Grote carrying on family legacy at WSU
Oct 19, 2008 8:53:58 GMT -5
Post by Admin on Oct 19, 2008 8:53:58 GMT -5
www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/high-schools/2008/10/19/ddn101908sparch.html
Grote carrying on family legacy at WSU
By Tom Archdeacon
Staff Writer
Sunday, October 19, 2008
A family tradition continues at Wright State University as Scott Grote (left) becomes eligible to play for the Raiders this fall. His father, Bob, played for the Raiders from 1972 to 1976 and also coached there in the 1980s.
He knows there's one bare spot in his otherwise bountiful basketball resume.
Sure he had lots of dominating games at Centerville High School — such as the 32-point, 11-rebound effort that lifted the Elks over Trotwood-Madison in the regional semifinals his senior year.
And then he led his Virginia prep school — nationally ranked Massanutten Military Academy — in scoring for a season.
And, yes, he was a force for Duquesne University right from the get-go. His first college game ever, he scored 23 points and pulled down nine rebounds, and by the time his freshman season was done, he'd had 14 more double-figure scoring efforts.
So what's missing on Scott Grote's ledger?
"Well, I've never beaten another Grote in a game of 1-on-1, not my uncles and certainly not him," he said with a nod at his dad.
Father and son Grote — Bob and Scott — were sitting in a Fairfield Road eatery the other night talking basketball and blood.
"It didn't matter if I was 9 years old, 11, whatever, they played me like I was somebody else," Scott Grote said, smiling. "Against my dad or my Uncle Steve, I wouldn't get a shot off. I'd go to the hole and get knocked to the ground.
"My Uncle Mike actually let me play. The last time was my sophomore year in high school. We were tied 9-9 going to 10. He sprains his ankle. We stop awhile, and then he gets the ball up top. I tip it away, he grabs it and throws up a fadeaway jumper that is nothing but net. I hated life after that. I couldn't win."
Of course, that was asking a lot.
Bob Grote was a Wright State All-America basketball player, 10th on the school's all-time scoring list with 1,406 points. He was the first Raider athlete ever to sign a pro contract — he pitched four years in the New York Mets organization — was a Raiders assistant basketball coach and is in the WSU Athletic Hall of Fame.
Steve was a starter on Michigan's NCAA runner-up team in 1976 and scored 1,330 points for the Wolverines.
Mike was part of the Wright State team that won a Division II national title.
So like the saying goes: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
That's what's happening this season. Scott Grote — now a 6-foot-6, 210-pound sophomore — will be in a WSU uniform after sitting out a year, per NCAA stipulation, after transferring from Duquesne.
The Raiders started practice this weekend, and as you see him out there wearing No. 30 — the same number his dad and uncle wore — you realize there's no family more entwined with WSU.
They're in the record books and on the graduation lists — Scott's mom and one of his two sisters graduated from WSU, too — and their hoops memories are everywhere.
"Outside the training room is a big collage of pictures from that national championship team," Scott said. "Dad's there getting champagne dumped on his head, and Uncle Mike's in there, too.
"And before every game, they do a memorable moments deal on the video scoreboard. And there's one of Mike making The Shot."
Bob beamed at the mention: "It's the most unbelievable shot I've ever seen. It's the national championship year. We're in the Great Lakes Regional, and we're down by one in the final seconds to Kentucky Wesleyan.
"Tom Holzapfel's shot hits off the front of the rim, and Mike dives, catches it in one hand and while vertical — on the baseline, 15 feet from the rim — he throws the ball up. It just touches the side of the bank-board, and that puts side spin on it so it hits the inside front of the rim, spins back to bank-board and drops in for the win."
Brotherly 'love'
Bob, Steve and youngest brother Mike grew up on Jameson Street in the Lower Price Hill section of Cincinnati. Elder High School, their alma mater, was a block and a half away.
"I was just 11 months older than Steve, and we were as close to being twins as you could be — except without the fraternal instinct," Bob said with a laugh. "How can I say this? We were extremely competitive."
There are infamous stories of all-out fistfights — and worse — until Mom restored order. And when Dad got home — Hal had played in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization — there was, as Bob said, "hell to pay."
One of the tamest tales involves 8-year-old Bob and his new kite:
"Steve had one, too, but he was nowhere around. I was running up and down the street trying to fly my kite and keep it out of the trees and wires. But this really mean dog got out and started chasing me, and I'm running and screaming. I drop my kite, and the dog eats it.
"I got so mad, I got Steve's kite and tore it up, because if I wasn't gonna fly my kite, he wasn't flying his either."
Channelling that fire, Bob headed off to college first. While he could throw a 93-mph fastball, his first love was basketball, and only the Raiders and Rollins College were willing to let him play both.
