225BatonRouge.com - Blogs

EDITOR’S NOTE: Basketball enthusiast and attorney E. Eric Guirard, whose weekly Sunday night games were featured in the September issue of 225, recently enrolled in Michael Jordan’s exclusive, $17,500 Vegas basketball camp, Flight School. Guirard agreed to keep a journal of his luxurious, grueling, frustrating, rewarding and unforgettable basketball fantasy, which appears here as a one-time 225 blog.

Day 1 – Friday, August 11th

I flew into Las Vegas, the site of the Michael Jordan Adult Basketball Flight School, a day early. With flight delays so routine now, I took no chances—who needs jet lag before you play four days of basketball, starting with trying out for a team in front of a laundry list of NBA and college coaching legends? That’s right, we’re talking Rick Pitino, Lenny Wilkens and Tubby Smith to name a few.

The Michael Jordan camp is first class, so there is no need hailing a taxi at the airport. I’m met by a chauffeur who grabs my luggage and whisks me in a limo to the Mirage Casino and Hotel, headquarters for the camp. No check-in, either, since as a Jordan camper you are treated as a hotel VIP. I’m ushered into a private VIP check-in lounge with a hospitality bar. While checking in, I bump into a camp coach who happens to be Mike Fratello, veteran coach and now a TV analyst. (The “tsar of Telestrator,” if you follow such things.) He’s congenial and after learning I’m a camper, he comments that he hopes I’m in shape and that the camp is surprisingly competitive. Well, at least I’m taller than Fratello. And believe me, when you play hoops, being 5’8” is always a first concern.

I am escorted to my luxurious suite. I have stayed recently at what are being called suites nowadays at the Venetian and Wynn Hotels in Las Vegas, but the Mirage suites trumped those easily. The suite is 1,251 square feet with a barroom, living room and dining room.

Around the pool and later in walking around the casino, I found myself looking for other potential campers – sort of scouting out the competition. Now this camp is extremely, extremely expensive (okay, it’s $17,500) and you must be over 35 years old – so these two factors are going to naturally limit the extent of potential competition. Now I have played a lot of basketball in my life. Okay, no organized basketball since eighth grade, unless you count CYO and BREC. But I have played a full court pick-up game every Sunday for the last 30 years with a group of friends, Sunday Night Basketball. But even with economics limiting my competition at the camp, with a 100 campers, you can’t help but wonder how you compare to the other players.

As an aside, I have been a regular TV advertiser for 13 years in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, so I am accustomed to getting noticed in public back home. But I did not expect, while standing in the cab line to go to dinner, the shouts of “get the E guarantee” from some tourists walking by. I guess what happens in Vegas doesn’t necessarily stay in Vegas!

Day 2, Saturday, August 18th

It is the first day of camp, so I have slept late to make sure I am well rested. I immediately head to the scale where I come in at a scrapping 161 pounds. I have always been in good shape, but I was determined to lose several extra pounds for the camp with a goal of being 160 pounds. Almost! Those noon day runs in the Baton Rouge heat and humidity must have paid off.

To get fired up, I wander over to the Mirage Convention and Events Center where the camp will take place. Wow! Five pristine full-court basketball courts have been set up in the huge convention hall along with a ceremonial grandstand and a cordoned off area acting as a training room. (Experience has taught the camp organizers to expect a lot of injuries when a bunch of old geezers are playing full-court hoop!) Jordan posters and memorabilia are littered in and around the convention hall. Raised on the wall are ten gigantic replica jerseys of the previous MVP’s from the 10 previous camps. One guy actually repeated as MVP several years apart. This was the first indication to me that a number of these campers are actually repeat customers.

One hour before 2 p.m. registration, the nervousness is building. As I am walking to the elevator to go back to my suite, I pass Bobby Knight and Detroit Pistons coach Flip Saunders having a conversation. As I get on the elevator, who joins me but two-time national championship coach of the Florida Gators, Billy Donovan. Donovan and I have a short conversation about LSU football. Now by this point, if you are a huge basketball fan like me, you really start to feel like you have entered “hoop heaven”.

Registration is a cattle call of sorts, but the highlight is the Michael Jordan “goody bags”. We are talking two large Michael Jordan signature duffel bags and one large Michael Jordan suitcase full of Jordan paraphernalia and gifts. Though the list of gifts is too long to list here, it included t-shirts, basketball shoes, warm-up, polo shirts, socks, sweat bands, a digital camcorder, radio, iLuv portable stereo, TV Slingbox, two bottles of wine in a fancy carrying case, cigars, Nike golf balls, Michael Jordan playing cards, a Texas Hold ‘Em card and poker chip set, knives, crystal clock, two-time-zone watch, miniature Michael Jordan wooden basketball court, and a Michael Jordan figurine.

