4B — Monday, December 10, 2018
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
How John Beilein helped Mike Gansey realize his NBA dreams
Thanksgiving,
2006.
Basketball
buzzed
in
the
background, but for the first
time in his life, Mike Gansey
wasn’t
interested.
He was at
his parents’
house
in
Olmsted
Falls, Ohio.
A perfectly
pleasant
place,
but
Gansey was
supposed
to be on the
other side of that television
set — playing basketball, not
watching it.
That’s where he had been a
year earlier, a star at shooting
guard
for
John
Beilein’s
West
Virginia
Mountaineers.
He
finished
sixth
in
the
Big
East
in
scoring
that
year
and
was
named
to
the
all-conference
team.
He
arrived
at West Virginia two years
before that, as a transfer from
St. Bonaventure. Gansey knew
it was the right fit from the
first time he met Beilein, on
his initial visit to Morgantown.
Beilein told him he could live
with his son, Patrick, a guard
for the Mountaineers at the
time.
Except
when
Gansey
arrived on campus in the fall
of 2003, there had been a
miscommunication. He wasn’t
living with Patrick. Within a
week, they became best friends
anyway,
bonding
over
the
misery of their NFL teams —
Gansey, a native Clevelander,
is a lifelong Browns fan, while
Patrick follows in his father’s
footsteps as a Buffalo Bills fan.
“We had a ton of similarities,”
Gansey told The Daily. “You
know how it is when you meet
someone and it just clicks, and
you’re like, ‘Man.’ We knew
we were gonna be best friends
from there.”
“He’s part of our family,”
John Beilein said of Gansey
now, 15 years later. “He’s
probably as close as any kid
that any of our children have
met as part of our family.”
Gansey had to sit out his
first season, redshirting and
learning Beilein’s system. The
next year — now living with
Patrick for real — he became
a star. That March, his place
in Mountaineer history was
immortalized when he scored
29 points in a double-overtime
win over Chris Paul and Wake
Forest in the second round of
the NCAA Tournament and
helped West Virginia make its
first Elite Eight in 46 years.
It
was
all
supposed
to
culminate
in
the
summer
of 2006, when Gansey was
projected
as
a
first-round
pick in the NBA draft. When
the Indiana Pacers selected
Shawne Williams 17th overall,
Gansey became the top player
available on ESPN analyst Jay
Bilas’ big board.
But Gansey knew that wasn’t
going to come to fruition.
During
pre-draft
workouts,
he
hadn’t
been
the
same
player that he was during the
previous two seasons, and he
ended up going undrafted. The
Miami Heat signed him to their
Summer League roster, but his
fatigue persisted.
“When I played Summer
League in Miami, I was in a
lot of pain,” Gansey said. “But
I just thought
I
was
worn
down more than
anything.”
He
fought
through
the
pain, went back
to Morgantown
and hoped for a
second crack at
the NBA.
One
day
with
summer
winding down, he and Patrick
convinced the elder Beilein
to
take
advantage
of
the
fleeting warmth and play a
rare nine holes of golf. But
after persuading Beilein to join
them, it was Gansey who had
to quit midway through the
round.
“I couldn’t even sit in the
golf cart,” Gansey said. “And I
was just like, ‘Something’s not
right.’
“The next day, I was like, ‘I
gotta go home, I gotta go to the
Cleveland Clinic, I gotta figure
this thing out.’ ”
Doctors quickly confirmed
Gansey’s suspicion, diagnosing
him with MRSA, a severe staph
infection. Over the next two
months, he lost 30 pounds
and spiraled into depression,
unable to play basketball for
the first time in his life.
“He was very quiet,” said
his brother Steve, who now
coaches the Fort Wayne Mad
Ants of the NBA G League. “It
was a tough time for him and it
was a tough time for our entire
family, including me. Just to
see my brother work his butt
off and do everything that he
absolutely strived for and it
just being taken away from him
because of a staph infection, it
was very unfortunate.”
Then came the call.
Beilein was on the other
end, inviting Gansey to return
to Morgantown and live with
him and his wife, Kathleen,
as he continued to recover.