After WSU, he played four years in the Mets organization before a series of arm injuries ended his baseball dream. But his love of Wright State remained, and that led to a return as one of Ralph Underhill's assistants and now — while working as a manufacturer's rep in the medical field — he's one of WSU's radio broadcasters.
As for Scott, when it came to college, he said: "I wanted to make my own road. I was young, my ego was built up, and I wanted see what it was like to be away from home."
Coming home
In that first month at Duquesne in downtown Pittsburgh, Scott witnessed five of his new teammates get shot by a nonstudent after an on-campus dance.
"The Black Student Union was having an icebreaker to start the year," he said. "All my teammates were black, but I'm not and neither was a walk-on, so we all agreed to meet up afterward.
"They called me when it was over, and I was walking down to them from my dorm. Then I see this guy shooting and I see guys on my team hitting the ground."
Scott said he ran to help fallen teammate Kojo Mensah, who was shot in the forearm and shoulder: "He was shaking, and I held his legs, and we waited for the ambulance."
All of his teammates survived, but their wounds and injuries to two other big men on the team forced Grote into the pivot position.
Although undersized, he played in all 29 games, started 22, and had one of the best freshman seasons ever by a Dukes player.
But after the year, he decided to leave the school. The shooting might have had a little to do with it, he said, "but mostly I just figured out being away wasn't for me."
He returned to WSU, the school that had been his second home.
"When Dad coached there, I went to all the games with my mom," he said. "But when I went to practice with Dad, they had to assign somebody to watch me because I'd run out on the court with the guys. ... Pretty soon, though, I was at every basketball camp and then I was a ball boy."
Kind of like the old days, they had to keep him off the court last year. He sat on the bench in a shirt and tie and, in his words, "I was up hollering as much as Coach B (head coach Brad Brownell.)"
Yet when Scott takes the court for the Raiders' opener Nov. 15, he admits it won't be his debut in a WSU uniform:
"One year in high school I couldn't find a costume for a Halloween party. I end up going into Dad's room and finding his old Wright State jersey — the gold one with the green letters.
"I said, 'That's it. I'll go as Bob Grote. ... Hey, Bob Grote here ready to play some basketball.' "
As Scott savored the moment the other day, he suddenly caught himself: "Maybe that doesn't sound right. Maybe I should just say I was a Wright State player."
He's right, because it's the dawn on a new era there this season. When a No. 30 now takes the court for the Raiders, it's the son rising.
Whether he can beat them now doesn't matter.
He joined them.
Grote carrying on family legacy at WSU
By Tom Archdeacon
Staff Writer
Sunday, October 19, 2008
A family tradition continues at Wright State University as Scott Grote (left) becomes eligible to play for the Raiders this fall. His father, Bob, played for the Raiders from 1972 to 1976 and also coached there in the 1980s.
He knows there's one bare spot in his otherwise bountiful basketball resume.
Sure he had lots of dominating games at Centerville High School — such as the 32-point, 11-rebound effort that lifted the Elks over Trotwood-Madison in the regional semifinals his senior year.
And then he led his Virginia prep school — nationally ranked Massanutten Military Academy — in scoring for a season.
And, yes, he was a force for Duquesne University right from the get-go. His first college game ever, he scored 23 points and pulled down nine rebounds, and by the time his freshman season was done, he'd had 14 more double-figure scoring efforts.
So what's missing on Scott Grote's ledger?
"Well, I've never beaten another Grote in a game of 1-on-1, not my uncles and certainly not him," he said with a nod at his dad.
Father and son Grote — Bob and Scott — were sitting in a Fairfield Road eatery the other night talking basketball and blood.
"It didn't matter if I was 9 years old, 11, whatever, they played me like I was somebody else," Scott Grote said, smiling. "Against my dad or my Uncle Steve, I wouldn't get a shot off. I'd go to the hole and get knocked to the ground.
"My Uncle Mike actually let me play. The last time was my sophomore year in high school. We were tied 9-9 going to 10. He sprains his ankle. We stop awhile, and then he gets the ball up top. I tip it away, he grabs it and throws up a fadeaway jumper that is nothing but net. I hated life after that. I couldn't win."
Of course, that was asking a lot.
Bob Grote was a Wright State All-America basketball player, 10th on the school's all-time scoring list with 1,406 points. He was the first Raider athlete ever to sign a pro contract — he pitched four years in the New York Mets organization — was a Raiders assistant basketball coach and is in the WSU Athletic Hall of Fame.
Steve was a starter on Michigan's NCAA runner-up team in 1976 and scored 1,330 points for the Wolverines.
Mike was part of the Wright State team that won a Division II national title.
