Recruiting prep phenom and future Jayhawk All-American Paul Pierce

Roy Williams had already established a California recruiting pipeline in his beginnings as KU head coach, landing such stars as Adonis Jordan, Jacque Vaughn, Jerod Haase and Scot Pollard.

But now he was going after his big prize, an extremely gifted 6-7 small forward from Inglewood High School in Los Angeles named Paul Anthony Pierce who was being recruited by every big-time program in the land.

Pierce, who admired Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan growing up, had come a long way on the prep scene since being cut from the varsity team his freshman year. He barely made the team as a 5-8 sophomore before eventually growing and becoming a McDonald’s All-American and California Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior, when he averaged 24.5 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game.

Williams dearly wanted Pierce to join a quality team returning for the 1995-96 season, which included Vaughn, Haase, Pollard and Raef LaFrentz. The former KU coach talked about his recruiting pitch in his autobiography: “Hard Work: A Life on and off the Court.”

“Recruiting is like putting together a puzzle, and I mean that literally,” Williams wrote. “When we recruited Paul Pierce at Kansas, we had four starters coming back, but we had no small forward. I asked my assistant Steve Robinson to make a little puzzle. He cut pieces out of a cardboard box; there were four corner pieces that represented our four starters and he left the centerpiece missing. We sent Paul the four corner pieces and then two days later, we sent the centerpiece in the shape of a star with Paul’s picture on it and a message that read, You are the missing piece to the puzzle. That’s what Paul turned out to be when we got him. Recruiting is about convincing kids that they are the missing piece that we need to be complete.”

Pierce, who scored 28 points in the McDonald’s All-American game, just two points shy of tying Jordan’s record, was convinced he could be that missing piece. He also told his website (www.paulpierce.net) what sold him on the Jayhawks and coach Williams.

 

"He didn't promise me anything,” Pierce said. "He said, 'You're going to go here, you're going to work just like everybody else, and I'm going to stay on you.’ That was enough for me."

Pierce elaborated on his decision to attend KU in an interview with The Sporting News in 1998.

“I wanted to go somewhere where someone would push me,” he said. “If I went to a team where everything was built around me, I’d probably get lazy and spoiled. I wanted to go to a team that also had a chance to win a national championship, where I’d get good exposure and have a good head coach — somewhere I could learn.”

Pierce averaged 11.9 points per game and claimed Big Eight Freshman of the Year honors in 1996. KU went 29-5 that season, won the Big Eight Championship, and advanced to the Elite Eight.

He improved dramatically his sophomore season (16.3 ppg) before becoming an All-American as a junior (20.4 ppg), when he became the first KU player since Danny Manning to average over 20 points per game. Pierce truly came the go-to player once LaFrentz went down with a broken bone in his right hand in December 1997 and missed six weeks. Pierce averaged 22.5 points and shot 50.8 percent from the field in eight of the nine games without LaFrentz.

Pierce, who received back-to-back Big 12 Tournament MVP awards his sophomore and junior seasons, always came up big in crunch time.

"The bigger the game, the bigger he played," Williams said.

Ryan Robertson, who played with Pierce in the McDonald’s All-American game in 1995 before joining him at KU for three seasons, marveled at Pierce’s skills. 

“Best player I ever played with,” Robertson said in a 2007 interview. “My freshman roommate. Just an absolute hunger for basketball.”

Despite playing just three years, Pierce is the eighth-leading scorer in KU history with 1,768 points (16.4 ppg). He’s gone on to become one of the top scorers in NBA annals with the Boston Celtics and now Brooklyn Nets, and will one day be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Recruiting Illinois high school legend and Jayhawk great Rick Suttle

I wrote about my childhood hero Rick Suttle in a previous blog, but now include some candid and interesting information about his recruitment to Kansas. Many thanks to Sam Miranda, the late KU assistant, for sharing these great memories with me during our wonderful interview in 2000.

•••

Kansas basketball is one of the most storied programs in college basketball history blessed with great players who have displayed their magic in Allen Fieldhouse. But why did some of these former standouts choose Kansas? Who were some of the other schools involved? Who was the key person in their recruitment? All Jayhawk fans love recruiting stories, and so Phog.net will go down memory lane in this series and look at some former KU stars and how they wound up at Mount Oread.

Rick Suttle was turning heads and drawing rave reviews as a 6-10 scoring and rebounding machine at Assumption High School in East St. Louis, Ill., during his senior season in 1971. He averaged a whopping 26.6 points and 15 rebounds per game while dominating competition as a prep All-American.

