Dr. J is the reason I adore Tajae Sharpe

Dr. J is the reason I adore Tajae Sharpe.

Doctor J, Julius Erving, was a phenomenal basketball player. He was arguably the best one-on-one talent ever- and yes I’m including Michael Jordan. Dr. J is in the basketball hall of fame. If you’re young and have no idea whom he is…check him out. To use a cliche- He was a human highlight reel.

During one NBA Finals game, with little time on the clock, Dr. J was most assuredly getting the inbounds pass and going to score the game winner. He makes a simple cut, heads toward the ball and tries to grab it one handed. The ball hits his hand and goes out of bounds. Dr. J had some of the largest hands I’ve ever seen. He caught a zillion passes one handed. He choked here though.

I grew up playing basketball (among other sports) in New Jersey. I went to every basketball camp I could and learned from all sorts of great guest speakers or instructors. At the time, New Jersey was the hotbed for basketball recruits. Tim Thomas, Jerry Walker, Luther Wright, Pat Sullivan, Bobby Hurley Jr, Terry Dehere, and Roderick Rhodes were just some of them. In that recruiting class, New Jersey probably put 40-50 players into prominent division one schools and twenty or so into the NBA. It was unusual. New York always produced these “studs” but, New Jersey would maybe have a few each year- nothing like the large number of kids in the early 90s.

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Sometime in my freshman year, the nation noticed us in New Jersey. I was fortunate to meet so many famous coaches and players. While traveling with AAU ball, it was like we were the stars. No one wanted to play us and we blew out everyone. After the games, current and retired NBA players would come chat with us. It was like they wanted to influence us in some way and give back to the game. The basketball camps suddenly had the greatest instructors too. As I got older and could ask what was going on, I was told they wanted to say they trained the best. For an instructor, that was his resume. As a kid, I could care less why. I was simply thankful to have been blessed with such an incredibly fortunate experience. I have stories upon stories of playing with and spending time with NBA guys. That’s not my point here though….back on track.

So being drilled over and over by all these different famous guys, I found it really annoying that they all tell that Dr. J story. Every single one of them said some variation of “you better catch the ball with two hands” and rambled on how the best of the best goofed trying to catch the ball one handed.

Today, many of these formers players are back in N.J. coaching or teaching hoops in some fashion. It’s that give back to the game mentality.

Back to those camps- There’s this older guy that had just graduated maybe two years before. I had seen him in camp and played with him years before. That stinker would slap our hands down as we tried to catch passes. We were to run toward the ball, extend our arms, and get a pass. Just before the pass got there, he slapped our hands. That was the drill. I hated it. My hands would be all red from slap marks and what did it prove anyway? Annoyed, many of us couldn’t wait to scrimmage with him and slap his hands in the game. I don’t think he touched a ball that day without getting slapped. He never dropped one either. That guy had rock solid hands.

The next year, when he showed up again, I was “oh you gotta be kidding me! This guy?” Same stinkin’ drill, but it was just one time through the drill this year.

He had a brother. I don’t remember his name. The passer moved to the other end of the court. Two of us were to “sit” under the opposite basket and when the whistle was blown, run up the court to “save” the inbounder that was in trouble. He had five seconds to inbound the ball and if everyone was covered, he was to look at us coming back for it. The first time the whistle blew to inbounds the ball, both brothers slapped a guy’s hands as they went to catch it. We all started laughing as someone made a joke “you brought your brother here to slap us?”

Shooting instructors, “big man development” instructors…we’d go through drills with everyone and they all start with that Dr. J story. I don’t think there was a single kid in New Jersey that ever caught a ball with one hand. I remember Roderick getting screamed at by Bobby Hurley Sr. for trying to and that’s about it. It was drilled and drilled and drilled “into our skulls” and like some sort of robots we simply never caught balls one-handed anymore.

The coolest finale to this was when Julius Erving himself came to a camp one day. He didn’t teach a thing. He sat and talked to us. He had such a soft, kind voice to him. Somehow just meeting him, you knew he was a super nice guy. His hands were gigantic. There were jokes of him catching planes like King Kong. Obviously that’s an exaggeration, but as he shook my hand I noticed how his finger tips went well past my wrist. The guy was like shaking my arm. My hand looks like one of those pictures where an infant’s hand is on top of the baby’s father’s hand.

