of Michigan?’ I was in complete 
shock and I honestly thought — I 
thought he was messing with me.”

* * *

Back home, Brumm had been 

pounding the phones on Spike’s 
behalf, reaching out to college 
coaches. Brumm and Michigan 
assistant coach Jeff Meyer are 
longtime friends, and when Meyer 
mentioned 
Michigan 
needed 

a point guard because then-
freshman guard Trey Burke might 
take off for the NBA, Brumm 
didn’t hesitate to recommend 
Spike.

“I 
felt 
Spike 
could 
play 

anywhere all along,” Brumm said. 
“But convincing (college coaches) 
is a different story.”

Luckily 
for 
Spike, 
Meyer 

trusted Brumm’s word and came 
out to watch him play.

In a game against Hargrave 

Military Academy, with Meyer 
in the crowd, Spike put up nine 
points and tallied 14 assists. He 
was worried it wasn’t enough to 
impress the coach. 

After 
the 
game, 
Spike 

remembers 
thinking, 
“Damn, 

did I just miss my chance with 
Michigan?” 

The next day, Beilein called. 

He’d had his eye on Spike from a 
distance and loved what he saw.

Beilein was impressed with 

his play, so much so that he 
personally cut film of Spike — 
some 300 clips, he says — the 
most he has ever scrutinized 

a recruit on video. Perhaps, in 
Spike, Beilein saw himself: an 
undersized, 
under-recruited 

guard with good handles. Beilein 
played at Wheeling College — a 
small Division-II school — and 
spent most of his time there on the 
bench.

Despite Meyer’s report, Beilein 

still wasn’t sure. Back on campus 
one day in the spring of 2012, 
Beilein 
called 
then-Michigan 

junior Josh Bartelstein into his 
office and showed him film of 
Spike.

“ ‘I want you to watch film with 

me for five minutes and tell me if 
I’m crazy or if this kid’s actually 
good,’ ” Bartelstein remembers 
Beilein telling him. “ ‘He’s got no 
other offers. People aren’t gonna 
offer him. People are gonna think 
I’m nuts, but I’m telling you, I see 
something in him.’ ”

Bartelstein 
watched 
with 

Beilein, and could tell his coach 
was high on the little guy.

Beilein wanted to see for 

himself. He met Spike in Crown 
Point for an in-home visit. He 
pulled onto the sloped driveway 
and Albrecht was standing at the 
bottom.

“His coach told me he’s not 

going to pass the eye test,” Beilein 
recalls. “I was standing above 
him, and he was below me, and I’m 
looking, towering over him, and 
I’m saying to myself, ‘No kidding, 
he’s not passing this first eye test 
at all.’ ”

The coach and player met 

and talked about the potential 

opportunity 
of 
playing 
at 

Michigan. Beilein still hadn’t seen 
him play in person, though, so he 
later traveled to NMH to watch 
him play in an open gym.

Beilein, 
along 
with 
other 

college coaches, including some 
from Appalachian State, which 
had recently extended an offer 
to Spike, watched him play pick-
up in an open gym. Spike played 
seven games and never lost.

Looking back on it, that was 

hardly coincidence.

“We kind of set the teams up in 

my favor,” Albrecht said.

Regardless, 

Beilein 
was 

sold. He decided 
right then that 
he 
was 
going 

to offer Spike 
a 
scholarship, 

though he didn’t 
tell him that at 
the time.

One 
week 

later, 
Spike 

was set to visit 
campus. At the airport, when he 
told a TSA agent why he was going 
to Michigan, the airport employee 
didn’t believe him.

“He’s like ‘Michigan? Get the 

hell out of here,’ ” Albrecht said. 
“And he screams over to his friend 
Big Mike, ‘Yo, Big Mike. This 
little white boy says he’s going to 
Michigan.’ ”

Doubters aplenty, Spike took off 

for Ann Arbor.

* * *

On his campus visit, Spike 

wanted 
to 
make 
a 
good 

impression, 
and 
Beilein 
was 

looking out for him.