Mike Kelly, a 6-4 center from Suttle’s rival school at Cahokia High, remembers the impossible task of guarding the big man.

“He ate my lunch and scored 29 against us and left a lasting impression on me,” Kelly wrote in an email. “To us in the St. Louis area, Rick was a giant in stature.”

Roger Morningstar, a native of Dundee, Ill., and future teammate of Suttle at Kansas, heard this “giant” was indeed something special.

“(He was a) legendary Illinois basketball player,” Morningstar said. “He was down just across the river from St. Louis. Those players, northern Illinois and southern Illinois were two different worlds from a basketball standpoint. They’d usually meet somewhere for a state tournament. I knew of Rick, how great he was, but I hadn’t watched him play.”

Sam Miranda, one of the best assistant coaches in KU history who was instrumental in recruiting many key players from the Illinois area during his tenure at Kansas, had certainly watched Suttle play in high school many times.

Miranda, who died in 2009 at age 78, was instrumental in convincing Suttle to choose KU after Suttle had his heart set on Jacksonville, which had just been to the national championship game in 1970.

“The key thing was his mother,” Miranda said in a November 2000 interview. “I went in and started talking to him and his mom when he was a sophomore and was able to gain the confidence of his mother. Finally, in the end, she said, ‘Hey, you’re going to go with Sam. That’s it.’ I recruited him hard for three years. I went to see him over and over.”

The eccentric Suttle, though, wanted to play up the recruiting game even though he had decided to attend KU.

“At the very end in recruiting Rick Suttle, it came down to the last night,” Miranda said. “It was either going to be Kansas, Saint Louis University or Jacksonville. He said, ‘Coach, here is want I want to do. I want you to come in. I’m going to get the Saint Louis coach and I’m going to get the Jacksonville coach, and I want you all to sit in the living room. We’re going to talk and then I’m going to go to the bedroom and I’m going to come out and decide where I’m going to come to school.’

“I said, ‘Rick, that’s fine with me because I know you’re going to come to Kansas, but I’ll be here. But I think you’re going to embarrass some coaches because you’re going to have the Jacksonville coach come all the way from Jacksonville and the Saint Louis coach is going to be there, and I know you’re going to come to Kansas, so it’s going to be a little embarrassing for them.’ He said, ‘Oh no, that’s what I’m going to do.’”

Miranda immediately told Suttle’s mother, Maddie, about his son’s plan.

“She said, ‘He’s not going to do that,’” Miranda recalled. “She kind of put the squelch on that, but that’s what he wanted to do.”

That was just Rick Suttle being Rick Suttle.

 

“He was a good kid down deep, just a little different, but a good person,” Miranda said.

Suttle had a great career and was a “Super Sub” on the 1974 Final Four team. He concluded his last year in 1974-75 as KU went 19-8 and won the Big Eight Championship before falling to Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Suttle, who paced the Jayhawks with 16.3 points as a sophomore, became a starter again that senior season, leading the squad with 14.6 points per game and earning first-team All-Big Eight honors. He ranks No. 38 in school history in career points (1,156), and is tied for fourth on the single-game blocked shots chart (eight against K-State in 1975). Suttle is also tied for No. 21 on the school’s all-time double-doubles chart with 11.

On and off the court, Suttle kept everybody loose.

“I roomed with Rick. He was funny,” former teammate Dale Greenlee once said. “I can still see Rick. He was late for a practice. To punish him, we had a pregame meal and Rick was supposed to sing his school song as the punishment. He didn’t know his school song. I remember him going, ‘I don’t know it.’ We said, ‘So pick a song.’ He leaves the room and came in singing ‘Hello Dolly.’ Here’s Rick, 6-11. He actually left the room, came in waving a handkerchief like Louis Armstrong. He had us roaring. Probably every one in the room remembers that. Things like that, he was always good for something.” 

Donnie Von Moore agrees. He loved being around his former roommate.

“Rick Suttle was a character. He used to do crazy stuff,” Von Moore once told Rock Chalk Sports Talk. “The things he used to do that had me laughing so hard was the coaches used to come in and check your room for bed checks. Coach Miranda came to the door and said, ‘Where’s Rick?’ I’d say, ‘He’s in the back.’ He would have to go see him. So Rick being Rick, said, ‘Watch this.’ He took off all his clothes and was sitting in the bathroom (by) the mirror. He had all this hair, so he was playing with his hair. Coach comes back and says, ‘Rick, why whenever I come and see you, you never have any clothes on?’ That was just the funniest thing I’d ever seen in my life.”