I would hear the Dr. J speech in football. I would laugh at baseball coaches that tried desperately to use the Dr. J speech as you’re supposed to use one hand to catch the ball with a mitt. That speech was so prevalent back then

As you know, Odell Beckham Jr has made some circus catches with one hand. It took the NFL by storm and now all sorts of players do it. I was “dying” to hear coach Tom Coughlin’s opinion of his one-handed catches. There is no way a coach from NJ likes it. I was sure he was going to roast him for it and have him spend a decade in front of the jugs machine. He didn’t. I was a bit surprised Coughlin allowed it, but seeing him speak on it, and seeing the annoyance on his face…I understood. Times change and ODB has some spiderman-like hands to him.

Since ODB made a splash though, many NFL wide receivers have done this and they really shouldn’t. Not everyone is blessed to catch the ball one-handed like him. Eventually, maybe based on my prior experience, I’d get real annoyed watching games and seeing wide receivers drop passes that they had no business catching one handed.

I’m a Titans fan and an NFL fan. I’m watching the draft and knew nothing of Tajae Sharpe other than some guy in a stat column. The predraft reads were about the same. He was from UMass. Since they’re not a “super power” college program, he probably won’t be a stud in the NFL. If he was it would take years to develop.

I watched every highlight I could find once the Titans drafted him. I did think, good this kid catches with two hands. Eventually, I could tell he was a former basketball player. Like many “I can spot em’ from a mile away” and he totally stood out to me. Basketball players are benched if they don’t come to the ball and let a defender steal a pass they shouldn’t. Today’s NFL has wideouts run a curl route and sit there in a zone. Many wideouts do not come back to the ball. The safety or corner jumps in front and grabs an INT and few people even consider it the wide receiver’s fault. I don’t like this about today’s game and appreciate each time a coach does point out the interception is “on” the wideout, not the quarterback’s fault. In every UMass highlight, there’s Tajae coming back to the ball. He uses screens well and I just know this kid played hoops. I prefer it. If I was an NFL GM, it would be a prerequisite to which wide receivers I picked.

We’ve heard enough stories of Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates learning football as basketball players. They sure proved this theory too.

So last week, I’m watching the game like everyone else. There’s Tajae grabbing every pass with two hands. I love it and he’s doing great.

I go onto facebook and an old high school friend is asking me if I know who Sharpe’s high school basketball coach was? I never looked so, I answered, “no.” He replies “slappy!” My jaw dropped looking at my computer screen. “No way! It can’t be.” I’m opening a new tab in my browser and wow- not only was “slappy” his high school coach, but his brother was the assistant coach.

Now I “have to” find some highlights of these games. I had never seen this guy as a coach before. It wasn’t the easiest thing to find, but I did find a game. My jaw dropped watching in amazement. Every kid has his arms extended and is catching every pass with two hands. They’re boxing out every single time. They’re perfectly between the man and the ball on defense. They look oh so well drilled. I didn’t see high talent. I doubt they won a ton of games, without the high talent present. However, “slappy” sure became quite the coach. Those kids all did everything so perfect, almost robotic. He really drilled them well and they obviously listened.

I haven’t found Sharpe’s basketball highlights. His high school football highlights are on youtube. Same thing- two hands, comes back to the ball if need be, uses screens as much as he can in football, and it’s always the same- two hands Every. Single. Time.

If there were some odd vegas line, I’d make a bet today- Tajae Sharpe will never catch a pass one-handed. If he can’t get it with two hands, he’ll use his body to shield the defender from getting it.

I have no idea if his hoops coach still slapped hands. He was just some returning player back then and it sure seemed like he was told to do that drill in our camp. I do imagine he became a coach that absolutely values strong hands and concentration on catches though. I’m pretty sure I can see his work in Tajae.

Someday I’ll get out to Tennessee to speak to Sharpe. Til then, I’ll wonder if he heard the same stories of Dr. J. I know his high school coach heard them.

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