New UConn assistant learns from mistakes

He knows New York. He knows New York basketball. He has coached and mentored kids like Kemba Walker and Taliek Brown, who would grow into UConn legends.

Kimani Young has known the inside of prison walls, too. He has known tragedy that rips the soul from a young husband and father.

Is he ready to be a trusted assistant and recruiter for new UConn coach Dan Hurley?

Kimani Young is ready for anything in life.

If a life’s path that has taken him from heralded athlete to someone few of us would want to be, to someone many of us would admire, are the job requirements to help rebuild UConn basketball, surely Young checks all the boxes.

“Having a long-term relationship with Danny, getting involved with a young coach at the ground level was extremely intriguing to me,” said Young, who was assistant coach at Minnesota the past five years. “Growing up in the Northeast, following UConn basketball and being a huge Big East fan, I know how important this basketball program is to this university and this state.

“To be part of it during a time of transition is an awesome opportunity.”

Young met Hurley when he was an AAU coach and Hurley was coaching at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark.

“We forged a friendship,” Young said. “And when we both got into the college coaching ranks, we’d find time to spent together on the road at recruiting events, talking lots of basketball. We developed a mutual respect.

“When he got his opportunity at UConn, he reached out to me and it was something I couldn’t turn away from.”

Young coached Kemba Walker for two years at Rice High School. He grew up in the same Queens community as Taliek Brown, calling Brown a little brother to him. He met Kevin Ollie when Ollie recruited Terrence Samuel from his Young’s AAU program. He coached Curtis Kelley at Rice.

“For me, UConn was the flagship program in the Northeast,” Young, 44, said. “Watching kids from New York, New England make that place a national power was fun to see. How hard they played, how tough they played, it was awesome. Watching all the pros they developed and following them in the NBA, it was a program you could literally touch.

“Those of us who

watched Taliek were so proud of him for his (2004) national championship.”

A 6-foot-4 guard, he scored 1,000 points on the court for legendary Don Haskins at Texas-El Paso. Off the court, he earned a degree in criminal justice in 1998. To those who knew him, he was an impressive young man. One who made a terrible mistake. Young knew guys back in New York and guys on the Texas city bordering Mexico. A year out of school, without a definitive plan for life, he found the blueprint for trouble. He got busted for possession of marijuana in 1999. Not a little pot, a lot, 96 pounds.

“I was young and dumb,” Young said.

He went to federal prison for a year in Longwood, Pa.

“It was a humbling experience,” Young said. “I made the mistake. I had to pay the price. I look back now and I don’t recognize who I was.

“I made my mind up when it happened that I was not going to let that experience define me. I was going to find a way to make the people who had been proud of me to be proud once again. I was going to turn my life around.”

Young did not wait until he went to prison to start that path. He began work at Kaplan House, a residential treatment program for young men. When he got out of prison, he continued at Kaplan. He got involved at Aim High Foundation and Big Apple Basketball and the Police Athletic League.

“I went back to what I loved as a kid, I love the game,” Young said. “I started in rec leagues and youth leagues, working kids out, and that progressed into AAU and high school coaching.”

Norm Roberts made him the head team manager and video coordinator at St. John’s for a year in 20082009, a chance to grow in the college game. Except for that one season at St. John’s, he continued as athletic director for the New Heights AAU program from 2006 to 2012.

When Richard Pitino became the coach at Florida International in 2012, he asked Young to be his assistant. And when Pitino went to Minnesota a year later, he brought Young with him. Young knows changing jobs in a highprofile profession means that he cannot change the past. He does not run from his story.

“I also don’t reflect on it much now,” Young said. “It was close to 20 years ago. I have spent those 20 years trying to right that wrong and will continue to do so. Hopefully, the kids I come in contact with don’t make a similar mistake.”

Young met Sharette Dixon in New York before he was arrested. They married. They had three children. An English instructor at Kingsborough Community College, Sharette had a passion to teach young people. Life was good.

Sharette thought she had come down with a cold in March 2009. It wasn’t a cold. It was pneumonia. She went into cardiac arrest. Sharette was dead at 38.

“I faced a horrible family tragedy,” Young said. “I don’t wish that at anybody, my age, any age. But it happened and I was forced to take on a new role. I was chasing my dream and a tragedy like that will knock you on your butt. I had to pick myself up and grab ahold of my kids as tight as I could. They were 6, 4 and 2 at the time. I had to make a way for us.”

And so he did. Family and friends rallied around him to help. He created a scenario with his job and school that made it work.

“We plugged away for two or three years,” Young said. “When Richard gave me an opportunity to jump back into college, I felt like we had our feet back under us and was ready to take on the challenge.”

And now he has another challenge. Kamaal, Khaliq, Salimah, they got to be proud of their dad.

“They are,” he said. “They’re hard on me, too. They’re not excited about moving. Young kids, they love their friends, but they’ll be fine.”

He obviously considers New York a strength in his recruiting. Last year, Young landed Isaiah Washington, New York Mr. Basketball, to Minnesota.

“Whenever you take on a new job, there’s a hunger for recruiting, for coaching, for developing new relationships,” Young said. “That excites me. This program has such a national brand and storied tradition, you’re eager to get it back on the right track. This is an awesome place to go to school, play basketball and start your legacy.”