Boze Story #1

Todd Bozeman shares the beginning of his book, dedicated to his late son Blake. He reflects on his upbringing in Forestville, Maryland, his college days, and his unexpected journey into coaching. Bozeman recounts starting as an assistant coach at Potomac High School, coaching a talented AAU team with players like Monty Williams and Dickey Simpkins. He worked at Federal Express to support himself, all while pursuing his dream of becoming a college basketball coach, eventually aiming to join prestigious camps like Five-Star to advance his coaching career. this is Todd Bozeman and this is my this is my story is the date is March what date is it March 21st it is 1039 a.m. and this is my the first beginning of my recorded notes or for my book I want to make sure that this book is dedicated to my son Blake and his loving memory he was my light my seed my first child and I'm just sorry that he's not here to usher or to continue the legacy that my father started but this book is dedicated to the loving memory of my son Blake Bozeman Blake Anthony Bozeman I want to also acknowledge and thank my family my wife T Talithia my daughter Brianna my parents Martha and Ira Bozeman so I guess where I'm going to start my story is I'm going to start my story and when I came back from I graduated from the University of Rhode Island in May of 86 of 1986 and upon my graduation all I wanted to do was come back here or let me say where here is here is the Washington DC area what is now called the DMV so I grew up in Forestville Maryland I attended Ritchie Elementary then Spaulding Junior High and I was supposed to go to either well I was supposed to go to Largo but I guess I lived on a line where I could have also went to Suitland but I chose to go to Bishop McNamara didn't go there to play basketball initially I just went to school there I played football all through Boys Club and that's where I went to go play football at Bishop McNamara but upon enrolling there or seeing the guys that came in to play football there was a big difference in between us so I was probably a buck 35 back then football I thought that basketball probably suited me better so that's when I really started focusing my attention on basketball so but to get back to my college days when I came home from college I came home from college and my my goal was or my idea was to come back get a I wanted to get me a BMW get me an apartment get me a sales job and start my life wasn't no no sales job in particular just wanted to start my life at the time I was dating my now wife but she was my girlfriend and we dated all through high school I shouldn't say all through high school sophomore year and that's a story in itself but I'll save that because this is the beginning of the book but so when I came back to the area and my vision was to start my career I had worked a couple basketball camps when I was in college and I worked this one particular camp which was called a high five basketball camp and it was run by some local coaches Eddie Myers Taff Hickman and I'm gonna say Merle Scott he was the coach at Southern High School in Baltimore I think I'm saying his name right but they started high five and ran that Bowie Bowie State University so I went over to the camp because I was actually living in Forestville with my parents I went over to Bowie State and attended the camp well I worked the camp in the summer that's what it was I worked the camp in the summer as a counselor and I have worked a couple of camps during during the summer but this particular camp was as I said run by those coaches local high school coaches my dad had he was one of the founders of the Falconeers Summer League the Falconeers Summer League started was started at Ritchie Elementary School and I think it started with junior high then it moved on to high school but my dad Ira Bozeman Mr. Barge and Mr. Borges those three guys started it but back to when I came home I came home from University of Rhode Island and Taff Hickman one of the coaches that ran high five he was coaching at Potomac High School in Oxon Hill Maryland and he asked me to come by and speak to his team and at the time I think he was going into he had a he had a team and it was had a very talented team Jason Scott was his rising senior at the time Jason Scott ended up going to play at Boston University for Mike Jarvis and I went over to speak to the team they had young player on that team well young players on that team there's a Damon Handen was on that team Damon now runs premier a you a team in DC area and I'm probably gonna miss some guys at some point I guess you could fill that in but Monty Williams was on that team he was one of the younger guys he was a sophomore Kevin Powell Devin Ash was a freshman one of the highly touted freshmen probably one of the best freshman in the area he played a you ball at that time and was one of the better players in the area Kevin no Rob Black and Philip Downs it was a talented team so I went over and spoke to them and they were getting ready to start practice so there was a couple situations where I went over and I was suggesting some things to some of the players helping them out in a couple drills and it just it just like it when I did that the the players were very attentive and they asked questions and they they were you know they seemed very interested in what I had to say and share so a couple of them I gave them some tips in terms of becoming a better player or how to be a little bit more efficient and doing one thing or another and when I left there or when it was time to leave a couple of mass me if I was coming back and I had never thought about it because I just went over there to to help Hick out for or to speak to his team but it intrigued me and I decided to go back and then the next thing you know I'll go back again and again and then Hickman just Hickman