Dennis
Stay tuned to see what it takes to become a professional basketball player when we have a discussion with former Hawkeye standout and former NBA and overseas player, Acie Earl.

Dennis
Hi, I’m Dennis VanDerGinst. Join me in a series of entertaining and interesting conversations with entertaining and interesting people. We’ll explore various aspects of the human experience and what makes life more fun. This is Uncommon Convos.

Dennis
Thank you for tuning in to Uncommon Convos. I’m your host Dennis VanDerGinst. And before I introduce today’s guest, I want to do a little bit of housekeeping and remind you all please subscribe, register or review Uncommon Convos on your favorite podcast platform.

Dennis
Tell your friends and your family to check us out as well. Also, you can leave comments, suggest guests, and watch the video version of each Uncommon Convos by going to UncommonConvos.Com and following the links.

Dennis
Today my guest is Acie Earl, a true Renaissance man. He was a star basketball player from Moline High School in Illinois, which led to him being a key recruit for Coach Tom Davis’s Iowa Hawkeyes. Those Hawkeye teams made it to the NCAA tournament each Acie’s last three years.

Dennis
He graduated in ’92 as the Big Ten defensive player of the year. And to this day, Acie ranks as the Hawkeyes all time shot blocker with 365. He’s also fourth in the all time scoring and eighth in the all time rebounding. As a result of those numbers, he was drafted into the NBA by the Boston Celtics, eventually also playing with the Toronto Raptors and the Milwaukee Bucks. After his NBA career ended, he went on to play overseas for several years with the number of teams being selected as MVP three times and retiring in 2004.

Dennis
He went on to coach for twelve years AAU high school and semipro basketball teams. And since 1994, he’s hosted basketball camps with Nike, Venom, and the YMCA. And in 2008, he started Venom Sports Training in order to continue training kids all over Iowa and other parts of the Midwest.

Dennis
He’s also had a successful real estate career. He’s been an adjunct professor at the University of Iowa, teaching in the Health and Human Physiology Department, and he’s also a prolific author, having written eight books.

Dennis
That’s an awful lot, Acie. Thank you for being here today.

Acie
Thank you. Well, I’m very impressed. You did your research.

Dennis
I did. You know, I-I it wasn’t very difficult because there’s a lot of–a lot of information out there about you. And I’m sure a lot of the folks who are listening are already familiar with your basketball career, especially those folks who saw you play in the Quad Cities or with the Hawkeyes, as well as those who followed your professional career. But I’m sure not all of our listeners are basketball fans. So for them, I think what’s interesting about your story is probably the, you know, the things that you’ve done out of the norm.

Dennis
And I want to talk a lot about that, including you playing overseas, the things you’ve done with kids, the writing you’ve done, et cetera. But before I get to all that, I do want to talk to you about what got you started, because, you know, obviously you’re a big guy. What–6’10”, is that right?

Acie
Listed at 6’10”. But I grew in college, a little bit in the pros. So, I’m probably 6’11” and a half. I’ve been measured 6’11” and three quarters.

Dennis
All right, almost a seven footer. So–

Acie
Right.

Dennis
But, you know, obviously not all big guys end up being successful athletes. So, you know, I find that typically that that comes either with a lot of family support or some other environmental factors that prompt someone to–to apply what they’ve got, those God-given gifts and–and do what it takes to excel. So, when is it that you first became interested in pursuing sports, you know, in–in earnest? And, and who–or what was it, that motivated you?

Acie
Well, I wrote a paper I wrote about that in my A Star Is Born book. Stars Born book. In third grade, you had to do the paper that–what you wanted to be like, who you want to be. Like your goal in life or your dream or your idol, and mine was Magic Johnson. So I saw he had just signed a contract to play like–like, twenty five years. He’s the first guy to sign a lifetime contract. Jerry Buss signed him to a 25 year, 25 million dollar contract.

Acie
And I was just like, wow, that’s just unbelievable. And then he played with Kareem Abdul Jabbar, which is one of my dad’s favorite players. And he taught me the skyhook. And I ended up loving Kareem and patterned my game after Kareem and Magic and–and actually named my son Kareem as well. So I would say that was the defining moment. And then from there on, it was just, you know, a journey.

Dennis
Mhm. And it’s–money certainly can be a motivating factor for all of us and whatever we do. But early on as a child, how–how involved was your family in, uh–

Acie
Very. Very.

Acie
You know, people–people are lonely in the Quad Cities will–will tell you that, you know, I went to Logan, all my brothers. We–we I worked out at Logan almost every day–my dad would take me there. In the beginning, forced me to go there, and that was kind of like my stomping ground. And then as I got older, we end up playing–a bunch of us high school kids would drive around and play, at Lincoln Park, at [Inaudible] Park, Centennial Park, Hero Street, you know, wherever the games were, you know, back then, there was just a different era.

Acie
The gas was–I joke, the gas was 89 cents a gallon. So everybody put in a dollar. We drive all day and just play around. You know, we met some of the Moline old guys down at uh, I can’t–I think Garfield was that school, maybe. In Rock Island, on the one way coming back from Rock Island. I can’t remember–it’s down below the hill. But we used to meet those guys on Saturday. Lefler and all his crew and we play with those guys on Saturday and they beat our brains in. And–and that toughened us up, you know.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
And–and so that kind of gave us that run in high school.

Acie
And then, you know, when we were seniors, we had the best record in Moline history, at the time. I think we were 20, 24 and 4 or something like that, that might have been the best record at the time. And then my, my, my younger brother came and beat it. I think they went 28 and 4.

Dennis
Yeah, well–keeping it in the family at least.

Acie
Mhm. Yeah. So that was kind of–you know, and it was a lot of the Quad City guys who, you know, toughened me up. And, you know, we played Harley Miller and those guys and Steve Harris. And, you know, you could just go on and on and on with all the Quad City guys that I grew up watching that, you know, I played against. I actually I used to play against Shannon. The guy who played at Stanford, which is from the Quad Cities from Rock Island.

Dennis
Chasson…Randall?

Acie
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dennis
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Acie
Chasson Randall. We used to play against his dad.

Acie
His dad used to be–so it was funny. We were at the Quad City Hall of Fame ceremony and I saw his dad and I go, oh wow! You the guy used to beat us up and talk trash to us and stuff. So, you know, it was a bunch of those guys that were around that were very instrumental in, in our–in my success.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
Yeah.

Dennis
What about like teachers or coaches? Anybody you can point to, like up through–

Acie
Yeah…

Dennis
–High school?

Acie
You know, it went both ways. I write that, I write about it in my book as well, that, you know, I had teachers that tell me that I was never going to make it. I was never going to go to college. I was never good enough to play. And then I had teachers that were great that were….I never forget Mr. [Inaudible] at Moline. He coached tennis. He coached 10th grade basketball. He used to have me come to… As a freshman and sophomore, up early in the morning and read, you know, comprehend articles.

Acie
Paul Carther used to work me out in the mornings before gym class. The [Inaudible] brothers, they–they taught math. They, they, they tutored me through, got me through algebra and geometry. And um, and most of the teachers would let me when I had a hall–when I had a study hall or I had gym class, they would let me shoot in the gym.

Dennis
There you go.

Acie
So, they says as long as you don’t roam the hallways, you know, and go cause trouble or leave the building, just, you know, you can go shoot.

Acie
So that was big because, you know, a lot of kids don’t have that unsupervised.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
Unsupervision. And then when I was in college, you know, we didn’t have the workout structure like the off season stuff like the kids do now. So they would let me use the Moline gym and lift weights in the summer. So I lifted weights in the summer at Moline. So, I mean, there’s a lot of–a lot of people who had, you know, had my success,

Acie
you know, I didn’t have a car growing up, so I didn’t have the–you know, sometimes I get the family car on Saturdays or something like that, but.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
So I had–a lot of people gave me rides from school. So it was funny, I, I used to time my walk with certain people driving so I wouldn’t wear it out. So I go Mondays, I might stay a little late and I knew a kid was going to be late

Acie
and he would give me a ride. On Tuesdays, I would hustle up and this girl would give me a ride. On Wednesdays, bunch of guys would give me a ride. So I wouldn’t–I wouldn’t, you know, use–

Dennis
Up your welcome.