The story goes that Spike, 

Beilein, then-sophomore forward 
Jon Horford and some of the 
assistant coaches were out to 
lunch at The Chop House. After 
eating, the coaches insisted Spike 
get dessert. He didn’t want to, but 
they said they needed to beef him 
up.

“He tried to order tiramisu 

and he asked what was in it,” 
Horford remembers. “I told 
him there was a little alcohol 
in it, and Coach Beilein freaked 
out like, ‘No, no, no you can’t 
have anything with alcohol in it. 
That’s not responsible of me.’ He 
made a big deal of it.”

Later that day, Beilein had 

others keep an eye on Spike for 
him — this time in a players-only 
open gym. Due to NCAA rules, 
coaches cannot watch open gyms 
that are not mandated tryouts.

Spike held his own, and after 

the practice, Beilein asked some 
of the players what they thought: 
Was Spike walk-on talent or a 
scholarship player?

“Everyone was like, ‘Oh yeah, 

he’s a great kid; he’s really nice; 
he’s a pretty good basketball 
player,’ ” Horford said. “But 
literally, I was the only one who 
said that I thought he should be on 
a scholarship, and I didn’t know 
that until (Michigan assistant 
coach Bacari Alexander) told me 
later. He’s like, ‘You know, you 
were the only one.’ ”

Bartelstein 

and 
former 

Michigan 
player 
Matt 

Vogrich 
claim 

that they, too, 
recommended 
Spike 
for 

scholarship, 
perhaps 
less 

vocally. 
The 

exact 
number 

is unclear, but 

what is clear is that not all of his 
future teammates thought he 
had the makings of a scholarship 
player at the time.

The next day, Beilein made 

his decision final. He would 
offer Spike a scholarship. And so 
the unlikely marriage between 
Michigan and Albrecht began.

* * *

Twelve minutes, 17 points and 

one tweet. That’s what it took for 

Spike to go from unrecognized to 
can’t-be-missed.

Spike flew under the radar for 

most of his freshman year. During 
one game at Ohio State, he was late 
coming off the bus. When he tried 
to catch up with his teammates, a 
security guard stopped him and 
told him, “Players only.”

He played in garbage time 

and whenever Burke needed a 
breather.

He knew his role. Beilein had 

made it clear: He’d back up Burke, 
and the following year, when 
another guard named Derrick 
Walton Jr. arrived, Spike would 
likely back him up, too. That was 
OK with Spike. He remembered 
what his dad used to tell him: 
“Not everyone can be a superstar, 
but everyone can be a superstar in 
their own role.”

But on that Monday night in 

Atlanta, on the biggest stage, in 
the 2013 National Championship 
Game against Louisville, Spike 
was the superstar.

Burke committed two fouls 

early in the first half. Beilein took 
him out, and Spike went in. He 
knocked down his first five field-
goal attempts, pushing Michigan 
out to a 12-point lead. The magic 
ended, though, as Michigan’s 
lead, and championship hopes, 
slipped away. But nobody forgot 
the night Spike had.

His 
performance 
shocked 

everyone except those who knew 
him.

“When that all happened, I was 

like, ‘This is what he did in high 
school,’ ” former Crown Point 
teammate and best friend Evan 
Langbehn recalled thinking. “I 
wouldn’t say I was shocked. … 
You always knew that he thrived 
in the big moment.”

His former coach at Crown 

Point, Clint Swan was at the game 
and couldn’t hold in his emotion.

“For him to overcome so 

many doubters and not just get a 
Division I scholarship, but to get a 
Big Ten scholarship, and not just 
to get a Big Ten scholarship but 
to contribute his freshman year, 
and not just to contribute but to 
make the All-Final Four team. 
It was almost more than I could 
overcome.”

The day after the loss, Spike 

and 
some 
teammates 
were 

talking. One of them — Spike 
forgets who, but denies it was 
him — threw out the idea that he 
tweet at supermodel Kate Upton, 
who was at the game the night 
before.

Spike didn’t love the idea.

Friday, November 13, 2015 // Tip Off
6B

“No kidding, 

he’s not passing 
this first eye test 

at all.”

COURTESY OF THE ALBRECHT FAMILY

Spike Albrecht earned his nickname through baseball, because he never took his cleats off when he was younger.