After concluding his KU career, Suttle was drafted in the seventh round of the NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Lakers before embarking on an extremely long and successful basketball career in Argentina.

At last check, Suttle is now the assistant coach at East St. Louis High School.

Jayhawk legend Danny Manning the center of attention as he drives Lawrence High School to state championship game 30 years ago

Part II of Danny Manning's magical season at Lawrence High School.

Danny Manning was drawing rave reviews before he even arrived at Lawrence High School for his senior year in 1983. He was considered one of the top three high school players in the land, along with Chris Washburn and John Williams, while Mac Morris, Manning’s coach at Page High in Greensboro, North Carolina., compared him to Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Prep superscout Howard Garfinkel even told Sports Illustrated that Manning was the “best swingman since Benny Goodman.”

And Will Browning of the Greensboro Daily News wrote this foretelling statement: “He is a player, if surrounded by the proper supporting cast, could take a college team all the way to the NCAA finals.” 

Manning, though, never got caught up in all the hosannas. Off the court at LHS, the 17-year-old senior was just enjoying being one of the guys and forming great friendships with classmates like best friend Jeff Johnson, Tom Whitenight, and basketball/volleyball standout Amy Lienhard, the daughter of Bill Lienhard, a member of KU’s 1952 NCAA championship team.

Manning was a typical teenager who liked to socialize and have fun. He’d go to movies, parties, and take road trips to Kansas City to watch the LHS football team play. Manning was even named Sweetheart King at the school’s Valentine’s Day dance.

He’s always been known to the public as a shy, introverted person. But to his friends and people who know him well, Manning’s a very fun, popular and engaging person. Just ask Johnson, who bonded closely with Manning and took him under his wing at Lawrence High.

Johnson actually called Manning in the summer of 1983 before he moved to Lawrence to introduce himself and talk about the Lions’ basketball team.

“He’s very humble and initially he’s very soft spoken. Once you get to know him, you can't get him to shut up," Johnson said, laughing.

Howard Fulton also has fond recollections of his former teammate. He remembers Manning inviting him over to his house for his mom’s home-cooked spaghetti dinner with his sister Dawn and starting forward Melvin Hunter.

“We had a pretty good relationship,” Fulton said. “We didn’t hang out that much, but when we did, we talked quite a bit.”

One of Johnson’s favorite memories of Manning involved his pre-game routine. Four hours before the game, the team would have a huge meal of pasta, steak and pancakes. Then 90 minutes before game time, Johnson would pick up Manning at his home in his blue cutlass.

The skinny phenom always had one request.

“He’d invariably have me stop at Kwik Shop on 23rd Street,” Johnson said, where Manning would buy “hot dogs, popcorn, doughnuts, all kinds of stuff.”

 “I’d just marvel at how in the world he could run up and down the court eating that stuff. I’d just shake my head thinking, ‘You are going to throw all that stuff up,’ and he never did,” Johnson added with a laugh.

“He was an eater, that’s for sure.”

Manning loved every bite.

“At that time, I could eat a lot,” Manning said. “I could use it, I was pencil thin. Not anymore. That was part of my routine at that time, get a little junk food in me.”

Manning kept on eating and hooping that magical season. His play was seemingly effortless and so smooth that Johnson said “you always wondered if he had a different speed. What may have seemed like he was pacing himself was probably just a guy who was going his speed, which was faster than anyone else.”

Johnson admired Manning’s work ethic and motivation. He said Manning won every wind sprint in practice.

“He got it done,” Johnson said.

And so did the Lions. With every win, the pressure and expectations mounted. Coach Ted Juneau said the team was still “feeling our way around all this” early in the season when they played Shawnee Mission West nine days before Christmas. 

A defining moment in the season happened after the Lions trapped at midcourt when Manning stole the ball and raced in for a thunder dunk.

“It really ignited the crowd,” Juneau said. “I really felt from that point on, some of the pressure was off. The kids were a lot more comfortable. That started I thought to turn our season around.”

And then during Christmas break, Juneau received a surprising phone call at 2 a.m. On the other end was Manning and point guard Kirk Joy. It was 20 degrees below zero and their car wouldn’t start. The two friends were afraid to call anybody but their trusted coach.

“They said, ‘You told us to call you if we ever needed you,’” Juneau recalled.

Even though the Lions ran “a little extra” during the next morning’s practice, Juneau said “from that point on, I knew we were going to have a special relationship. ... I really felt after Christmas, after the first five games, we really started to jell a little bit. 

