Dame.

Spike made the varsity team

at Crown Point High School his
sophomore year and shined. In his
sophomore season, they played
Chesterton, which at the time
had future Michigan teammate
Mitch McGary. Purdue coach
Matt Painter was in the stands
to watch McGary, but Albrecht
stole the show. Late in the game,
after McGary was blocked, Spike
took the ball the other way and
finished with an and-1 play to
help Crown Point win by four. He
ended the game with 14 points
and nine assists.

In retrospect, Painter said, not

looking more closely at Albrecht
was a mistake. In fact, Painter
said he recruited his current
point guard, 5-foot-10 sophomore
P.J. Thompson, with Spike in
mind.

Painter wasn’t alone in passing

on Spike.

During his senior season, 16

Division-I coaches came to watch
a
game
against
Merrillville,

interested only in Merrillville
players — none came to watch
Spike. Albrecht scored a game-
high 30 points and dished out five
assists in a losing effort.

After the game, Crown Point’s

athletic
director
told
Chuck

they’d be getting a lot of calls
from coaches that were there.

Nobody called. Spike ended

the
season
with
conference

MVP honors, 21 points per game
and zero offers to play college
basketball.

As his senior season came to an

end, Albrecht was unsure about
his future.

Notre Dame never bothered

checking Spike out. He considered
playing at Brown University,
where Stephen played, but his
ACT score was one point short of
the school’s required mark. The
coaches at Brown recommended
he take a prep year at Northfield
Mount Hermon (Mass.). There, he
could play against some of the top
high school talent in the country
and work to get his test scores up.
So he signed on with coach John
Carroll and enrolled in NMH for
a post-graduate year.

Over
the
summer,
Wayne

Brumm reached out to Spike.
Brumm coached the SYF Players,
one of the top AAU teams in the
Midwest. He had coached both of
Spike’s brothers, and with Spike
opting for a prep year, he was
eligible to play over the summer.

Brumm has an eye for talent.

He also coached former Michigan
players Glenn Robinson III, Max
Bielfeldt and McGary, but even he

admits that the first time he saw
Spike play — in middle school —
he wasn’t sure what to make of
him.

“I was more amused than

anything because he was really
tiny, but he had game. He caught
my eye, but I just — it was one of
those reactions where you just
sort of chuckle,” Brumm recalls.

At the Pittsburgh Jam Fest

tournament, Brumm remembers
one play perfectly. Spike dished
a left-handed, half-court bounce
pass to a teammate by the basket
who finished with a layup. A
friend of Brumm’s who is now a
scout for the San Antonio Spurs
came up to him at the end of the
game and asked, “Who’s that kid?
That kid’s got game.”

Spike played in just three

tournaments
with
Brumm’s

team before breaking his foot,
but he left an impression on the
longtime coach.

Spike left for NMH with the

broken foot, leaving him unable
to play during the fall period. In
the fall, before the college season
begins, college coaches have the
opportunity to check out players
in person. Dozens of coaches
would come to open gyms at
NMH, and all Spike could do was
watch.

“I was just pissed,” he recalled.

“I’m a thousand miles from home
— I came there to play basketball,
wanted to get a scholarship. I
remember I was just getting so
fed up.”

As fall turned to winter,

though, Albrecht recovered, and
was healthy in time for the start
of the season. Just like his time
at Crown Point, he turned heads.
He was averaging nearly 10
points and seven assists per game
against some of the best talent
in the country, but it still wasn’t

good enough for to schools take a
chance on him, and Albrecht had
to reconsider his options for the
following year.

Playing with Stephen at Brown

was out of the picture. Despite his
best efforts, he couldn’t manage
the ACT score.

So, midway through the year

at NMH, father and son had a
candid conversation.

“I’m like, ‘I don’t want to

play Division II or Division III
basketball’ — nothing against it
— that’s just not what I worked

for,” Albrecht recalled. “So I
remember thinking, ‘Shit, I guess
I’m just going to go to IU for
school.’ ”

That was the plan. He’d give up

basketball, go to Indiana, study
business and be a “rec-league
superstar.”

Then a phone call came.
“All of a sudden my prep school

coach comes up to me and he’s
like, ‘Hey I got an interesting call
today,’ ” Spike remembers.

It was Michigan.
“I was like, ‘The University

Friday, November 13, 2015 // Tip Off
5B

Michigan
men’s
basketball

coach John Beilein wasn’t always
so sure about Spike Albrecht.

Beilein says that when he

offered the 5-foot-11 guard a
scholarship, he knew it would
either be one of his best decisions
as Michigan’s coach, or one of his
last.

After watching Albrecht play

in an open gym on campus during
his recruiting trip, Beilein invited
him and his parents over to his
house for dinner. Following the
meal, he took them into his home
office.