As the camp starts, the first order of business is the “try-outs”. The 100 campers are divided into five groups, one at each court. The camp coaches are the seven mentioned earlier; Daly, Fratello, Pitino, Wilkens, Donovan, Saunders and Smith, along with Jim Larranaga (George Mason coach at the 2006 Final Four with LSU), Doug Moe, Bill Guthridge, Roy Williams, Hubie Brown, Bob Huggins, Bill Walton, Jay Wright, Paul Hewitt, Gary Williams, P.J. Carlesimo, Doc Rivers, and Geno Auriemma. So all these big-time coaches are now given the task of wandering from court to court to scout the 100 campers in order to later participate in a draft where they pick their team. Right, there’s no pressure! At each court, the roughly 20 campers begin with stretching, lay-up drills and shot drills. Next we alternate playing half-court, three on three games. Finally, we move on to full court, five on five. Now I, and I suspect a lot of other campers, am used to playing my weekly game on a full court, but one that is about 75 feet long. The courts at this camp are regulation 94 feet long, and I can assure you that extra 20 or so feet makes a big difference in a full court game. Since well over half the campers are not in what I consider “basketball” shape and since most of the campers have not played with each other before, the full court game quickly digresses into an ugly, “rag tag” sort of game. Some guys look like they have pretty good game, most are just ok players and some are just downright bad! The average player is in their early 40’s and about 6 feet tall. Now at 5’8” and 49 years old, I am a bit of a disadvantage, but I felt I was in better shape, quicker and stronger than most of the guys. Now how the coaches, as successful as they all may be, can pick a team from this half-hour of scouting rather suspect basketball is good question. I assume they look for guys with basic fundamentals, who are in good shape and who are willing to play team ball. Also, a lot of the guys are the “return” campers and the camp organizers and coaches apparently have notes or a “book” on them from their previous appearances. Though I did not shoot nearly as well as I normally do, I thought the rest of my game was pretty good in the try-out. Now I did feel unusually winded which I attributed to nerves and maybe the altitude and dryness in Vegas. As to where I’ll be drafted, who knows, I’ll have to wait to the “draft” reception later this day to find out.

Next on the itinerary, is a photograph with Jordan. Though he has to pose with each of the 100 campers, Jordan is very gracious as he works through this task. He “small talks” with everyone I saw, and he certainly appeared to be a genuinely nice fellow.

The camp day ends with the lavish reception/draft where the teams are announced. It takes place in a very large reception room decorated for the occasion. Multiple buffet tables of very high quality food are laid out around the room, and the wait staff is almost doting. The hall of fame coaches are paired in twos to staff each of the ten teams. Each pair of coaches takes a turn at the podium. They then announce the teams they have picked in the coach’s draft which had taken place in private directly prior to the reception. Bill Walton, NBA and NCAA legendary player, and P.J. Carlesimo, new Seattle Supersonics coach, were clearly the most entertaining speakers. I was hoping to be drafted by either the Pitino/Donovan team or the Walton/Wilkens team. After waiting through several teams announcements, I was finally drafted by the Mavericks coached by Chuck Daly and Mike Fratello. Each team was named after an NBA team. My name was called first. I was not sure of the significance of that, but I was sure that Fratello butchered my name. I think he pronounced it GOO-ee-rard. The reception ended with speeches by Miami Heat coach Pat Riley (who I understand charges $75,000 on the corporate speaking tour) and, of course, Jordan himself.

Sunday, August 19th

We arise early for a 7 a.m. group breakfast, and then it is onto the team picture session with Jordan in our uniforms. The camp provides you with two full uniforms. They are well made with mesh material and have reversible jerseys with your number (#10 for me) and name. The jerseys and shorts also have been made with the camp insignia. As another perk, the camp arranges for the hotel to pick up your uniforms in the evening and have them laundered, pressed and delivered to room by 6:30 a.m. the next morning.

Michael then gives a speech on free throw shooting and other mental aspects of the game. He is again very gracious and also answers questions well past the allotted time.

One thing I did not discover until I arrived at the camp was that Jordan no longer actually plays basketball with the campers. Apparently, he did for the first several years but quit a couple of years ago. I figure it’s a combination of age and not wanting to get hurt by some “hacker” who wants to show up Michael Jordan.