Gansey
had
remained
in
communication with Patrick
throughout
his
sickness.
When Beilein got word of the
situation, taking him in was
the natural thing to do.
“He needed to be around
the type of environment of
happiness and fun that we have
in our family,” Beilein told The
Daily.
Gansey views it differently.
“Coach doesn’t have to do
that,” Gansey said. “It just
shows who Coach is, that when
I was in a really bad place and
depressed and had nothing to
do, nowhere to go, that he and
Mrs. Beilein and Pat were just
like, ‘Hey, why don’t you come
live with us?’
“It’s just who he is. It’s not
just for me. He would do that
for anyone.”
***
Now 35 years old, married
with three kids, Gansey has an
NBA championship ring locked
away
in
his
house — almost
as he dreamt it
in the summer
of ’06.
The
only
difference
is
that it came not
as a player, but
as a front office
executive
for
the
Cleveland
Cavaliers’ 2016
championship team. Both Mike
and Steve Gansey use the same
word to describe that night —
unforgettable. Mike because he
had realized a lifelong dream,
Steve because his brother face-
timed
him
mid-celebration
from the locker room with
Jamie Foxx.
“Me being a Clevelander … it
was a surreal moment,” Gansey
said.
Gansey’s journey to that
locker
room
in
Oakland
began in earnest nine years
earlier,
when
he
returned
to Morgantown to live with
the Beileins. After spending
that winter working out with
Patrick and running youth
camps around the state, he
regained enough strength to
take another crack at Summer
League, this time with the Los
Angeles Clippers.
Again, Gansey was unable to
secure an NBA roster spot, but
his performances were enough
to earn a contract in the Italian
league. The next season, he
moved 700 miles north to
Bremerhaven, a
drab port town
in the north of
Germany.
John
and
Patrick
Beilein
came over for a
game that year,
in
the
winter
of 2009, as part
of a European
tour that took
them
to
see
three former players. Despite
having spent the past decade
in Ann Arbor, John still shivers
at the memory of March in
Bremerhaven. Unfazed, Gansey
persevered in pursuit of his
NBA dream, jumping from
Germany to D League stints in
Boise, Idaho and Erie, Penn.,
before returning to Europe for
a season in Spain.
Each
summer,
he
would
come back to the U.S., visit the
Beileins in Ann Arbor, and then
go back to Cleveland. He turned
some connections with the
Cavaliers into an opportunity
to workout with players who
stayed in town for the summer,
playing 5-on-5 and joining in
lifting sessions.
“Mike was such a nice guy
and did whatever they wanted
him to do,” Steve said. “It was
a free workout, that’s really
tough to get.”
At the end of 2011, when
Cleveland had an internship
open up in its front office, those
summers with the team — as
well as the year in Erie with
their G League
affiliate — paid
dividends.
But it wasn’t
just
Gansey’s
connections.
Steve
recalls
his
brother’s
encyclopedic
knowledge
of
the
league
long before his
first
job
with
the Cavaliers. One year when
Mike was overseas, he decided
he
was
unsatisfied
with
traditional NCAA tournament
brackets and conjured a fantasy
league for a couple friends.
Steve was originally skeptical,
but that quickly changed once
the tournament got underway.
“It was actually really fun,”
Steve said. “And I was just like,
‘Mike, you could definitely get
into scouting and get into some
basketball operations here.’ ”
Not long after his first job
as an intern, Cleveland’s front
office handed him the reins to
Canton. Since then, it has been
a rapid ascension to assistant
GM, with his former coach by
him every step of the way.
“I learned so much from
(Beilein),” Gansey said. “Just
how he approaches every single
day, how he approaches his
staff. ‘Cause he’s the leader, the
head coach, I’m always asking
his advice. And he always
calls me. When LeBron left, he
called me and said, ‘Hey, keep
your head up.’ Just giving me
some motivation
and
saying
everything’s
gonna be okay.
“He
just
cared.
Little
things like that
that go a long
way. And that’s
just who he is.”