Acie
Right.

Dennis
Yeah–yeah, yeah.

Acie
So I kind of changed it up. So, you know, a lot of people gave me rides to school…Practice. I mean, you know, my dad worked at Blackhawk College–still does. And so, um–

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
You know, he was always just, “After practice, start walking, and I’ll come.”

Acie
So I’d walk down 23rd Avenue. So, you know, he picked me up. So anywhere from between McDonald’s and Red Wing shoes–Red Wing shoe store on 23rd Avenue, Avenue of the Cities, so.

Dennis
So it literally takes a village right, to–

Acie
Exactly.

Dennis
make it in professional basketball. You know, since you brought it up, I’m going to for those folks who actually watch the video of the podcast I’m holding up right now, the book that Acie just referred to, A Star is Born, which is the story of your life up up to about college, isn’t it?

Acie
Yep, yep. I’m gonna do three parts to it. So it’s gonna be part one, part two, part two–three.

Dennis
All right.

Acie
So part one is up to college. Part two is going to be college. Part three is going to be NBA. Part four is going to be overseas. And then part five is going to be my adult life.

Dennis
Gotcha. Yeah, because I was going to say, wait a second, this is not the end here. You know, I skimmed through the book already, so. But speaking of the college career, of course, you know that that great Moline career led to you being recruited and he ended up at Iowa. But I’m sure that there were other folks that were looking at you at that point, what–who was looking at you, as far as recruiting opportunities, and what was it that made you decide ultimately to go play with the Hawkeyes?

Acie
Well, it was you know, I tell my my my son and my daughter, you know, recruiting is a long process. So early on–um, now here’s a great story. Apparently in eighth grade, Wisconsin wrote me a letter to Wilson. And I never got it and the teachers were–the teachers were bad to me at Wilson. And I never got it and they threw it away. So later on, like in my junior-senior years, somebody told me from Wisconsin, like, man, we’ve been writing you.

Acie
And we we never got–we never got any response. So we thought you didn’t want to come. I know in ninth and tenth grade Raveling was at Iowa and Raveling was a was a great recruiter and he always started early on kids. So he tried to get to me really early as well. Now you got to also remember in high school back then, the school mail was also received and sometimes opened by the students, and then they would deliver the student, the students would deliver it to you like some students worked down in the office.

Acie
So I’d always at lunch, like, say, the kids would tell me, “ah man Deaul wrote you today, Georgetown today.” I was like, “why haven’t I got it?” So sometimes it would get tossed somewhere or I wouldn’t get it for like another week. So there were a lot of schools that were in early on me. Like DePaul was for sure. And I was I love DePaul. I well, I watched them growing up. On Sundays or Saturdays,

Acie
I used to play Georgetown, Notre Dame. They were a major independent. That they had the jerseys that came down–it looked like a dress. And so I really wanted to go to DePaul a lot, you know? And so they were in on, in on, in on me early. And then Creighton was in on me early, you know. So some of the schools didn’t think I was going to be a big time D1 player like Creighton, Wisconsin,

Acie
thought I was going to be a mid-major, you know, a Big Ten player. So Iowa got in on me a little bit, I would say later than those, but earlier than the other. So, you know, Coach Davis loved my shot blocking. Bruce Pearl was, you know, me, my coach and my recruiter. He knew I was going to fill out. You know, you also got to remember I’m 6’8″, 6’9″, 208 pounds.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
So I was nowhere near where I was going to be, you know.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
And they had talked to my dad and they said, “Hey, if he comes here, we might we want a red shirt.” And my dad loved the idea. My dad was like, you know, he was always telling me, you know, “Ace, pick a place, red shirt, and then come.” And I didn’t want to do that because, you know, obviously when you’re a new recruit and you’re trying to compete against these guys like…Red Shirt, it means you’re not good enough.

Acie
But that was the best thing that ever happened to me was, Red Shirting. So by the time I got to my junior year, senior year, my top five was Creighton, USC, Raveling had went out to USC, Kansas, Bill Self had just took the Kan–well, maybe he was just in the mix of taking Kansas, I can’t remember.

Dennis
From Illinois over Kansas. Yeah.

Acie
Yeah, maybe somewhere around there. And then, um, Iowa and Illinois and Michigan State. So those were my school–

Dennis
Good group.

Acie
Yeah, yeah, so. So, yeah.

Dennis
So what what made you decide on Iowa over those other top top tier teams?

Acie
You know what I tell people to this day, I can’t there’s nothing that I can look back to and say, man, it’s it was this. It was that. It was I was torn between Illinois. So funny story. So so Lou Hanson on my visit said, hey, man, if you come to Illinois, play with the Flying Illini and I sit in the back and block shots of rebound, we’re going to go to the final four.

Acie
I didn’t go and they still went to the final four. Tom is always recruiting me. I love Tom Izzo. In a lot of in a lot of senses, I wish I would have went there because he takes care of his players, because your guys are coaching, they’re on the bench, and he gives them jobs. And so Izzo was like, hey, if you come here–and he was assistant…What’s-his-name was still the head.

Dennis
Uh, [Inaudible]?

Acie
[Inaudible], yeah. Yeah.

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
And he’s like, “if you come here, we’re going to win the Big Ten in two years.” I didn’t go there, they still won the Big Ten in two years. So then, you know, Iowa was right there. Hey, big guys can shoot three run core press in and out system, you know. Now, there’s also a young kid growing up with not a lot of clothes and shoes, Iowa had a Nike deal.

Dennis
There you go.

Acie
Illinois, I believe. I don’t think they were with Nike yet, they may have been. And then Illinois was–or Michigan State was like with Adidas or pro Keds. So I’ll never forget, like, one of my visits, I’m like in the locker room, and Roy Marbut walks out with these gold and black Jordans that he had on Sports Illustrated. And I was just like, “Oh, if I had those Moline High School tomorrow or whatever, but nobody could tell me nothing.”

Dennis
There you go.

Acie
So I couldn’t pick. I couldn’t pick. I think 1987 fall, Illinois plays Michigan State, I think in football, I think they’re ranked one or two, or two and three or something like that for the Big Ten title. On CBS, Brant Musburger is doing the game. Iowa kicks the field goal and wins. And I tell my dad, I go, I’m going to Iowa.

Dennis
There you go.

Acie
So, yeah.

Acie
It worked out, obviously. Well, you obviously played for Dr. Tom Davis, who, in the estimation of anybody who knows anything about college basketball, was was a great coach. What was it like playing for him?

Acie
It was great. It was great. He taught us how to think the game. He was a master thinker. You know, he had a doctorate in basketball psychology. He allowed us to to to play what we wanted to play, how he wanted to play for the benefit of the team. It was it was a great experience. He allowed me to be–I don’t think nobody knew what kind of player I was going to be–and he allowed me to be that.

Acie
And he he pushed me. And he taught me the mental aspect of the game, which which I think allowed me to coach later on. And there’s a lot of us that are coaching not not at the big time level, that that a lot of, you know, other schools are, but a lot of us coach AAU high school and stuff like that. So, yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s worked out well. It worked out well.

Acie
I mean it was, I was you know, I ended up second all time leading scorer and leading shot blocker and a lot of other free throw, champion in the free throw award and a leader, attempts leader and at least a lot of you know, a lot of a lot of good stuff, which I think I left Iowa with 22 individual records, I believe.

Dennis
Wow. Yeah. Well did did his coaching style–first of all, is he what influenced you or one of the reasons that you decided you wanted to go into coaching and and then secondly, was his coaching style something that you emulate in your coaching?

Acie
Yes. It was interesting. So a lot of us tried to early on because that’s kind of what we we knew. Now a lot of this went to the pros or semipro or something like that, and it was different. So I remember talking to Pearl. Because Pearl–Pearl coached the southern Indiana and he put in all Coach Davis’ stuff, and I think you want to two titles in five years or two titles in three years, he put in all Coach Davis’ stuff, but he was trying to change a little bit.