Before our first game begins, the campers are sent through several fundamental basketball stations. Our team rotates from court to court where each pair of coaches gives some basic lesson on some aspect of basketball like passing, screening, ball-handling, etc. Nothing especially noteworthy, except we did get to witness Coach Saunders wizardry (ala Pete Maravich) in handling the basketball.

Finally, the games begin. My team, the Mavericks, are paired against the Nuggets coached by Paul Hewitt, Georgia Tech head coach, and Gary Williams, Maryland head coach. On paper, we have a big, fast, good shooting team and we should win. Unfortunately, my team would not know a good shot or intelligent play if they came up and bit us on our Nike basketballs. After falling way behind and then mounting a comeback of sorts, we lose handily. Daly and Fratello “fuss” at us for our poor play but give us the old “we’ll get ‘em next time” talk. But in addition to some suspect players, I began to realize that maybe we had a coaching problem, too. Maybe there’s a reason why Daly is retired and Fratello has been fired from every NBA job he’s had. I realize, of course, that I’m not a multi-million dollar a year coach like these two guys, but I do think I know a little something about what was essentially being played here – pick-up basketball. Daly and Fratello were intent on slowing down the game (no fast breaks) and they kept trying to make us run a series of “plays” that they had drawn up. To expect a bunch of pick-up players who have never played together before to learn and execute these plays is asking a bit much. Plus we only had a 15 minute practice session prior to the game. I believe in rebounding the ball, controlled fast breaks, everybody moving and picking on offense until you get a good shot, playing tough defense and everybody having fun. Plus, the games were “running time” which means the clock keeps running even when the whistle blows and for foul shots, so you don’t have time to muddle around on offense with plays which have little chance of being run correctly. I think coaches at this level have been used to coaching and telling players exactly what to do for probably decades and can’t help the temptation to “over coach”. That certainly was the case on the Pistons in the first game.

As for me individually, I was immediately relegated to a back-up role. On paper I don’t look like much (5’8”, 49 and no real experience), plus the coaches have no history on me from previous camps. The camp does require mandatory substitutions, but the coaches can certainly manipulate that to give certain players more playing time. With such a structured offense and teammates unwilling to share the ball, it’s hard to demonstrate your abilities. Being a first time camper, I did not want to complain or just start jacking up shots the few times I touched the ball. I figured I had two NBA veteran coaches who would certainly adapt and change their offense, and who would demand from their team to play team ball.

After our first game, we moved on to a talk by three of the four NCAA 2007 Final Four coaches along with basketball TV commentator Billy Packer. They were all great speakers and made for an entertaining hour. But not to be outdone, after a group lunch, we then got to hear a talk by the General, Bobby Knight. Knight was his usual cocky, profane self, but he gave an insightful and very funny lecture. Also, in the audience were John Thompson, former Georgetown coach, Dean Smith, former North Carolina coach, and Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski, Duke head coach. Coach K is normally a Jordan camp coach, but he’s a little busy with those other slightly more talented pick-up players, the 2008 Olympic team. That team happened to be in Las Vegas practicing for the upcoming Olympic qualifying games.

That afternoon, my next game took place against the Nets coached by Saunders and Jay Wright, Villanova head coach. Our team did play somewhat better, and we won in an exciting double over-time victory with the winning point coming on a free throw. Unfortunately, even though I made two of the three shots I took, I was not shooting or even touching the ball much. The team was quickly beginning to revolve around our two shot happy guards from New York. They were both athletic, decent players, but they sure didn’t add much to the team concept. Plus, we were down to seven players due to injuries. Daly and Fratello, unfortunately, made few adjustments and continued to plug along trying to make us run their set plays every, and I mean every, trip down the court. Neither coach also made any attempt to stop our “guns” from shooting so much or did any preaching about a team concept. The bad news, though, since they won a game, the chance of them changing their coaching style the rest of the camp was pretty low. My squad was now 1 and 1.

Jordan is a renowned gambler, so naturally there is the Michael Jordan Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tournament put on by the camp on Sunday night. Each player is given $2,000 worth of chips as part of the camp fee to be used only in the poker tournament. First, second and third place finishers win $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000, respectively, of Mirage promotional chips. You can then take these promotional chips and bet them in any other gambling activity at the Mirage Casino, and if you win, be paid in actual chips, that is, real money. If you lose those bets, you simply lose the promotional chips. So obviously, these are significant prizes. The only problem, though I have played poker a lot during my life, I have never played Texas Hold ‘Em. But having bought the book, Texas Hold ‘Em for Dummies, and taken part in the casino’s beginner’s lessons right before the tournament, I figured I would take a chance. We started with forty-seven players, and I actually made it to the final table – finishing ninth. I clearly took advantage of beginner’s luck and playing very conservatively.