Now,
when
Gansey’s phone
rings
and
the
screen reads, ‘John Beilein,’
there’s nothing abnormal about
it. Just two friends talking
about basketball and family.
“He cares about you more
as a person than a basketball
player,” Gansey said. “He’s a
basketball coach, but he’s more
of a role model to me.”
THEO
MACKIE
Michigan begins preparation to face Florida in the Peach Bowl
Chase Winovich would have
had every right to skip out on
the Peach Bowl.
The
fifth-year
senior
defensive
end
will
enter
the NFL Draft this spring,
and
many
players
with
similar
prospects
choose
to sit out bowls due to the
risk of injury. It wouldn’t
have been a surprise, and it
would have been completely
understandable, had Winovich
done the same.
But when asked if he would
play in the No. 7 Michigan
football team’s game against
No. 10 Florida on Dec. 29,
Winovich cracked a smile.
“Totally.”
He elaborated: “(The Peach
Bowl) is a great bowl game and
it’s a huge opportunity. I think
because it’s not as historic as
the Rose and the Orange and
so forth, I think it often … gets
overlooked, but this is … a huge
opportunity for the team. It’s a
must-win game against Florida
and it really will set the tone
for next year, good or bad.”
Bowl
games
can
often
feel meaningless, a hollow
consolation
for
not
being
good enough to make the
College Football Playoff. In
the Wolverines’ case, after
falling
short
in
the
last
game of the season against
their biggest rival with a Big
Ten
Championship
Game
appearance
on
the
line,
it’s even more so. But with
the way the season ended,
there’s a sense of unfinished
business. The only thing left
to do is move forward, and a
win against the Gators would
allow Winovich to go out on a
high note.
“I’ve had the most fun of
my football career suiting up
here at Michigan,” said junior
quarterback Shea Patterson —
who also confirmed he would
play in the game and said he
would be back to 100 percent
after suffering minor injuries
against
Indiana
and
Ohio
State. “It’s been such an honor
to do it and I think there’s a
lot more to be done, but like
I said, I’m just so excited to
get one more win and possibly
finish top five in the country. I
think that would be pretty big
for us.”
Michigan
coach
Jim
Harbaugh
said
very
little
about the loss in Columbus on
Sunday following the team’s
awards banquet. Instead, he
praised his team for how it
overcame adversity after a
loss to Notre Dame to rattle
off 10 straight wins and how
it fought through an early 17-0
deficit at Northwestern for a
comeback victory.
But how the Wolverines
respond to the loss to the
Buckeyes is their biggest trial
yet, and a win in Atlanta could
do a lot to wash out some of the
bad taste in Michigan’s mouth
and set the tone for next year.
“(We) started our practices
(Saturday)
and
continue
(Monday),” Harbaugh said. “It
… was better than any I can
remember where there was a
break, two weeks where the
team came back sharp and
good.”
And despite the crushing
end to the regular season,
there are still things to look
forward to at the Peach Bowl.
The pre-bowl festivities will
include trips to the College
Football Hall of Fame and the
Martin Luther King Jr. Center,
a competition for a WWE-
style belt in the Battle for
Bowl Week and service with
kids from a local children’s
hospital. And the Wolverines
still have a goal to focus on:
getting to 11 wins for just the
10th time in program history.
“Getting our team prepared
to play a really good, uber-
talented
and
twitched-up
team like Florida, I’d say that’s
a great challenge,” Harbaugh
said.
“The
competition’s
always the best part and the
objective’s
always
to
win.
(We’re) hungry for that 11th
win.”
John Beilein took his former player in when he was at his lowest point and helped turn his life around.
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Michigan coach John Beilein has a unique relationship with Mike Gansey, the assistant general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who played under Beilein.
“It’s not just
for me. He’d
do that for
anyone.”
“He’s a
basketball
coach, but he’s a
role model...”
“...I just thought
I was worn
down more
than anything.”
FOOTBALL
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Writer
EVAN AARON/Daily
Fifth-year senior defensive end Chase Winovich has confirmed he will play with Michigan in the Peach Bowl on Dec. 29.