Acie
Then I saw him in Mil–University of Milwaukee, and…Everything was changed. And I was like, coach Peal, like, you don’t run this, you don’t run that. He’s like, no, it doesn’t work anymore. Oh, OK. And so so that kind of taught me, like later on, don’t be afraid to, you know, be–and, and me and Rich Walker are really still tight to this day. He helped me write my my first book actually.

Acie
It’s actually a continuation of his book that he wrote as a thesis, but he didn’t have the means to put it out at the time. And I ended up putting that part out as our Basketball Main Ingredients book. But I talked to him extensively on things and he was like, “it doesn’t work, can’t work. It doesn’t–.” And that was part of the reason why. Later on, I think in his college career, Coach Davis, the Iowa teams did not have that much success as we did because some of his stuff got monotonous.

Acie
Some of the stuff was easy to scout and some of this stuff never changed. And and that was Coach Davis. He was methodical. He was–you know, if he was going to play his way, if he won 20 games, he won 20 games, if you probably modified it, maybe you went 25, then that’s the way he was going to be. You know, I always talk about the Duke game. A lot of us were in Iowa City one time for Iowa camp.

Acie
And about five or six of us came over my house. And I had all my my dad used to tape all the games, even though they came, they’d go back and watch them. And he gave me all the tapes later on. So all the fellows were at my house and were watching. They’re looking at my library and they see all the Iowa game tapes and they said, “Man, you got Duke here?” Because we played Duke three times in a row, three years.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
And so so we popped in the first tape in Minnesota when we lost to Minneapolis to, so we–

Dennis
That was in the tournament, right?

Acie
In the tournament. And we did a second tape, second year–we lost to em in Greensboro. And then we popped in the third tape, that was the last game, Chris, before Chris died, when we played them at Cameron Indoor. And we played the same way. And I was I was telling Coach Davis, I was telling Pearl that he was there one or two of the games.

Acie
I said, “I can’t–we can’t press them. They’re finishers are too much.” Like if you look at the statistics, I think one game I had nine blocks, another game I had eight blocks. I’m going against Grant Hill, Thomas Hill, Cherokee Park, Christian Blatner, Bobby McCaffery, Bobby Hurley. It’s it’s too…Andrew Lang. It’s too, you know, it’s too many finishers. You know, his–and he thought, you know, highly of me, like, “Well, yeah, Acie can block all the shots.”

Acie
Well, I–there’s only so many I can block, you know.

Dennis
Yeah, there’s five guys out there that can finish. You can only get to so many of–

Acie
And we’re all going to pro. Right. And, you know, we did that with UNLV, too, and they stomped us into the ground, I think my red shirt freshman year. Now it did work against Carolina. So both times. And that was his caveat. It said, “Yeah, you work against Carolina, it could work against everybody.”

Acie
And we believed that. But that wasn’t the case.

Dennis
Well, you know, speaking of some of the teams that you played–when you–within the Big Ten while you were playing, there were some great teams. You mentioned the Flying Illini and there were some great teams that that–

Acie
We did good with the press. Yeah–

Dennis
Right.

Acie
Yeah, we beat them with the press. We beat Indiana with the press one year.

Dennis
Who were the teams that you felt were the biggest challenge to you within the Big Ten when you were playing there?

Acie
Now, I kind of got both eras now because I was a redshirt freshman when the when Ramiele Robertson and all that was at Michigan and Terry Mills and Lloyd [inaudible] and Shaun Higgins, they had four NBA players. I got the end of the Flying Illini. They had five NBA players.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
Indiana had Jay Edwards and Linda…Linda. I can’t remember his last name, but they had that. Then I got the Calbert Cheney era. And then, you know, I got the Illinois Deon Thomas era.

Acie
Then I got the Michigan State Steve Smith era with, you know, Pig Miller and uh Montgomery and all those guys. So, you know, the Big Ten was top heavy for a long time with those schools, Michigan and the Fab Five era. You know, the Fab Five era was was unbelievable.

Dennis
Right. Oh, for sure.

Acie
So, you know, the Indiana, the Michigan, Michigan State. Then I got the Purdue era with Big Dog.

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
So, you know, those guys were great, great players that were able to overcome what we were doing collectively.

Acie
And it was funny. One day I told Coach Davis, I said, “You know, we can’t play zone against–a matchup zone against Glenn Robinson, he’s too good. He can step out, he could pose, he can see slithery Coach Davis’s…You know, to his point, “All right, we’re going to do it the first four minutes. Then after the first TV timeout, then we do we switch up.” That’s what he always did.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
First TV–first TV time out, the score was 11-0. Glenn Robinson had all 11.

Dennis
Oh, wow. Who is the toughest guy that you personally had had to guard? You know, that you had primary responsibility for while you were in college?

Acie
You know like, you know, we never really play man to man, so.

Dennis
Right. That’s why I mean primary–.

Acie
And that was Coach Davis’s kind of–kind of mantra, “Like we had a lot of guys who can’t play man to man, and then we don’t want to get Acie in foul trouble.” And so, you know, by slipping into that match up kind of hybrid zone, I was able to pick and choose my spots, so.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
Because he wanted to save me for the shot blocking for the press. And so–

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
But I would say, you know…

Acie
You know, matching up against Chris Webber and Jawan and Glenn Robinson and–

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
You know, the Terry Mills and Lloyd Vaught’s and those guys, I mean.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
[Inaudible] at Michigan State. I mean, so it was it was a lot of big lumbering guys who could play also and some athletic guys who could play.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
You know, like the Jimmy Jackson era with, I forget those two big guys they had it was they had two, 6’8″-6’9″ guys at Ohio State.

Acie
I can’t remember Perry Carter I think was one of them and I can’t remember. But yeah, but there was always somebody I mean, it wasn’t really a night off.

Dennis
Yeah. For sure. Well, you know, you mentioned all the individual stats that you accumulated in your career. And obviously in–I mentioned in the intro, you know, how you had finished since the all time shot blocker, you know, up in the top as far as scoring and rebounding. How does it feel to be–to stand in such great company? Because there’s been some great players most recently, of course, Luka Garza. And I want to talk a little bit about that.

Dennis
But, you know, how does it feel to to be in in that company and stand so high in those statistical categories?

Acie
It’s almost unbelievable because, you know, back then the media wasn’t like it was today, like there was no social media, like.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
You had a beat writer, but you didn’t really kind of read that read that stuff. So, like, I mean, one time told me, like, you know, I knew Don Nelson had played for the Celtics and played for Iowa. And he set–he had all the records before Roy Marble did.

Acie
And so, you know, when I was starting to break, like Greg Stokes’s records, I was like, wow, I remember watching the Twin Towers.

Dennis
Right, him and Michael Payne?

Acie
Right.

Dennis
Yeah, yeah.

Acie
And I was really stoked. I was like, OK. Then I started beating like some of Don Nelson’s stuff. And I was like, OK. You know I started beating Roy’s stuff. And I was like, OK. You know, then, you know–so one of my funnest days is when they send the media guide every year, the Iowa media guide and…The–me and some of my friends, we used to always have this debate like–

Acie
“OK, Chris Street or Brad Lohaus? Paluska or Horner? BJ or Dean Oliver? And so, and people would say these weird stuff and I just pull out the book like, “OK, look, you got Paluskas got 200 steals, Horners got 100 steals, BJ’s got 50 steals. You know, so–

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
The book would tell you all this stuff and I’d be and they’d be like, “Man, Ace! Look at all the stuff you’re in.” I was like yeah, I know.

Acie
Like it’s unbelievable to quantify, you know that it’s that it’s actually you know, you just like I tell people we just went out and played. Like nobody really had the mentality. I don’t think you could probably play like that where you’re like, “OK, I got to score 1500 points this year to get to the top ten…You know, it’s just like you play whatever you did, you did at the end of the end of your career, you’re happy with what you did.

Dennis
Right.

Dennis
Well speaking–Oh, I’m sorry.

Acie
No, go ahead.

Dennis
I was gonna say, speaking of playing. Yeah, I mean, the the style of play has changed considerably over the years, too. And I want to talk a little bit about that. You know, I think we can all agree that you’ve seen kind of an influence of European players coming in.

