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

