re on the verge of wrapping up five years together as coach and player, in the process of making up for time lost from years back when Tom was constantly in the gym or on the road recruiting while little Steven, who was 11 when Tom and I had those conversations that summer, was at home mostly growing up with a father consumed with work.
“Tom, you said that you missed a lot of his time as a child,” Katz said during Wednesday’s postgame interview. “The last five years, you’ve been with him every single day. What has this meant to you, to be with your son these last five years and get that time back with him?”
“Well, I tell every man and woman out there that coaches a men’s or women’s sport, if you can have your son or daughter with you, there’s nothing better,” Izzo replied. “There’s nothing better, man. We’ve all sacrificed a lot. A lot of coaches sacrifice more than I do. But getting some of that back … that means the world to me.”
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