Acie
Oh, yeah.

Dennis
Doing the perimeter game. We’ll talk about that. But since we mentioned Luka Garza, I wanted to see what your thoughts were as far as where he may stand in the upcoming draft.

Dennis
I mean, he obviously had an outstanding career, you know, great year. Where do you think he might land?

Dennis
And, and…

Acie
You know what, I can’t see anybody passing. I can’t see anybody passing on him at 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 20–. I can’t see that.

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
Unless you have some great European player that you’re trying to stash and you can get early, which a lot of like a lot of those picks now turn out to be those players.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
But I mean, if I’m like San Antonio or Denver or, you know, I’m a playoff team, it’s a couple of pieces away.

Acie
And you want to develop a bench, that’s that’s where I’m going. Like, if I’m San Antonio, I’m licking my chops for him, I think.

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
I think he’d be great at San Antonio, he’d be great at Denver. I mean, me and my brother–I think I was talking about it on my other podcast–there’s a, there’s probably six or seven teams. What he can’t go to is a bad team. Like he can’t go to a bad team. He can’t go to Sacramento, Orlando.

Acie
Where they’re going to play him like 30 or 40 minutes, because he’s not if he does that, he’ll be out of the league in two years. I mean, we’ve seen that with some of these players that they draft early. They’re not ready. They put them on the floor two or three years their contract is done. They’re out of the league or overseas. So, you know, in him with his with his European background, he may…He probably will have better offers overseas because he can play as a European, which is very lucrative.

Acie
So he could probably go right to Euroleague and play for a top team in Italy and Spain. So it’s feasible he could make more money or at least use that for bargaining purposes.

Dennis
Absolutely. Well, speaking of of the professional careers, obviously, after your great career at Iowa, you get drafted. Now, I found this interesting. You’re right. I did do some homework. My…I find, find out that you were a Lakers fan–

Acie
All my life.

Dennis
Yet you get drafted by the Celtics. That had to hurt.

Acie
No, it didn’t hurt because–

Dennis
There was still some money–

Acie
–in the contract.

Dennis
Right, right.

Acie
We can buy some new cars around here.

Dennis
Right, right.

Acie
So, yeah, here’s the caveat of this. It even gets–it even gets better. So I’m a Laker fan all my life. Magic, Kareem. Um. And my uncle, so this is my uncle and my dad were all Laker fans. My other uncle from Chicago went to school with Larry Bird at Indiana State.

Dennis
Oh, yeah.

Acie
Celtic fan. At 14 or 15, he used to make me when I used to have AAU tournaments in Chicago, at my I’d stay with him and then my dad would come get me from him and he’d make me watch Celtic highlights at Celtic games. And he said he had to watch Robert Pierce. You’ve got to watch McKale. You got to learn the up and under, you gotta learn the scoop, you got to learn the Jack Sigma fade away

Acie
like Parrish. He said, “You know what? You’re going to be the next Parrish.” You’re going to be–he, he like, foretold this. Like when I’m 15 and 16. And I was like, listen, If I’m going to Boston, man, there’s no freaking way I’m going to put on, you know, that–those tight jerseys, the funny looking black shoes, and the green socks, I was like, no, man. No, no, no, no, no.

Dennis
That’s funny.

Acie
And that’s what ended up happening.

Dennis
Now, in fact, you played with Parrish, didn’t you?

Acie
I did, I did.

Dennis
Yeah. He was still there–

Dennis
And you just missed Byrd and uh Kale.

Acie
I missed Byrd by two years.

Acie
I missed McKale by year.

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
Byrd ended up being a scout. McHale left for a little while. He came back and did radio, but I missed him. Jerry Cystine was radio. Bob Cousy and Tommy Hyson were TV. [Inaudible] was community service and then my GM later, Chris Ford, was the coach and Dennis Johnson was the assistant. So there was Celtic all over. You know, I’m sitting there–

Dennis
Crazy.

Acie
Yeah, I was sitting there like, I hated all you guys.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
Right. Like, I wish there was a time Kareem would have knocked you guys out. I wish that, you know, I wish that Michael Cooper would’ve–well, you know, like I went on to playing with these guys, and Dennis Johnson’s telling me to [inaudible]. Yeah. So–went fulll circle.

Dennis
Oh, of course.

Dennis
And of course, that was always a great rivalry, the Lakers and and the Celtics. Especially that era with Byrd and Johnson playing against each other. But moving forward to another era, did you–I know sometime during your NBA career, Michael Jordan took his hiatus to play Minor League Baseball. Did you ever did you ever play against Jordan?

Acie
Yeah, so I did when he came back, so.

Dennis
OK.

Acie
Um, so he comes back. The first game was Indiana. Then a second game, I think it was us, I believe the ticket request went crazy. I had people calling me. I didn’t even know I had player’s wives calling me for tickets. So that game in the garden, he scored the first 15 points, I believe. This is like his second game back.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
And Dennis Johnson goes, he’s back and Chief goes, no doubt he’s back. The next game he goes to Madison Square Garden and hangs to 55 or 50 on the–

Dennis
Right.

Acie
Yeah. And so then the next year I was in Toronto and then, you know, that’s the year they won. I believe that’s the year they won the set, the 8–the 70… 70.

Dennis
70–72? Or–

Acie
72.

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
But we beat them in Toronto.

Acie
The only reason why we beat them is because Alan Robertson threw a party and they all went to the party and the game was at 12. And so they could barely–they weren’t awake. Scottie Pippen was, Rodman was sleep. Well, it was funny. We beat em, but on the last second shot from the corner, he hits a corner three that went off the backboard, but the–the score–the time had already ran out.

Dennis
Oh, well, you know, it’s it’s funny, too, because didn’t didn’t Parrish end up playing with the Bulls. Yeah, briefly.

Acie
Yeah. He’s like he goes, “That was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Dennis
Crazy. Yeah.

Acie
Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of Jordan, as obviously a basketball afficionado as well as a former player, would you select him as the greatest of all time or where’s he fit in your echelon of the greatest players that ever?

Acie
This is why this is why I have so many followers. So I called my buddies and they hate it when I say it, so. And I tell him, I go, “OK, listen, I played against two of the top three.

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
OK? So I go. I go, LeBron, one. I didn’t play against LeBron, but what he’s going to end up doing after his career is done, I don’t think you can’t put him as one. Or anything less than two.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
So I go. I go LeBron, one. Then I go Kobe, two. And I go Jordan or Kareem, three or four.

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
And then I go, Wilt, five.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
That’s my top five.

Dennis
Well, and that’s that’s hard to argue against. I mean, I probably have those same five in my top five. I might have them in a different order. But of course, you know, I’ve also been a Bulls fan for forever, so I’m always going to put Jordan at the top. But I definitely believe you’re right as far as LeBron and what he’s done and is still going to do. I mean, had he not been injured this year, he he’d probably be in the running for MVP again this year.

Acie
Yes. Yes.

Dennis
So, you know, but, you know, and I’ve talked to other NBA players or former players about their careers. But one thing that’s interesting and what I want to discuss with you is I haven’t had an opportunity to talk to too many people about playing overseas, which to me is fascinating because all the things that you have to learn and be aware of when you when you go overseas, because, first of all, overseas is not overseas.

Dennis
There’s a lot of different markets that aren’t–

Acie
Yep, and that’s exactly why I wrote the book, The How to Play Overseas.

Dennis
Yeah–

Acie
Because it was–

Dennis
That’s the segue.

Acie
It turned out to be it turned out to be one of the best things I ever did. And I’m glad I did it because I have a great. Profound respect for, for overseas and cultures and understanding. And you know, and as a kid, I loved world history and geography like my dad used to, you know, we used to do–talk about like Kublai Khan and just everything, you know, all the things that happened in the world.

Acie
And and to me, I didn’t really have a perspective of where that was.

Acie
Sure. And we lived across the street when I lived in Heritage. We lived across the street from a Greek family who we’re still close with that we see all the time. My brothers–it actually turned out my mom and and and the mom they were pregnant with…At the same time, all the time. And so my brothers are close with their kids. And they used to feed us Greek food all the time, and I loved it and I didn’t even know what the heck I was eating.