Monday, August 20th

At 8 a.m. we had our camp breakfast. (All the meals provided by the camp, by the way, continue to be completely first class.) Before our next game, we continued to rotate to our fundamental basketball instruction stations. These were different sets of coaches than we had on Sunday. The highlight here was Hubie Brown, most recently the NBA Memphis Grizzlies head coach, yelling at my teammates for not screening correctly. (My God, we were not even on his camp team much less his NBA team. The man is clearly intense and a perfectionist.) Also, noteworthy was Roy Williams, current North Carolina head coach and former Kansas head coach, getting on me for wearing an LSU headband and missing a lay-up. I thought about making a cute comment about former LSU player turned Kansas Jayhawk, Lester Earl, but I decided it would not be appropriate.

The games finally started with my team now taking on the Lakers coached by Pitino and Donovan. (This was the team that I wished had drafted me.) We squeak out another victory by two points over a less talented and smaller team. As you can guess, our Mavs offense continued to bang our proverbial heads against the wall running the same old ineffective plays every trip down, emphasizing, of course, the two New York “shoot-‘em-ups”. My minutes and ball touches continued to be about the same, But I got a few more shots and shoot very well. As a matter of fact, as one of my highlights of my camp, Coach Donovan came up to me after the game and congratulated me on my good shooting! Too bad I never heard that from my coaches. Our team was now 2 and 1 in the team standings.

The middle part of this day was taken up with a father/child shooting contest and various kinds of individual and team shooting competitions for the campers. Neither I nor my team wins any of these. The afternoon game kicks off at 4 p.m., and we are matched against the Blazers coached by Larranaga and Doug Moe. Moe is a former NBA coach who actually drafted Chris Jackson out of LSU third in the NBA draft with designs for Jackson in his high-powered, run and gun offense. Unfortunately, Moe was fired before ever getting to coach Jackson.

Now you would think that since I have proven I can shoot pretty well and since a number of my teammates are commenting on my shooting, that I would get a few more passes this game. And perhaps even more puzzling, we were not involving nearly enough our two fairly talented big guys who each stood about 6’4” and weighed a hefty 250 pounds or so. They did most of their damage on offensive rebounds, and believe me, the New York guards made sure there were plenty of those to go get. Actually, one of these big guys from Illinois won the camp ward for leading rebounder. Oh, and we had another “big” wallowing on the bench with me, who was not quite as good as our other big guys, but who also registered at 6’4”, 250 pounds.

We lose our fourth game handily with the New York whizzes going a combined 4 for 20. And we, of course, are continuing to run our famous Daly/Fratello offense. I did actually overhear Daly bemoaning the two New York guards shooting so poorly, but that observation certainly did not motivate him to change anything.

Interestingly, the Blazers had the lone camp celebrity on their team, former major league pitcher Kirk Rueter. Rueter does not look physically imposing at 6’3”, 210 pounds, but he is an excellent athlete and basketball player. He actually will go on to win the camp MVP award.

So at this juncture, my team was 2 and 2 in the camp standings, but we could easily have been 0 and 4. The team standings are important because they determine the seedings for the camp tournament which begins early Tuesday morning and which determines the camp team champion. The four teams with the worst records, which we are not one, have to play their first game in the camp tournament at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday. Plus, for one of those four teams to win the championship, they would have to win four games in a row with basically no rest on Tuesday morning. As one of the remaining six teams, we play at 8:10 a.m. in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.

But to end Monday, we had a couple of special treats. First, we attended a talk by Bill Walton scheduled to last 45 minutes, but as Walton is apt to do, it stretched to over an hour. This speech, however, was certainly one of, if not the highlights of the camp. Walton recounted many incredible stories from his college and pro days, and also answered many questions from the audience. Walton is simply a great human being. Even though he has been named of the 50 greatest basketball players and has won numerous NBA and NCAA titles, he is incredibly down to earth. He is intelligent, well spoken, thoughtful, insightful and incredibly funny! He even took the time during the camp to try to remember as many campers’ names as he could. He called me “big E”, “like Elvin Hayes” he said, and signed a basketball for me to “Big E”.

