By Erik Harris
In the midst of his former team – Golden State Warriors – chasing its first NBA championship in 40 years, Jamaal Wilkes offers up advice to student-athletes across the Tribune coverage area.
Wilkes, a four-time NBA champion and former NBA Rookie of the Year, touched on topics such as recruiting, transitioning from one playing level to the next, and much more.
As a highly recruited high school basketball player in the early 1970’s, Wilkes saw everything there was to see in the world of college recruiting. He urges young student-athletes to stay aware of certain warning signs on the recruiting trail.
Q: What advice would you give kids on how to handle the recruiting process?
“It can be overwhelming,” said Wilkes. “I was highly recruited and that was very flattering, but it was also very confusing. I had to develop a criteria at which to rate the schools.”
“Those just telling me anything I wanted to hear, I eliminated immediately. For me, it was important to have my parents, my family involved and able to come see me play.”
“Don’t get caught up in what you want to hear, because it’s very easy to do that. Find either your parents or your principal or your coach or your teacher or your youth counselor; find someone that you trust, who wont tell you what you want to hear, but will tell you what you might need to think about (regarding your recruitment)”
Q: How did John Wooden (legendary UCLA basketball coach) get you to sign with him?
“When he came to my house, he was so humble,” said Wilkes of Wooden. “I can’t describe how humble he was. He only promised me two things: That I’d get a good education if I went to class and that I would have an opportunity to play basketball at UCLA. That’s the only two things he promised me.”
“I just found him very refreshing. When you’re highly recruited, it’s a lot of hype, yet he was just so straight forward and himself. That’s why he was a great basketball coach. He was just very straight forward with me.”
“When I was on a recruiting trip, I went by his office. I was so mesmerized being with the upperclassmen I barley noticed (Wooden). He was very quiet and very observant and his assistant coach did most of the talking when I went by his office for five minutes.”
Q: How did you stay hungry after winning NBA Rookie of the Year along with the NBA championship as a first-year player with the Warriors?
“Everyone’s going to tell you how great you are and if you hear that stuff enough, you’re going to believe in it, so you have to develop a perspective to be discipline,” said Wilkes.
“When someone says or writes something about you that’s good, you’re not really that good. And when someone says or writes something about you that’s bad, you’re not really that bad. It can be tricky developing a consistent perspective.”
“If you’re trying to repeat, now you’re the biggest game of (everyone’s) season. Everyone’s going to try much harder against you and everyone’s going to work much harder against you and more people are going to come watch, so it really becomes a challenge that grows.”
“When you’re trying to win over yourself and maintain a healthy perspective, just consistently do the best that you can, and hopefully that results in winning.”
Q: How were you able to have so much success through all the transitions (high school to college and college to professional) that you made?
“A lot of it had to do with attitude,” said Wilkes. A lot of it had to do with being open-minded. There was a lot of training; really keeping attention with a sense of urgency.”
“There was some good fortune: Winding up with good coaches, good situations, but there was a lot of hard work, a lot of preparation and I worked very hard at my academics, just in case it didn’t come together for me.”