“But I think throughout the year, the kids felt lots of pressure. If you win, you were expected to. If you lost, ‘Oh my God, how can you do that?’ They knew that.”

Lawrence High won 21 straight games following the loss to Wyandotte in the second game of the year and reached the Class 6A state finals at Allen Fieldhouse on March 10, 1984, where they met Wyandotte again for the highest stakes. 

LHS was up 41-35 entering the fourth quarter before Wyandotte rallied and took a 50-49 lead when the unlikely William Davis banked in a shot from the top of the key with four seconds left. 

After a Lions’ timeout, Manning received the inbounds pass and dribbled furiously up the right side of the floor. With the partisan Lawrence High crowd of nearly 7,000 watching and praying with bated breath, Manning let a bomb fly from just inside halfcourt.

“I thought it was going in,” Juneau said.

The ball, though, “rattled out” as Wyandotte won the state title.

“There were some things I wish I would have done different, a couple of shots I would’ve made,” Manning told the Lawrence High School Budget newspaper at the time.

“But we played our best.”

For Lawrence High, it was a devastating loss. Fulton, who played junior college basketball at Neosho (Kan.) Community College, admitted in an interview in 1998 that he stayed up many nights afterwards replaying the game in his mind.

“I figured life goes on, you gotta move on,” said Fulton, who added Davis’ game-winning shot still haunts him.

“I switched (defensively) from top of the key to play the ball coming inbounds,” Fulton said. “If I wouldn’t have switched places, I would have probably stole the ball.”

Juneau said his kids played hard but tentative, while Fulton added that “when it came down to crunch time at the end of the game, we probably started playing not to lose instead of playing to win.”

The consummate team player, Johnson felt most sorry for Manning, who ended his Lions’ career with 20 points yet was unable to win back-to-back state titles.

“It was really frustrating playing at Allen Fieldhouse where Danny was set to play the next four years,” Johnson said. “We should have won, we were a better team. We really wanted that one. ... One of my first thoughts, ‘Doggone it, you move to Lawrence High and we couldn’t get it done for you.’ (I felt like we) kind of let Danny down. It was really too bad.”

Interestingly, on that same night, KU beat Oklahoma, 79-78, in the Big Eight Tournament championship in Kansas City. The Jayhawks were back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three years, and with Manning’s arrival at KU in the fall, you could sense greatness to come for KU basketball.

Despite the loss to Wyandotte, Juneau called the 1984 season very successful. LHS went undefeated in the Sunflower League and won the Topeka Invitational Tournament for the first time since 1967.

“We achieved really the goals that we set out to do, which was win the tournament and the league, and then obviously, also the opportunity to play for the state championship so we were close,” Juneau said.

“This was one of my most satisfying seasons as a coach, especially to see them grow as a team throughout the season,” Juneau told the 1984 LHS Red and Black yearbook. “This was the most exciting season in terms of spirit and enthusiasm.”

The superlative Manning averaged 22.7 points, 9.1 rebounds, 4.2 blocks, 5.0 steals and 2.2 assists per game for the 22-2 Lions. In three years of high school, Manning’s teams at Page High and LHS went an astounding 71-5.

...

In the two months following Lawrence High’s heartbreaking loss, Manning played in the Capital All-Star Classic in Washington, D.C., and the McDonald’s All-American game, while I played my final season on the Lions’ tennis team and anxiously awaited graduation day and beginning my college studies at KU.

Finally, on May 23, 1984 at Memorial Stadium, myself, Manning and over 500 of my Lawrence High senior classmates received their diplomas at commencement. 

After the final speech that evening, and after we were officially high school graduates, I turned over my right shoulder and the first person I saw was Daniel Ricardo Manning (at 6-10, he was hard to miss). He stood up from the bleachers and gave the 6-5 Whitenight a high-five, and no doubt reveled with anticipation and wonder at the bright future and endless possibilities ahead.

I certainly didn’t think that May evening— and I doubt Manning did either— that four years later he would be back at Memorial Stadium on April 5, 1988 celebrating with thousands of Jayhawks, including myself, the national championship KU had won the previous night in Kansas City.

He had grown from a skinny, unassuming teenager to a man who led KU to a national title over Oklahoma in one of the most dominating performances in years (31 points and a career-high 18 rebounds). Manning was famous and would soon play for the U.S. men’s basketball team in the Olympic Games and become the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft while eventually being a two-time All-Star and carving out a 15-year pro career, despite undergoing three ACL surgeries.