The other treat was the autograph session with Michael Jordan. In order to stop what would surely be an autograph onslaught, the camp has a rule where you can only get two items autographed by Jordan at this designated time. I chose to get my camp photograph with Jordan and a basketball autographed. Since there were 100 campers, all the referees, some of the coaches and the camp staff that were lined up to get Jordan’s autograph, it turned into a signature mill for Jordan I guess just to preserve time; Jordan did not even look up as my items were placed in front of him by the staff to autograph. Plus, you are not allowed any personalization of the item, you only get his signature. Interestingly, the staff also authenticates his signature right after he signs. A small gold sticker with a number is placed next to the signature. That number and description of the autographed item are then registered in a book which I assume is kept in some type of Jordan autograph depository.

The autograph appearance aside, Jordan was very congenial in his other appearances during the camp. Though he was not constantly present, again, he struck me as a nice guy. Hey, he even called me “E” and gave me a high five.

Tuesday, August 21st (last day of camp)

Our 8:10 a.m. game is against the Bobcats, coached by Williams and Guthridge (former North Carolina head coach after Dean Smith). Our New York guards again do their thing, but the difference here in another plodding, low-scoring game is our size and offensive rebounding. Even though we win, our big guys had by this point also grown tired of watching the New York guards shoot. They start muscling up shots even when double-teamed instead of kicking the ball back out. I can hardly blame them, since on this team, you shoot when you can or never get the ball back. As for me, I take one three pointer which I miss. My playing time actually increased, but only because we were down to seven players again due to injuries.

But as they say, a win is a win, and we advanced to the camp semifinals against the undefeated ‘bulls coached by Hubie Brown and Bob Huggins, long time Cincinnati head coach and new West Virginia head coach. Brown and Huggins seem to understand what it takes to win in this camp setting, and they end up beating us easily with a final margin of 10 points. As you can guess, our offensive offensive (no, I am not repeating myself) pattern was again the same. I don’t think Daly and Fratello ever heard Thomas Edison’s definition of insanity which is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”! I took and missed my usual quota of one shot in this game, and I got fouled on a drive to the basket. Okay, I clanged the free throw. (By camp rules, you get an automatic point for getting fouled. This rule was apparently instituted to cut down on overly physical play.) The Bulls, however, were clearly the better team. The bulls went on to play the Blazers for the championship, and the Blazers surprisingly won easily by 20 points.

After the game, Daly and Fratello huddled us up for our last team meeting. They thanked us for playing, and they actually congratulated us on getting better as a team! Fratello went even further and commented on how the offense was really coming around by the last game! Coach, we scored 24 points and a lot of those came by way of the camp rule for getting points for getting fouled. I think the “tsar’s telestrator” needs to go in the shop for repairs!

In my weekly Sunday Night Basketball game back home, I usually get just a little down after a loss, especially if I think I should have contributed to the team more. But I did not really feel that way after our final loss at the camp. I felt badly for a few of my teammates who I thought played hard and did as best they could. But I did not feel sorry for those teammates who put themselves before the team, or for the coaches. You know, it would have been nice, just one time, to hear my coaches say something like: “Great shot, GOO-ee-rard, “Way to hustle, GOO-ee-rard”, or “Way to get back on defense, GOO-ee-rard”! That of course was not to be, but at least I did not have to hear my name mispronounced more.

The last part of the camp at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday was the closing ceremony. Again, it was a first class affair complete with another lavish buffet. Awards were given out to the winning team, the all tournament team, shooting contest winners, top scorer, top rebounder, top playmaker, MVP and most improved. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of guys have returned to this camp multiple times – one guy has come 10 years in a row! Apparently, this event is the focus of a lot of these guys’ years. I can understand the allure of a one-time fantasy camp, but to come time and time again at $17,500 means you either have way too much time and money, or your priorities are askew.

So, was it worth the $17,500 to go to Jordan’s camp? I would say even with the frustrations of the actual basketball playing part of the camp, the opportunity to speak with and “rub elbows” with Jordan, Walton and this litany of hall of fame basketball coaches was worth the money to a basketball junkie like me. But the thing about fantasies is you do it once, and you move on with your life. I don’t see myself as one of those guys coming back year after year. I do, however, think that if 10 of my guys from my Sunday Night Basketball game could attend the camp together as a team, we would win the championship. Maybe that’s another fantasy!

By the way, at the closing ceremony, every camper is given an extremely nice glass plaque for participating in the camp presented by Jordan himself. And he does look at you and shake your hand too this time. But, of course, my last memory of the camp is the camp director announcing to the large gathering as the plaques are given out, “And also playing for the Mavericks, Eric GOO-ee-rard”!

To read the story from our September issue, click here.