Acie
So when I went to go play in Greece, I was like, do you have that thing that’s wrapped in the spinach leaf with the rice? And they were like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” I was like, “Give me that.” They were like, “How do you know about that?” I was like, “Oh yeah.” You know, and so…like when I went overseas, it was it was, it was, it was educational. But then it all started to fit together.

Acie
And I was like, oh, OK. When I played in Turkey, I was like, oh, OK, Greeks and Turks. OK, all right. When I played in Russia, when I played in Poland, you know, when I played in Serbia. Oh, this is what Dino Rossi was talking about with the Slobodan Milosevic and all this. And so actually my relationship with Dino, we were rookies together. My first real job overseas where I played for extended period time was in France–Paris, France–PSG is the team, famous soccer team, which I didn’t know about.

Acie
But I know about soccer now. Man, I could talk to you about Manchester United, Leads–

Dennis
Right.

Acie
So everybody. So Lokomotiv everybody. So I pull up to to practice. They pull out, they pull me up. And I see this Mercedes and and I, I know the Mercedes and I’m like, because it scratched, it’s dented, it’s faded, it’s kind of leaning to the side. And I’m like, I know this car.

Acie
So I get in practice, I talk to the coach and the coach talked on the phone. He gives me the phone. It’s Dino. And then I was like, hey, I told him about you just work hard, everything is fine, you know, he’s a good coach. He was the co–and he ended up being the coach that that coached Tony [inaudible], Dino, [inaudible], Petrovich when they won all the championships, [inaudible] is one of the most famous coaches in the world.

Acie
And I didn’t even know that. Now I knew of him because they used to always talk about him. But I didn’t know about that was actually that guy. So he was coaching that team. So at end of the conversation, I go, why is Dino’s car out? Here he goes, Oh, Dino gave me the car. So Dino gave him a 600 SEL Mercedes that he had just because that was, you know, they were all so close together.

Acie
He was like, oh, you need the car, I don’t need the car. At the time Dino was living on a boat. He had made a million dollar boat that he had made when in Greece. So. Um, so yeah. So that kind of set me up for like the world where…and I was in because I was–because I was–I befriended Dino so well and and then in Torontos Zan Tabac. He played on that team too. He was on Houston but he also played Toronto with me and he was on that team with Petrovitch and all that. Because I befriended all those guys,

Acie
they told all their buddies. So what people don’t realize on overseas is, on teams is, you normally play with one or two what they call Bozeman B players, which are, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, whatever, and then then American player plays. Typically, those two players don’t get along because those guys are real fiery and feisty and they want to shoot it all the time and they want to think they’re just good as the American player.

Acie
And the American player wants to be the best player. He doesn’t want to take a backseat to them.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
I was fortunate to play with the Bozeman B player almost all my career because the relationship with I had with Dino and Tabac. So he set me up. When I played with in France, I played with Nikola Lončar. He was on that team as well. He was a young player on that team. When I played in Austria,

Acie
I play with a guy named Artemis. He was the older player. Now, all these guys were on that team that would that that that that the dream team beat. They were all on that team, so whenever I went someplace, they were like, oh yeah, Acie, you play with you play with Tabac. Oh yeah! So it was–basketball was easy for me because I was able to play with those great those great Bozeman B Serbian guys.

Acie
And then I started to understand their culture, right? And I picked up Serbia, which they love. And then I picked up Croatian and some of the words, you know, like I end up speaking Russian, which is my best language. And so Russians are offshoot. They’re all Slavic languages. And so I was able to to to communicate with them, kind of like what Kobe did when he he he could he could always communicate with, like some of the European players.

Acie
And so, yeah. So overseas came easy for me in that to fit in because I just hung around the Serbian guys, you know, and and I understood their their fight and their plight of what was going on, you know.

Dennis
Yeah, well, you mentioned the book. And I want to I once again, for those folks who are watching the video, I’m showing it here. But for those of you who are listening, the book is How to Play Overseas: 31 Rules Every American Player Must Know. And again, I think that was a brilliant idea because there are so many players from the states who, you know, may never make it to the NBA. But but they might play in, you know, an overseas market that helps them understand what they might be in for.

Acie
Right. So that was my first 10 rules when I used to go back overseas as my first 10 rules of what I needed to do to make sure that I was going to stay over there and be productive and have all my business in America taken care of.

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
Then that 10 became 30. And then every time I went someplace, a lot of the younger players started coming to me and I had another rule. And then I would tell them. And then before the end of the year, it’d be talk to Acie, talk to Acie.

Acie
And then, you know how I got the idea was Matt Gattens dad called me, one AAU tournament because Matt was going to play in Ukraine. And the Iowa coaches had told him, like, well, call Acie he’s played in Russia, he’s played in Poland. He knows all about that side of the world. And so I talked to Matt, Mike Gattens, Matt’s dad, for about three hours on the phone, coming back from a tournament in Chicago.

Acie
And he told me, man, you should write a book on it. And the rest is history.

Dennis
Well, what are some of those rules and what are some of the distinctions that you would point out?

Acie
Well, the biggest thing is, is banking that was the biggest thing. It’s like it used to be early on–and this is why there was teams who screwed with each other and agents that were bad is–the team paid the agent and the agent played–paid the player because, one, it was a lot of money. And two, there was really no way to get it back.

Acie
So, I mean, just picture yourself. You’re fresh out of college. You know, you have a bank account at Davenport State Bank, you go overseas, they give you ten thousand dollars, you keep a thousand dollars, you got to wire some money back. They asked you for the banking instructions and you’re like, “Huh?” And so then you say, well, they ask you, “Well, what’s your bank?” and you tell them, “Well, Davenport State Bank.”

Acie
And they don’t have that in the record system, so the first thing is to get an account at a major bank. And so I used–I was able to use Charles Schwab, which was a subsidiary of Citibank. So I could always get my money wired back or I knew how to do it and then sometimes you sometimes you couldn’t trust them and they say, “Oh, we wired it, we wired it, we wired it.” And it would never come. And so I would be like, “OK, you give me

Acie
the money,” and then what I would do is I would pick somebody around town who was trustworthy and I would say take me to a Citibank or take me to a Deutsche Bank or take me to Swiss bank, take me to one of these large banks. And I walk in and I have all my swift codes and all my account information and I’d wire the money back. So the biggest thing was banking. It was funny, I asked my Mike, Matt Gattens, I said, “Where does your son have an account at?”

Acie
And he goes, “Oh, Iowa State Bank, downtown Iowa City.” I go, “Nope, you know, you better go to a U.S. Bank, buddy, or Wells Fargo or something like that because you’re not getting your money back.” And he was like, “Oh, really?” I was like, “Yeah.” So, you know, now it’s so also what happened was guys with guys would try to smuggle it back. Guys would put it inn–and we did that too, where we couldn’t get to a bank, we get paid in another city and well we were going home.

Acie
And so guys, so that that ended up being a conversation is, how you smuggled money. So we used to take our soles out of our shoes.

Dennis
Geez.

Acie
So you wrap up and you get all the money in hundreds and then you wrap them up and then you that’s your soles. And so I always tell people coming through customs, I was probably 7’2″.

Dennis
Yeah. That’s because the pile of money was so big.

Acie
Right. I remember one time, I was going through the airport and the lady pointed done and a hundred had slid up out of the band and it was coming out of my shoe. I bent down and stuffed the hundred back into my shoe.

Dennis
That’s hilarious. So how bad or how difficult was it with the language barrier? I mean, did you deal with a lot of the locals?

Acie
Well, that’s the other thing. That’s yeah, that’s that’s huge. So I tell people I learn languages because I was tired of getting cursed out in different languages. So I know what [foreign language] means. I know how [foreign language]. I knew all these words. And so I’m kind of mad at myself. So my first job I didn’t stay over there for long was Greece. And I did understand [foreign language], which is kind of like a hello or how are you doing on the phone or a greeting.