asked me if I wanted to be an assistant coach and at the to that point I'd never thought about coaching so it hadn't crossed my mind so I accepted and I decided you know who was on else on that staff was Riley Gore was on that staff and Riley Gore was a a he also coached a you ball he he he started Slammin Jam and Riley Gore was a well-respected coach in the area of a coach youth basketball for a long time rest in peace Mr. Gore so but on that staff there was somebody else on that staff I think Bill I can't remember Bill's last name at the present but nonetheless that's how I got my so I started and I was an assistant at Potomac Senior High School with Taff Hickman he got me my start and we went through the season it was it was a lot of fun and I was hooked at that point in the summer I coached with Riley Gore so I was his assistant we had probably one of the best AAU teams ever assembled in the DC area we put together a team and the team consisted of Mike Tate, Kurt Smith, Phil Wilson, Dickie Simpkins, Monty Williams, Aaron Bain, George Lynch and I am probably missing some guys what's my man's name that played at Laurel Ray something I can't I can't remember exactly but then we had a young fella from also from Paint Branch can't his name skip in my mind right now Tracy Tracy something it was a very good team very talented team and at that time I guess we were playing different AAU tournaments and the one tournament I recall we played against Boo Williams it was at a Boo Williams tournament it was a lot of college coaches in the in the stands and they were asking about the players and and whatnot but that was my start in AAU so I started coaching with Taff Hickman that I went I was coaching also in the summer with Riley Gore with Slamma Jam and it was at that point that I said you know what oh well let me go back because when I was coaching at Potomac so of course I had the dreams of being a getting a sales job and a BMW but so and they don't pay you as an assistant coach in high school so it was all volunteer so I had to support myself so the way only way that I could support myself and still coach basketball was to get a job during the day so I got a job at Federal Express which was the DMV the NDV location which was on Route 1 in Alexandria it now they've torn that building down and moved it but NDV was was down at the end of Route 1 getting ready to go over that little bridge going into Potomac Yards which is now Potomac Yards but right as you go over that bridge as you're going down Route 1 to the left was the NDV station and I started out washing trucks and then and then I started sorting packages in the morning so I would sort packages and then I got a route and so my route was Crystal City so I really didn't have to go that far because right over the bridge is like I guess that's Potomac Yards now but then down some is Crystal City so I had a route right there on Crystal City and that's how I that's how I supported myself and I lived at home and so I'm working Federal Express and it just so happened that there were quite a few guys that I played against in high school that worked at Federal Express as well during that time Kelvin Johnson one of my cousins actually got me into the job or helped me get in there is Jim Oliver but there was quite a few people that I met so I don't want to get the name of names because I'm gonna forget some some I still know to this day but nonetheless Kelvin I think Jeff Baxter was there at that time I think Craig Cooley came in after that Craig Cooley actually played at Bishop McNamara with me he was ahead of me but so I worked at NDV and during the day and then I will go I will get off in time to go to practice over at Potomac and so I practice at Potomac and then my interest in the game just grew and grew and I wanted to I wanted to take the game further and I wanted to be a college basketball coach not sure where that where that came from but I wanted to be I wanted to be a college coach so I had devised this plan oh as in the summers when I wasn't coaching AAU ball back then if you wanted to get into college coaching you know you needed to work summer camps and five-star was the particular camp that a lot of aspiring coaches got their start or they got that's where you would get noticed but you had to do some what is considered politicking back in those days to even get yourself an opportunity to even get into five-star so I wasn't a player that went to five-star so I didn't know Garfinkel or any of those people to help me get in there I'm trying to figure out who got me an introduction to Garfinkel was called Garf at the time but I but I got a I might have driven up there to I might have driven up to five-star it was maybe it was Dave Bing who got me in there Dave Bing it's my wife's uncle mommy obviously my uncle now but I was dating my wife and we were young so Dave back then Dave I think introduced me to there was a coach at a junior college in Jersey that he knew that that I think that guy introduced me to Garfinkel or got me in connection with Garfinkel but Garf back then was a powerful guy in basketball high school basketball in particular the basketball scene but nonetheless I got a job at five-star I got one week at five-star and when you work five-star you had to sometimes I don't I'm not even sure if they really paid you or they paid you pennies on the dollar pennies at that but you had to bus tables you had to do all that you had to do that kind of thing I think this star players did that too but you had to do something similar to that or you had to check the dorms or check the whatever to some some some five-star owners that some five-star camps were at like cabins but the one that I worked at was at Robert Morris and right outside of Pittsburgh and so I went up and worked five-star and you know you run the drills and it was out they had outdoor