So like the saying goes: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
That's what's happening this season. Scott Grote — now a 6-foot-6, 210-pound sophomore — will be in a WSU uniform after sitting out a year, per NCAA stipulation, after transferring from Duquesne.
The Raiders started practice this weekend, and as you see him out there wearing No. 30 — the same number his dad and uncle wore — you realize there's no family more entwined with WSU.
They're in the record books and on the graduation lists — Scott's mom and one of his two sisters graduated from WSU, too — and their hoops memories are everywhere.
"Outside the training room is a big collage of pictures from that national championship team," Scott said. "Dad's there getting champagne dumped on his head, and Uncle Mike's in there, too.
"And before every game, they do a memorable moments deal on the video scoreboard. And there's one of Mike making The Shot."
Bob beamed at the mention: "It's the most unbelievable shot I've ever seen. It's the national championship year. We're in the Great Lakes Regional, and we're down by one in the final seconds to Kentucky Wesleyan.
"Tom Holzapfel's shot hits off the front of the rim, and Mike dives, catches it in one hand and while vertical — on the baseline, 15 feet from the rim — he throws the ball up. It just touches the side of the bank-board, and that puts side spin on it so it hits the inside front of the rim, spins back to bank-board and drops in for the win."
Brotherly 'love'
Bob, Steve and youngest brother Mike grew up on Jameson Street in the Lower Price Hill section of Cincinnati. Elder High School, their alma mater, was a block and a half away.
"I was just 11 months older than Steve, and we were as close to being twins as you could be — except without the fraternal instinct," Bob said with a laugh. "How can I say this? We were extremely competitive."
There are infamous stories of all-out fistfights — and worse — until Mom restored order. And when Dad got home — Hal had played in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization — there was, as Bob said, "hell to pay."
One of the tamest tales involves 8-year-old Bob and his new kite:
"Steve had one, too, but he was nowhere around. I was running up and down the street trying to fly my kite and keep it out of the trees and wires. But this really mean dog got out and started chasing me, and I'm running and screaming. I drop my kite, and the dog eats it.
"I got so mad, I got Steve's kite and tore it up, because if I wasn't gonna fly my kite, he wasn't flying his either."
Channelling that fire, Bob headed off to college first. While he could throw a 93-mph fastball, his first love was basketball, and only the Raiders and Rollins College were willing to let him play both.
After WSU, he played four years in the Mets organization before a series of arm injuries ended his baseball dream. But his love of Wright State remained, and that led to a return as one of Ralph Underhill's assistants and now — while working as a manufacturer's rep in the medical field — he's one of WSU's radio broadcasters.
As for Scott, when it came to college, he said: "I wanted to make my own road. I was young, my ego was built up, and I wanted see what it was like to be away from home."
Coming home
In that first month at Duquesne in downtown Pittsburgh, Scott witnessed five of his new teammates get shot by a nonstudent after an on-campus dance.
"The Black Student Union was having an icebreaker to start the year," he said. "All my teammates were black, but I'm not and neither was a walk-on, so we all agreed to meet up afterward.
"They called me when it was over, and I was walking down to them from my dorm. Then I see this guy shooting and I see guys on my team hitting the ground."
Scott said he ran to help fallen teammate Kojo Mensah, who was shot in the forearm and shoulder: "He was shaking, and I held his legs, and we waited for the ambulance."
All of his teammates survived, but their wounds and injuries to two other big men on the team forced Grote into the pivot position.
Although undersized, he played in all 29 games, started 22, and had one of the best freshman seasons ever by a Dukes player.
But after the year, he decided to leave the school. The shooting might have had a little to do with it, he said, "but mostly I just figured out being away wasn't for me."
He returned to WSU, the school that had been his second home.
"When Dad coached there, I went to all the games with my mom," he said. "But when I went to practice with Dad, they had to assign somebody to watch me because I'd run out on the court with the guys. ... Pretty soon, though, I was at every basketball camp and then I was a ball boy."
Kind of like the old days, they had to keep him off the court last year. He sat on the bench in a shirt and tie and, in his words, "I was up hollering as much as Coach B (head coach Brad Brownell.)"
Yet when Scott takes the court for the Raiders' opener Nov. 15, he admits it won't be his debut in a WSU uniform:
"One year in high school I couldn't find a costume for a Halloween party. I end up going into Dad's room and finding his old Wright State jersey — the gold one with the green letters.
"I said, 'That's it. I'll go as Bob Grote. ... Hey, Bob Grote here ready to play some basketball.' "
As Scott savored the moment the other day, he suddenly caught himself: "Maybe that doesn't sound right. Maybe I should just say I was a Wright State player."
He's right, because it's the dawn on a new era there this season. When a No. 30 now takes the court for the Raiders, it's the son rising.
Whether he can beat them now doesn't matter.
He joined them.