Acie
And then I went to Germany and then I went somewhere else, and then I was like–oh, I went to Spain–and then I went home and so then when I went back, I went back to France, and then I was like, oh, I should learn the language. And a lot of guys were learning it. And I was just like, nah, because you don’t know where you’re going to be. And the Serbian dude taught me he’s like, man.

Acie
So he was speaking right now. This was this was really started to get me. All these guys never played in college or went to college. They all went to academies. Right. And they learn math and English and just a little social studies and that’s it. And they play basketball or soccer or whatever.

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
These guys all could speak seven or eight languages. Right. And I was like, if you guys can do it, I need to do it.

Acie
Because they were like, “You went to high school, you went to college. What language you speak?” I was like, “I can chop a little bit in Spanish, but that’s it.” So after that, I was like, you know what, no more. I’m going to learn. So then my next job was Turkey. So I learned Turkish. Then my next job with Russia, I learned Russian. Then Poland, I learned Polish. Then back to Serbia and then Montenegro and then Kosovo so I can chop away at probably five languages.

Dennis
Mhm. Yeah.

Acie
And I tell guys, you need to learn the language because that’s going to teach you the culture. And and and to this day, I still have friends in Turkey, guys over over here who are Turkish that, you know, and for me, learning their language and understanding was a great cultural barrier that they–that broke down the barrier, that they actually believe that I cared. They wanted to be–cause a lot of guys just went over there, got the money, and left.

Dennis
And they gave you a great opportunity–let you take advantage of a great opportunity to really see what those cultures were like. So I admire that. Speaking of, though, the these other markets in these leagues, we started to talk a little bit about the influence of especially probably the Eastern European teams or their leagues on the NBA, especially in recent years. And, you know, for instance, the post play that you were used to back in your day, does it seem to exist or at least not in the same way back then?

Acie
No, because the game…Like I–there’s a couple examples. So one example is an NBA game at that time when I was playing was, you know, 80-90, something like that.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
The overseas game is like 40-30.

Dennis
Wow.

Acie
So there’s less possessions, less everything. So, like there’s, you know, one of my one of my advantages that I was always got to the free throw line, like I average seven, eight, nine free throws.

Acie
And so and even if I played a lot of the NBA game, I would get to the free throw line a lot because I knew how to use my body. And I was, you know. When I went overseas, that dropped down to like three or four, and so that tells you how physical the game was and just the limited possessions, there wasn’t easy possessions. And so you had to learn a different way to play. And that’s kind of what…

Acie
Which I thought overseas players had an advantage of when they came over, they valued the ball more than some of these young kids who come out of high school at the time, you know, like a Rajon Rondo early on in his career, like he was the player he is today because he didn’t value the ball. He didn’t value possessions. Right. He come down and make plays. And a lot of guys were like that, you know? And so that’s what the scouts loved about–

Acie
And these guys had skills, too, because overseas practice was different. They was like, “OK, you can practice twice a day.” I was like, “what?” So so we did weights and shooting in the morning and drills. And then in the in the evening we did our our our our team practice and that’s got to be more than X and O’s and stuff. And so. I started to see that. And I already had that embedded in me because that’s how I wanted to play in Iowa, wasn’t that’s how I was playing in the streets growing up.

Acie
I want to be like Magic and Danny Manning. So I had that embedded. So when I went overseas, it was easy for me to adjust. Like I could pass, I could dribble, I could shoot it a little bit. And then I–so I saw that right, like I saw like a young Yao Ming and I saw like Hedo Türkoğlu, [Inaudible], and some of these guys who came over and Dirk Nowitzki. And that, and that really helped me to coach the new–and even for my kids, like I taught my kids how to shoot very early because I said this is a new game.

Acie
Like you’re not going to pump the ball in the post and go to the free throw line 10 or 15 times anymore. That’s not going to be the way the game is being played. So so that really allowed me to coach AAU and to train. And so as I train kids, I tell parents all the time, we’re going to shoot, dribble and score. That’s what we’re going to do, like we’re not going to do, “Oh, can we do some post? Could do rebound?”

Acie
Yeah, but, you know, as I tell people at my camps, you know, you can’t you can’t name the last two or three defensive players of the year. You can’t name the best rebounders every year. Everybody talks about shooting, you know.

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
You know, there’s more 50-40-90 guys than there ever was. Now, [inaudible] did it. You know, there’s four or five guys a year now doing it, you know, 50 percent from the field goal, 40 percent from three, and 90 percent from the free throw line.

Acie
So, I mean, scoring is a is a is a premium and shooting is a premium. I mean, we see how we’re going with Steph Curry, how much we’re going with Steph Curry.

Dennis
Well, yeah, for sure. And, you know, speaking of your basketball camps, tell us a little bit about Venom’s sports training. How how much time are you currently devoting to that, by the way, and how to get started? What’s the what’s the idea that?

Acie
So I tore my Achilles in 2004. I actually predicted I was going to tear my Achilles. I was like thirty, thirty two. I was on my last leg mentally, physically

Acie
I still I won MVP and won a championship in Kosovo the year before and I had a rule–broke one of my own rules. One of my rules is, go back overseas as late as you can for a lot of reasons. One, to rest your body, two to make sure the team has you as the player you want to be. So I made a mistake early and went in Greece in August and I practiced with them for two months and then they cut me before the season even started. And then three, to make sure that they have enough money to pay. So so–

Dennis
That’d be number one.

Acie
Right. So–and yeah in no particular order. But yeah, that’s number one.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
So I won a championship in June in Kosovo, I believe. And then. The GM of that team switched to go over to Croatia. He was Croatian. And he called me and said, will you come over in August? And I said, no. And he goes, Well, you know, we have the money, you know me. The owner just wants you over there to make sure you’re going to come over.

Acie
I said, I’ll come over in September or October. I’m not coming over in August. And they said, OK, we’ll give you extra money if you do. So I said, fine, I’ll do it, so I go over there and I tore my Achilles within three days. So my body was just not healed up and ready to go. And so I come back overseas to have my surgery and I’m working out and I’m just getting back into it.

Acie
And it was a blessing in disguise because I start training my daughter how to play basketball. I take her to the gym with me. I run and dribble. I taught her how to dribble and run, shoot…And a parent was in the gym and was like, you know, we practice here, how much do you charge to train our kid? And I go, I don’t have any idea. And and they go, well, we love to have you do it.

Acie
And so I said, fine, you know, if that time gas was like a dollar 30 a gallon. And I said, OK, I spent five bucks, you know, to the gym and back at. I said five bucks. Listen, five bucks an hour. I said, yeah, I don’t, you know, whatever. So I did that for about a year or two. And then, you know, then my name got out and everybody was like, you’re charging too less, you know, too least for your worth.

Acie
And so. So that’s how I got into Venom Sports. And that’s how I’ve been training kids ever since. I trained, currently I train four or five days a week. I train Wednesday, Thursday, Friday in Iowa City and I train Friday and–Friday and Sunday in Quad Cities.

Dennis
So is that so–did that get impacted by the pandemic? Were you–

Acie
It did, it did. Like we had to go outside, get outside training for a little bit. I did.

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
Sorry my battery is kind of low here. There we go. So I did that and then yeah, and then, you know, so then we started going to private gyms like so, like TBK was allowed us to in Quad Cities. They allowed us to do. But we had restrictions at North Dodge in Iowa City. So it did get impacted.

Acie
And then it was a gym crunch, right. For everybody. So then all the school teams had to find a gym. And so there was a gym crunch. But luckily, the weather was going good. So I did some outside training and things of that nature. But yeah, everybody got impacted. But, you know, so we started doing our covid restrictions where we limited the kids on the court. How many you can have on the court.

Acie
Every kid bring their own balls. We had to wear masks. We sanitize and spray the balls down like every you know, every session and stuff. So, yeah, so we got through it. So shout out to the parents in the gyms and everybody we worked through it. But, you know, really rough year.

Dennis
And you know, and I think that’s a good segue. I want to introduce some of your other books here. But by the way, the the camps or the training isn’t just for blue chippers, correct?

Acie
No, it’s for everybody.

Dennis
Just anybody?