courts indoor courts but mainly outdoor courts and working at camp was where I met I was working at camp with Bruiser Flint Billy Baino and those are guys that those names jump out at me because I stayed in touch with those guys but Bruiser I actually knew because we played against each other in college when he was at st. Joe's and I played it at Rhode Island so I knew Bruiser so that probably was why I had a natural instinct to kind of gravitate towards him so and then we were roommates and that was back when she when I first went to camp I didn't have a pillow I slept on my hands and use my hands as a pillow and sometimes my my clothes and then Bruiser was close to Baino Billy Baino and then those guys so we worked at camp and at the time also when I was working camps that summer I actually bought a car bought a Peugeot and I regret that because that car was it was a piece of it was it was garbage it was shitty like a tin can that's a story in itself but I drove my Peugeot all around I drove it to Atlanta Georgia I worked Bobby Crimmins camp that's where I met well I actually knew Curry Clark but I had a chance to work the Bobby Crimmins camp and then I worked five-star and I worked trying to think of other camps I worked but I decided to work a bunch of camps but those in particular but back to the five-star five-star Baino and those guys knew John Calipari and Calipari was an up-and-coming coach I think he was a coach at Pitt at the time and he was trying to get a head coaching job so back then I'm not sure if this was my first or my second year working five-star but Calipari was trying to get the UMass job so at the time he he had Baino and Bruiser and his crew which I was a part of but Cal got those guys to start the rumor that he was going for the UMass job but he started a rumor that Steve Lapis was gonna get the job Steve Lapis was I think an assistant at Villanova at the time so he did that because he wanted to take the attention off of himself and because you know back then if somebody knew you was gonna get a job they started to try to take shots at your reputation but they still do that but so he so we did that and lo and behold Calipari got the job he hired Baino and Bruiser to go with him I came back home Perry Clark had just gotten the Tulane job and he was looking for assistant coaches and Perry was he was going he had a list of guys that he was trying to hire I actually was down that list I wasn't clearly I wasn't at the top of that list but I know one of the guys for sure that he wanted was Tommy Amaker but Tommy for one reason or another didn't take the job couldn't take the job whatever it was but Tommy Amaker played it at Duke but Tommy played at WT Woodson High School in Northern Virginia actually played against Tommy in high school so Tommy didn't take the job and Perry offered me the job so I got my break I quit my job at Federal Express to work camps all summer I was I was betting on myself which is what they say now I was betting on myself and I remember at the time Kelvin Johnson said man you gonna give up this job man you got good benefits a whole bit and I was like dude man I want to be a college coach I just didn't I just didn't see myself delivering packages for the rest of my life and clearly it didn't have to be for the rest of my life what you're talking about back when I'm 22 years old so I worked the camps for that summer by the end of the summer I got my break Perry Clark offered me the job he was at Tulane University in New Orleans I was 23 years old and he said I was so excited and he said we don't pay for your moving expenses I said coach man I got a TV and a microwave so all three of us got on the plane and I've never been in New Orleans and I went to New Orleans and started my coaching career and I was the youngest assistant coach in Division 1 basketball at 23 years old and I was embarking on a place that I had no knowledge recollection of nothing I didn't know anything about New Orleans and I never visited there I didn't even go visit to interview for the job I just he offered me the job I accepted it and next thing I know they worked it out so I could fly down there and that's where I got my start at Tulane University in New Orleans oh let me back up that is not where I got my start in coaching that's where I got my first full-time job my first coaching job college coaching job at the time was and I have to give credit and respect to Ernie Nestor Ernie Nestor had gotten the George Mason job and so I'm gonna back up to where I worked camp and so at the end of the summer what happened was Ernie Nestor got the job at George Mason and George Mason hired Brian Ellerbe as an assistant coach and Herb Cruzen both of those guys were the full-time assistants back then your third assistant could only be a part-time guy and this is where this is what how I got in so I got my job I was I was the third assistant which back then only paid $9,000 a year that I took that job first and I had that job but I was only there for three weeks so after the summer I got the George Mason job and then after about three weeks maybe a month as I was setting up things for the coming school year that's when Perry Clark got the job at Tulane oh by the time it got around to me let me say that so I went from George Mason University to Tulane University so all the details are the same I had never been to New Orleans and any of that but I went from George Mason so I went from Potomac High School to George Mason to Tulane and I think that that's where I'm gonna gonna stop my story for today and this was my first part of the story and I'm gonna try to record some of this every day until I get to the end and I want to have it so that if I happen not to get this published or written before I pass my family will be able to do it and they also will know the story so this is a bold story number one