Jackson’s voice can’t be replaced, but his voice still echoes for UConn men
STORRS – The UConn men began their full-blown practices this week with presentations from the coaches on the few teams that have repeated as champs, and some of the ones that didn’t. In college men’s basketball there are always voids to fill the year after winning it all, and the Huskies have a big one.
Andre Jackson’s voice will be missing. His absence, like his presence, can’t be measured.
“We he had a ton of conversations,” Hassan Diarra said. “Last year, he pulled me aside at one point and said, ‘Hass, you’re talented, you can do this, you can be that voice and bring that energy every day that I bring.’ I realized I can bring that this year and I can be a tree (branch) of him, an apple from him.”
That was Diarra’s “A-Jax” moment, but all the Huskies had them and draw upon them as they try to do it all again … become the first team since Florida in 2007 to repeat, without Jackson’s voice in their ears, his grill in their grills.
“Andre got in everybody’s face,” Donovan Clingan said. “He would get in your face and tell you some words you didn’t want to hear, then 20 seconds later tell you he loves you. He knows how to talk to people, which is the No.1 thing in being a leader.”
Jackson, who played three seasons at UConn and is now in the NBA with the Bucks, was a one-of-a-kind player who could impact a game, sometimes dominate it, without making or taking many shots. He was also unique in the locker room, and in practices, an exceptional leader for a college team.
“There only one Andre, it’s hard to replace him,” Tristen Newton said.
“He just wanted to win so badly,”Clingan said. “He was pushing everyone to get on his intensity level. He was (on campus) a couple of weeks ago, and I still talk to him on the phone a lot. I’m trying to pick his brain, watch film of things he did last year that I can implement this year as a leader and helping the young guys. It’s a hard role, but I’m up for it.”
Coach Dan Hurley has been exhorting the 7-foot-2 Clingan, fun-loving and well-liked by teammates, to be an “angry giant” when needed, and not just a “jolly giant.” That process may be slowed some as Cllngan will be out a month after straining his foot in practice.
Team leadership on the highest level is not only a skill, it’s an art – and maybe a very rare gift.
One thing great leaders I’ve been around have in common: They understand the power of their words and gestures. Lawrence Taylor could fill a teammate with confidence just by nodding and shaking his fist. Derek Jeter could reach a young player after a mental mistake with a smirk, or relax him after a physical error with a shrug and a wise crack. Shabazz Napier, by his senior year at UConn, knew what to say and when to say it in the locker room and his looks,
too, could wither one.
Jackson has that kind of forceful personality, and he knew just when and how to unfurl it. When UConn blew a lead and lost at Seton Hall, a game Hurley missed with COVID, Jackson’s postgame speech helped shake the Huskies from their midseason malaise.
“I wasn’t there for it, but I heard about it,” Hurley said. “It’s going to be an evolution. This time period we’re going through right now, the early practices and scrimmages and early part of the season, the team is going to feel an emptiness, an opening. Guys like Tristen (Newton) and Alex (Karaban) and Donovan, maybe Hassan, maybe Cam (Spencer), we just have to do it by committee. “
It’ll take a village to replace all the things Jackson could do on the court, but the Huskies, as they embark on this repeat voyage, have enough players with enough skills for that. They have enough players back from the championship team, enough talent coming in from the recruiting and transfer routes, to be in the hunt deep into March again.
But replacing Jackson’s rare voice, such a key element in the championship chemistry, will be hard, even collectively.
“It was his voice, mainly, his outgoing personality,” Karaban said. “His competitive edge really rubbed off on everyone else. He always demanded 110 percent from everybody, every day, because he was just the perfect leader. He was perfect at it. We’re going to have to do it collectively; he was special enough to do it by himself.”
Players can step up, some will have to develop the skills to speak up – effectively – while still being themselves. No imitation will do.
“No one can be Andre,” Hurley said. “You never will coach somebody, with the way sports is going today, devaluing winning and leadership and it being more about producing points and assists and touchdowns, Andre was just all winner.”
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In search of a Cup
The Rangers, trying to fill the missing pieces to get the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1994, second time since, wait for it, 1940, brought in some veterans with winning experience, Nick Bonino among them. Bonino, 35, who went from Farmington High and Avon Old Farms to a long NHL career, helped two championship teams in Pittsburgh.
“I’ve talked with the Rangers since ’17 when I was a free agent,” Bonino told reporters when he got to training camp. “It didn’t work out then, ended up going to Nashville. I didn’t work out two years ago. This year it just felt like a great fit, to come and try to help a contending team, a Cup-contending team.”
As a veteran joining a team with a lot of veterans, assembled by Chris Drury for new coach Peter Laviolette, Bonino, who signed a one-year, $800,000 contract, will set an example on the ice and look for opportunities to make his presence known in the dressing room.
“(My role is to) be responsible,” he said. “My game is pretty consistent. Late in games, I’ve done some pretty good things over the course of my career. … Rooms like this that haven’t won a Cup still have guys who have won at all levels, so I’m. not trying to reinvent the wheel, just trying to be myself and say something when it needs to be said.”
Sunday short takes
UConn’s Anthony Kay, a firstround pick for the Mets in 2016, had stays in Toronto and with the Cubs, but the Mets reacquired the lefty from Long Island on waivers and are giving him a look in their bullpen as the season winds down. Kay, 28, with his power arm, could have a long career as a reliever once he finds his niche.
Maybe the Sun’s Alyssa Thomas just does too many things well, without one jumpoff-the-page stat, to win the
MVP, though she was a close second to Breanna Stewart. Given
the operative word “valuable,” Thomas would’ve gotten my vote, if I had one. Where would the Sun have finished without her?
Though she’s been out since May with an Achilles tear, Brionna Jones remains a presence during the Sun’s playoff run, always in the team huddles. “Another pair of eyes,” DeWanna Bonner said. “She has more experience in these situations than any of us, including the coaches.”
Goalie Tia Chan goes into the UConn women’s hockey season after another productive offseason playing for China’s national team. She opened the season with 33 saves in a 2-0 Huskies shutout at Penn State.
A few favorite Immaculate
Grid go-to names: Tommy Davis, Jim Bouton, Don Mincher, Rusty Staub, Jimmie Foxx, Gaylord Perry, Joe Pepitone and Paul Waner.
Very few athletes, maybe only one, defined the position he played the way Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson, who died this week at 86, did for his, and future generations. Nearly 50 years after his last game, conversations about great third basemen start with him and usually end with the verdict, “he’s no Brooks Robinson, but he’s pretty good.”
HBO’s Real Sports will feature Dan Hurley in an October segment.
Last word
Maybe it’s 20/ 20 hindsight, but shouldn’t it have been obvious that when the Jets acquired Aaron Rodgers, they needed to move on from Zach Wilson? Not that there were, or are, any great backup options out there, and the mentorship thing was a nice story, but the possibility of having to turn back to Wilson if Rodgers got hurt, as has happened, should have scared the Jets. It wouldn’t excite Jets fans, outside of central Connecticut at least, but it would be interesting to take a look at Xavier High’s Tim Boyle, who has a lot of experience in the league, and looked sharp in the preseason.