Acie
No, I mean, yeah so right. So we have those Venom invite camps and then we have the ranking camps. Right. And then we also have the fundamental camps. We have a shooting camp. We have a dribbling camp. The training could be for anyone. So most of my most of my clients and clientele is young kids like third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade. So I’ve taken a lot of kids from camp and then, you know, turn them into junior high and high school great players and some in college.

Acie
And, you know, I’ll have some players in AAU after next year. I’m going to have my probably my first WNBA player. So um Ashley Jones from Iowa City High, she played with my daughter and she plays at Iowa State. She’s probably going to be a first round draft pick in the WNBA. And so–

Dennis
Wonderful.

Acie
I was fortunate to coach her three or four years.

Dennis
And, you know, speaking of fundamentals, some of the books that you’ve got and I want to mention these Basketball’s Main Ingredients, part one and part two. Those those both talk a lot about fundamentals and then a couple other books that I think are interesting and are something that I would think that parents would want to read would be How to Create a College Athlete. You’ve got, you know, the first and second edition. So I don’t know if you if you wrote those directly for parents, but I would certainly think that parents would want.

Acie
That’s what they were written for.

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
Yeah. You know, even in my lifetime, things have changed for recruiting–

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
And in the terminology and the rule interpretations. And so a lot of parents had no clue, like if you’ve never played high school sports or you never played basketball and your kid is good, you don’t know what to do. Right? And so, you know, and then I kind of separated them a little bit. I didn’t put it all basketball.

Acie
It’s actually a lot of terminology for any sport. Football.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
Basketball, whatever. And so, you know, I found myself doing a lot of talking to parents, like, what should we be doing now and should we go to this camp and what’s a visit and what’s a home visit and how many years can you play and. And so I said, you know what, I got to write a book for this because. Right, you know, I know a lot of stuff, but I also know some resources.

Acie
And so that was how, you know, that’s kind of what we did with my kid and some of the other kids, because, you know, we you know, we had a plan during AAU and we got almost all these kids to college. So I think on my AAU team they had like 50 or 60 kids to college, total out like 15 D-1s.

Dennis
Oh, that’s great. Yeah. Now, and speaking as to your coaching abilities, I mean, that’s another book that I want to highlight, the Introduction to Coaching Sports. In this one, you wrote with a couple of other people,

Acie
brother and Dr. Reid.

Dennis
Your brother and Dr. Reid, right. And uh, isn’t Doctor Reid also the University of Iowa?

Acie
No. He was at the–he was at DuPage College and I believe in Chicago. And then he’s out in Denver now. He retired. So he taught the coaching course that I taught. So I taught it at Iowa and he taught it at his school at College of DuPage, I believe. And so we kind of got together because the book that we were using was so outdated. I think it was 1970. And so we were having problems with students

Acie
you know, saying, well, that’s not right, and we were like, we know it’s not right, but we got to use that as the book because that’s where we use our testing materials. And so, you know, we kind of got into it with students every year about the material. And so even Human Kinetics, who was the who was the publisher of the book, they end up having somebody else write another book. So we submitted our book.

Acie
So we’re thinking Human Kinetics could pick our book up, in the future. So–

Dennis
Gotcha.

Acie
But, yeah, it’s basically for the new style of coach who wants to coach in high school or college in a majority of states. In the back of the book, it shows all the things that you need to do in those in those states if you want to be a high school or junior high coach. And it’s just the more modern things. It’s the training.

Acie
It’s the diet, it’s the level of coaching. What do you want to do? AAU? You want to do travel team? You want to do high school? You want to do college? You want to do pro? Semipro? You know, it’s just all these I think a lot of people want to coach, but they also don’t know where to coach, how to coach, who they want who do they want to coach to. You know, it was just I just saw the other day somebody hired this one high school coach or a college it hired as one high school football coach.

Acie
He never punts and he always goes forward on fourth down. And he did that for all his life. And now somebody wants to hire him for that. You know, I think the guy in Parker–Parkersburg does that in high school in iowa.

Dennis
Mhm. Well, as with that background, with your coaching in the training background, obviously your professional background in in the advice that you gave to so many people who are playing overseas or want to play overseas, what if you could what would you synopsize as the best advice you could give to a young kid wanting to take their game to the next level, whether it’s basketball or whatever? What would you tell them they need to focus on?

Acie
I would say use all your opportunities that that’s going to come to you like. Oh. You know, whether it could also be a smaller college, because it’s better academically, like that’s what my daughter chose. So she’s she’s at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, like one of the 30 best schools in the state–in the nation.

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
Whether you’re going to play at that level or you’re going to use an extra year of eligibility, like we’ve seen a lot of kids doing that for the transfer portal instead of just trying to go try to go overseas or transfer or trying to go pro, you know, use that extra year to get your college degree or work on your body or, you know, whatever.

Acie
You know, use your use the people around you. Like my my I have a daughter in college who doesn’t play and she’s in a sorority. And I said that’s the best thing you could do is be in a sorority. I said, I wish I would have made I wish I would have had more friends outside of basketball in sports when I was there, because those are the people going to help you in life.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
And, you know, it just just kind of using it as a broad thing and not and listen to as most people as you can like.

Acie
Sometimes I think we see these kids. They have a small group of circle and people and telling them the wrong advice. You know, go pro or transfer or go to this school, you know, have have a wide circle like, you know, somebody at once told me this at the final four years, go to the final four every year. And I always try to find Pearl, and then I’d always try to find Coach Walker and I’d find the Iowa people and somebody told me, you know what?

Acie
You also got to find the other people, not just the Iowa people. You find some other people. So then that’s what I would do every year. I hang with those people and I go hang with another coach, I go hang with another coach. And so I just think that you have to have a well-rounded sphere of of understanding of what you’re trying to do and enable–and also understand NCAA or your governing body, like how the rules work. How the you know, how transfer or how early early enrollees work or grad transfer rule.

Acie
You know, and I think some people aren’t using these things. And it’s interesting because, you know, the females do it a lot. The female athletes graduate and and do the transfer portal and then they go in and grad school. So they get grad school paid for.

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
Because–and I could have done that. I graduated early since I redshirted. And I wish I would have stayed in school but my agent told me, oh drop all your classes and then just work out for the NBA.

Acie
When I went back, got my first Masters degree, I already had nine hours under my belt, if I would have used it. So, you know, sometimes the best advice somebody gives you is not always the best advice. You have to look at it long term, because, you know, sports is only a little bit of an era. You know, I only played…twelve years professionally. Five years, four or five years in college, you know, I have the rest of my life to figure out what I’m going to do.

Dennis
Yeah, you know, and speaking of, you know, realizing that, that’s the fact that, first of all, most people aren’t going to go on to play professionally. What are your thoughts, given that, about what, you know has really come become fairly prevalent and in the discussion of college athletes monetizing their image and their, you know, their likeness? Now, as I’m sure you know, there’s been litigation and and new rules that are likely going to make it possible for college athletes to start making money on on their image in this fashion.

Dennis
What are your thoughts about that?

Acie
I think it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s been coming. So it’s been in the works for so long. And the problem is that it never got addressed properly or it never got serious actions. So now, it’s coming full circle. It’s like a floodgate that can’t be closed. I think if something was done a few years ago, you could kind of slowly bring it in and slowly get to work, and now we’re just here and it’s just going to be I don’t know what it’s going to happen, but I think in three states it’s already passed.

Acie
Right? Georgia…

Dennis
California, 23. And I know it was up in Iowa, but I don’t think they they actually presented it.

Acie
Right.

Acie
Yeah. So I think something has to be done. What I tell people is, you know, the scholarship is a old form of tender. Like, when somebody gave you a scholarship to come play, nobody sold any tickets, nobody had any TV rights. There was no shoe deal. There was no apparel deal. There wasn’t parking. There wasn’t streaming. There wasn’t all these revenue sources. So somebody gave you a scholarship, that was their payment.

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
Now we have all these other revenue sources. So the scholarship is not just that form of payment. That’s you know, it’s almost like you you know, in the old days you went to the store, you bought a thing of milk, it costs you a dollar. Now it costs you three dollars, four dollars. So it’s it’s different. So giving somebody a scholarship, for all the other income that you’re getting, is not apples to apples. You know, so a great example would be Zion Williamson two years ago at Duke.

