THE HAIR APPARENT
Kamloops native Kelly Olynyk has led Gonzaga to its first NCAA No. 1 ranking in school history, and is poised to be the highest-drafted B.C. product in history. (Yes, higher than Steve Nash)
If Kelly Olynyk knew that it was going to be as simple as growing out his hair to shoulder length, and snapping on a 1970s-vintage head band, he would have done it years ago.
Voila, the feel-good story of the U.S. college basketball season: The superstar seven-foot centre with the Gonzaga Bulldogs whom the NBA draft sites are now trumpeting as a mid-first-round NBA draft pick.
But there has been nothing simple or easy about the South Kamloops Secondary grad’s rise — albeit stunningly rapid this season — with the Spokane-based school, which on Monday rose to the No. 1 spot in The Associated Press poll for the first time in program history and opens play Saturday at the West Coast Conference championship tournament as the clear favourite.
Instead, it was two frustrating seasons, followed by last season’s nonmedical redshirt campaign, the latter in which he practised but did not play. In the end, it allowed The Province’s 2009 Head of the Class honoree to save a season of eligibility and, in the process, hit the re-start button on his career.
“Coming into this year, I didn’t know if it would happen this fast, and for there to be this much of an explosion on to the scene, ”Olynyk said from Spokane on Tuesday night, where earlier in the day he was named the WCC’s player of the year after averaging 19.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in league play, after averaging just 4.8 points and 3.5 rebounds over his first two seasons.
“But it’s not all me. My teammates have done a great job of putting me in situations and positions for success.” And he is rewarding their trust. Olynyk is shooting 66.8 per cent (189-of-283) from the field, the second-highest percentage in all of Div. 1 men’s basketball, in large part because of that redshirt season in which he not only worked to refine the way his mind and body reacted together on the floor, but also in the ways he and the coaching staff came to a meeting of the minds regarding playing him to his optimum strengths.
“We didn’t go with the conventional strength training and agility,” Olynyk says of the long sessions he put in last season with Travis Knight, the team’s strength and conditioning coach.
“It was a lot of functional movement, getting the mind to co-ordinate with the upper body, and co-ordinate with the lower body. It was kind of like the trainer was almost creating situations for me and experimenting, and I was the test subject.
“I had belief in it and I could tell that it was helping. Every day I was getting bigger, stronger, faster.”
And, in the end, Olynyk was able to make his experience at Gonzaga everything he had originally envisioned.
“It wasn’t working the first few years, and I was not where I wanted to be,” Olynyk admits now.
“It was tough to keep on going on with the goals and the aspirations to be the player I could be. After the second year, I had a decision to make. I thought about leaving.”
Those in B.C. may be familiar with Olynyk’s rapid rise in stature.
He not only grew from 6-foot3 in Grade 10 to 6-foot-10 to start his Grade 12 season at South Kamloops, he broke his left shoulder after being sacked as the Titans’ QB in his Grade 11 year, thus missing his entire 2007-08 basketball season.
Before the growth spurt Olynyk had always played as a guard, and that was the mentality he took to Gonzaga when he arrived in Spokane in the fall of 2009. The Zags? They thought they were getting a centre.
“So that was a big adjustment he had to make, but an adjustment the coaches had to make as well,” says Kelly’s dad Ken Olynyk, the athletic director at Thompson Rivers University who is in Vancouver this week coaching his daughter Maya and the rest of the defending B.C. Triple A champion Titans at the provincial girls tournament in Langley (See pages A42-43 for coverage).
“The coming together and the supporting of one another, both meeting each other’s expectations, that was huge.”
And in the end, for Olynyk, absolutely liberating. The highlight clips prove it. In one he is defending a guard at midcourt, steals the ball, speed dribbles 40 feet, then soars for a reverse dunk. In another, he forces a loose ball, runs the floor, and in full transition, takes a diagonal pass that he feathers in with a runner off the fast break.
Remember now, he’s seven feet tall.
“Definitely, the guard skills have stayed with me and transferred,” says Olynyk, who now spends more time than ever in the paint, showcasing his post moves.
“You still see flashes of it here and there. My game has gotten to the point where it’s true inside-outside. It’s diversified, kind of a pick-yourpoison.”
And that is the best part for him, because he is starting to do at the major college level what he did as one of B.C.’s greatest ever preps.
In high school, he put forth the most dominating performance in the history of the B.C. championships back in 2009, leading the entire field in scoring (36.5 ppg), rebounding (15.5) and assists (7.2), and tied for the lead in blocked shots (3.5).
Many have called it once-in-alifetime stuff, but in a lot of ways, Olynyk has found the same magic again.
And now fans hold signs like “Olynyk Clinic” and the cyberworld continues to offer speculation about whether or not Olynyk will decide to declare for the NBA draft. The big man’s response? “I try to take it all with a grain of salt,” Olynyk says of all the attention he is suddenly getting, enough that he’s wading knee-deep in interview requests at any given time.
“For everyone praising you, there is someone knocking you. And if you pay attention to all the hype, it can turn on you in an instant. I am just staying motivated and I am working to reach my potential.” And on all the NBA talk? “In the same sort of way, it’s not important to me right now,” he explains. “I will deal with it when the time comes. I am not focused on it. That can hurt you in the end. I am staying focused on the task at hand. I am living in the present.”
Right now, that’s a pretty nice place to be.