“I was kind of intimidated,

like, ‘Oh shit,’ ” Albrecht recalled
thinking. “He was sitting there
talking, then he paused. I could
tell he was thinking, about ready
to make a big decision. He’s like,
‘You’re either going to get me fired
or make me look like a genius.’
And then he goes, ‘How would
you like to come play basketball at
Michigan?’ ”

Spike accepted on the spot.
Beilein did what no one else

was willing to — take a shot on the
little guy. Spike didn’t look like a
Division I athlete, much less a
basketball player. He had only
one other offer to play, and an

Ivy League opportunity that fell
through when he failed to bump
his ACT score up a point.

It was one point he’s glad he

never got.

* * *

Spike’s first neighbors adored

him.

When he was just 3 years

old, the neighbors would bring
company over and Albrecht’s dad
to pitch to him. The neighbors
wanted to show their guests how
far Spike could hit a baseball —
over the roof sometimes — even
at just 3.

Then his family moved, not

too far away, to a different house
in Crown Point, Ind. The new
neighbors weren’t as excited
about having a rambunctious
little Albrecht running around.

“I was the youngest brother,

so I always wanted to be causing
havoc, trying to get away with
things,” Spike said. “There are a
lot of good stories.”

Like the time he upset his

“crazy neighbor” Betty when he
hit a ball onto her roof, and she
stormed over to tell his father.

Or the time the 10-year-old

and his friends stole a page from
Billy Madison and put a bag of dog
poop on a neighbor’s porch, rang
the doorbell and ran.

“We didn’t actually light it on

fire,” he said. “We picked it up
with a shovel, put it in a bag.”

There was the day he stole

$140 from his parents’ cupboard
in grade school and announced
to the whole class that he was
buying ice cream for them at
lunch.

Or the time he hit golf balls

across a busy street as a kid.

“He just didn’t care,” said

Stephen Albrecht, one of Spike’s
older
brothers,
about
Spike

growing up. “Looking back on
it at the time, there might (have
been) something wrong with this
kid.”

* * *

Spike was born in Crown Point,

a small suburb 50 miles south of
Chicago. He was the third of
four children born to Chuck and
Tammy Albrecht. There was
Chachi, six years older; Stephen,
three years Spike’s senior; and
then Spike, followed by the lone
girl, Hannah.

As a youngster, if Chachi and

Stephen did it, Spike wanted to,
too. Stephen and his friends used
to egg Spike on to curse. They
thought it was funny to hear a
four-letter word fly out of the
mouth of a 4-year-old, and Spike
would oblige.

On the court, too, Spike wanted

to be with his brothers. When
Chuck coached Chachi’s 9-year-
old team, Spike, just three years
old at the time, would tag along.

When those closest to him are

asked when they first knew he
had a knack for the game, they all
tell the same story.

It was in a youth-league game

when he was in first grade and
Stephen was in fourth grade.
Stephen’s team was playing a
team
from
Chesterton,
Ind.,

that
former
Michigan
guard

and Albrecht family friend Zack
Novak played on.

Leading big late, Stephen’s

team put Spike in at the end of
the game. He got the ball, crossed
over his defender and scored.

“We give him crap to this day,”

Novak said of Spike’s defender.

With two brothers showing

him the ropes, Spike caught on
quickly.

He could swat a baseball,

launch a football and pass a
basketball like nobody’s business
at a young age. He picked up
everything
easily.
He
never

learned to ride a bike; he just got
on it one day and was gone.

“I was looking for the training

wheels,” Chuck recalled. “And
my dad was here, and he goes,
‘What are you doing?’ And I go,
‘I’m looking for those training
wheels.’ He goes, ‘Spike’s already
riding the bike.’ Just gone. He was
down the street.”

* * *

Playing
against
older

competition his whole life set
Albrecht up well. He turned heads
on the hardwood and wowed
spectators on the diamond. Spike,
whose given name is Michael, got
his nickname because he never
took his baseball cleats off when
he was younger — even when he
went to church. But before high
school, he decided to hang up his
cleats for good. Baseball was too
slow and bored him. He opted
to exclusively pursue basketball
and had his sight set on playing
Division-I basketball at Notre

Story by Simon Kaufman,
Daily Sports Editor

FILE PHOTO/Daily

Friday, November 13, 2015 // Tip Off
4B

Spike Albrecht scored 17 points in
the first half of the 2013 National
Championship Game.
Spike, left, used to practice with
brothers Stephen and Chachi’s teams
when the three were younger.

ALLISON FARRAND/Daily

COURTESY OF THE ALBRECHT FAMILY

FILE PHOTO/Daily