Acie
So they say, come to Duke and play, we’ll give you a scholarship. Zion Williams says–Williamson said, you know what, I don’t want this scholarship, but I’ll tell you what I do want. I want 24 bars of gold. Or I want stock in Nike.

Dennis
Right.

Acie
I want I want something that has a value that’s going to give to me.

Dennis
Mhm.

Acie
A scholarship doesn’t help him one bit. He’s a one in out. He’s a he’s a you know, if he wants to go back and get his degree.

Dennis
Sure.

Acie
He never has to get his degree ever in his life. I mean, Kobe Bryant, LeBron, were the same way. They’re very articulate. They learn, you know, Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, all these guys never went to college, Rajon Rondo. But some of these guys are the smartest guys you’d ever talk to. So the scholarship to them doesn’t have any value. So maybe there should be a choice of two or three different things.

Acie
“Hey, you want a scholarship and this? You want just this? You want just this? You want to escrow insurance? You want insurance for your family right now? You want stock or you want a piece of the parking or you want a piece of the apparel or whatever…But I think something has to happen. I think we I think we everybody knows the scholarship is not enough for what’s going on.

Dennis
Yeah. And I think you you hit the–hit the nail on the head saying the floodgates are open and there’s no stopping it now. It’s something is going to happen.

Acie
Yeah. I mean, obviously, see the NFT–

Dennis
–how it evolves.

Acie
Like yeah, but what about the NFT, right? The nonrefundable token stuff?

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
It’s–

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
You know, how do you govern this stuff? Right?

Dennis
Right, right.

Dennis
Well a couple last minute things, the last few things rather than I’d like to touch on before I let you go, Acie. You were talking about smart guys and and you mentioned getting your masters. And I know that you’ve also taught at the university in the uh, the–is it the athletic department or…?

Acie
No, it’s the sports and rec department.

Dennis
Sports and rec department?

Acie
Yeah, sports and sports and–SRM. Sports and rec.

Dennis
OK, ok. Are you still teaching there..?

Acie
Well because of covid you know, we–they had to cancel some classes and then–

Dennis
That’s what I was gonna ask.

Acie
They had to move some classes around. So that’s where adjunct we got, we got to push out.

Dennis
Gotcha.

Acie
So I was fortunate to coach there, you know, seven years or teach there seven years, and so it was great for me, you know, to be there and and, you know, mentored a lot of students who end up going to coaching and different things.

Acie
And so, yeah, it was a great run. I was I was a teaching assistant first, and my mentor took me on. So I was a teaching assistant in the Health and Human Physiology Department. And then then I went on and, you know, was–

Dennis
Now, are you–I know that you were also–you were or maybe you still are–doing real estate work? Is that still something that you’re doing?

Acie
Yeah, I have I have some rentals and some things that, you know, I got to be–got my license to be a realtor just to kind of, you know, get my ear to the street.

Dennis
Investing?

Acie
So, you know, I don’t do a lot. I help, you know, friends and and maybe some tenants move, but I don’t do a lot. But, you know, I saw in Iowa things were going to change like this is, yeah, I mean, where were they were building at and things were going on, I was like, OK, you know, I’m going to get in on this now because it’s going to boom.

Acie
And that’s what happened. I mean, the hospitals and clinics and ACT and the school system and the hospitals, I mean, and–you know–

Dennis
So what’s next?

Dennis
What’s next for you? I mean, I know you’re doing a podcast, right?

Acie
Yeah, I started to do a podcast. I can’t lock down my time. I got to do better–diligent on my time, so I can get it going better. But yeah, I’m gonna probably go back and maybe coach a little high school. I did freshman boys at Solon High School for five years and then my kids got older and then I had my AAU stuff. And so I’m going to maybe go back and do some high school freshman or sophomore, you know, just to kind of stay in the game a little bit more and just watch my kids.

Acie
You know, I got two kids in high school playing, so I want to watch them and get them through, and then my daughter’s coming back for the extra year at Lawrence University, so. You know, just you know, it’s hard to believe I’ll be 51 this year.

Dennis
Believe me, I know. I know. I know your pain. It’s crazy, isn’t it?

Acie
It’s it’s just it’s hard to believe basketball has given given me a great life. And it’s come full circle and I have a lot of blessings and meet a lot of people and friends and family and fans and a lot of opportunities. And I tell people all the time, you know, use sports to create more opportunities for yourself and others. Don’t let sports use you. You know, and I have friends and and colleagues who let sports use them.

Acie
And and and and I said, you know, that that just can’t happen in today’s world. Like, you can’t let you can’t let sports or anything. You know, you should you should look for something positive and everything. So I’ve been fortunate, you know.

Dennis
Yeah. Well, I want to thank you for your time. I know I’m taking up a lot of it.Oh no,

Acie
Oh no, I could I could talk and do this stuff all day long.

Dennis
I could too. And and in fact, I hope to have you back so we can–

Acie
Oh, yes, of course–

Dennis
–touch on some of these topics in the future, um–

Acie
–Yeah, yeah, at some point we could probably do like a segment just on the Slavery in Sports book, because that’s–

Dennis
–that’s exactly what I was going to suggest.

Acie
Yeah.

Dennis
As we, as we–

Acie
–and that’s a conversation in itself.

Dennis
Yeah, it is. And I’m showing the, I’m showing the book right here that Acie’s referring to, Slavery in Sports: the Role of the Black Athlete, which I’ve had an opportunity at least scan a little bit. I’ll have to read it in more detail. But there’s some fascinating stuff in there. And I hope to talk with you about the next time we can get together.

Acie
Yes, of course.

Dennis
All right–

Acie
Yep! So have everybody go to my website for camps and training, VenomSportsTraining.com. I also have–we also should do the Player’s Bracket. I got a Player’s…Best NBA Player Bracket, a 64 player bracket.

Dennis
How does that work?

Acie
So you go on as a fan and you click on the bracket. I think it’s five dollars. And you, you print it out and it’s 1-64 and you rank your best players, NBA players. So I have them in 16 regions just like whatever. And then you play the games yourself of somebody playing one on one. So if you have Michael Jordan as a one seat in one bracket, you might have a sixteen seat, you might have Chris Mullin.

Acie
And then you move Michael Jordan to pass Chris Mullin, right, and then–

Dennis
So you just select who the winner is and, and–

Acie
Yeah, you select who your winner is.

Dennis
Yeah.

Acie
Then you then you’ll select who your final four is and then you’ll select your winner, your best NBA player of all time. And then when fans send that to me, I go over it publicly on my podcast, who they thought and why I think it worked and why it didn’t work. And then I sent them a autographed picture free.

Dennis
Well that sounds–That’s a lot of fun. Well, yeah.

Acie
I’d be interested to see what yours is–

Dennis
–check it out–

Acie
–I’d be interested to see what yours is.

Dennis
I’m gonna have to do that. For sure.

Acie
Yeah. So it’s.

Dennis
So next–

Acie
Yeah, yeah. And I don’t know if mine’s on there or not, but I think I might have mine on there. So I think I had…forget who I had winning but my but my top four seeds were LeBron. Kobe. Jordan, and Kareem.

Dennis
Well, those are good ones, like we said before, so, yeah, I’ll have to play it and we’ll talk about next time we can get together. Sounds great. So in the meantime, I want to thank you all once again for listening today. Be sure to subscribe and hit that button for Uncommon Convos on your favorite podcast platform to make sure you’re registering or subscribing or whatever they call it on that podcast platform. Also, go to UncommonConvos.Com to check out the video version of this and any other episodes. That way

Dennis
you can also take a look at the books that we’re referencing during the discussion today. You can also link to whatever podcast platform you like from that website. So if you don’t know how to do it, it’ll show you how to do it right there on the website. Don’t forget also to check out our other podcast, Legal Squeaks, to learn about legal and consumer issues which may impact your life. I hope you’ll join us next week on Uncommon Convos.

Dennis
And in the meantime, have a great day. Stay safe and love you all.

Acie
Thank you much. Great opportunity.