But to people like Johnson and Juneau, he was no different than the genuine high school senior who humbly greeted them that August day at the Holidome in 1983 when Manning first arrived in Lawrence. 

He always “just wanted to be one of the guys.”

Juneau and Manning developed an especially close friendship over the years. That was never more evident when Manning became Tulsa head coach in April 2012 and hired Juneau on his staff as director of basketball services.

“I think our relationship was built on the fact, to me, he was a 17-year-old kid coming in from another high school, probably homesick at times for where he was,” Juneau said. “I’m (not) thinking, ‘Boy, here’s a college player of the year. Here’s a first-round NBA player.’ This is just a 17-year-old kid that I want to make comfortable his senior year. He was just one of my players, and I wanted to do the best for him as I would everyone else.

“That’s how our relationship started, and that’s how it’s always been.”

After the College Basketball Hall of Fame press conference concluded during the early evening on Nov. 23, 2008, and just 90 minutes before the 8 p.m. induction ceremony at Sprint Center in Kansas City, where Manning would achieve one of his greatest honors and enter the Hall, he graciously signed autographs and posed for pictures with fans. I walked up to the dais and asked my former high school classmate about his relationship with Juneau.

Manning smiled as his mind suddenly raced back to his senior year at LHS. He certainly appreciated Juneau for not treating him any differently than a seldom-used reserve point guard like Mike McCubbin.

“He didn’t play any favorites,” Manning said. “That’s definitely something you respect and like in your coach.”

“We were both in a tough spot,” Manning added. “He won a state championship the year before I got there. The following year, we were supposed to win a state championship. We lost in the state championship game. We were both under a little duress.”

Their relationship only grew stronger after that loss to Wyandotte and especially after Manning graduated from KU. Juneau and his wife, Judy, played a mentoring role to Manning and his wife, Julie, as they raised their two kids as young parents.

“Coach Juneau is a godfather to one of my children (Evan, now a sophomore walk-on guard at KU) and one of my best friends,” Manning said. “He’s a wonderful person. He has a great wife and a lovely daughter. His friendship to me is something I definitely cherish. His thought processes and his mentality, I always bounce things off him. He’s definitely a mentor and obviously a great friend.”

Juneau was at the press conference and induction ceremony that night with his wife, looking on with great pride at one of the greatest players in college basketball history.

“It’s obviously a thrill to see Danny go into a great Hall of Fame where he deservedly belongs,” Juneau said. “We enjoyed the moment with him then (at LHS) and I’m enjoying the moment with him now.”

Johnson, who teamed with Manning at KU for two years as a Jayhawk walk-on, also remains buddies with his former Lions’ teammate. He’ll never forget that 1983-84 season when he made a new best friend and got the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play with such a versatile and transcending player.

“He was kind of a point guard in a big man’s body,” Johnson said. “It was exciting. I remember just the thrill of walking into the gym and having everyone’s attention on him. You could throw the ball anywhere near the basket and look like a hero. He’d turn average plays into great plays.”

While Manning said the loss to Wyandotte in the state championship game “was a disappointment,” his fond memories during that lone season at Lawrence High 30 years ago will last forever.

“Coming in and meeting new friends and having those guys accept me with open arms was a lot of fun,” Manning said. “I definitely enjoyed my senior year.”

So did the LHS Class of ‘84. Danny, thanks for the memories.

Danny Manning's Lawrence High team make magical run to the state title game 30 years ago

Thirty years ago on March 10, 1984, Danny Manning and his Lawrence High Lions lost a heartbreaking 50-49 game to Wyandotte in the 6A state championship in Allen Fieldhouse. On this same night, Manning’s future team -- the Kansas Jayhawks -- won a thrilling 79-78 game over Oklahoma in the Big Eight Tournament championship.

KU basketball was now in the Big Dance for the first time in three years, and a new era of Jayhawk hoops had begun with Larry Brown as head coach. Manning would become a dominant figure in KU’s rise back to national prominence, but on this day in March, he was like the rest of his LHS teammates — despondent after losing the state championship.

I was a Lawrence High classmate of Danny our senior year in 1983-84 and wrote this story on him in Jayhawk Illustrated in 2009 as part of the 25-year anniversary of Manning and the Lions’ magical season.

Five years later, with March Madness upon us and the 30-year anniversary of the Manning-led Lions run to the state title, let’s look back on how it all started for Danny three decades ago in his first year in Lawrence in this two-part updated story. 

...

While Tulsa head coach Danny Manning has resurrected the program and brings his Golden Hurricane into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2003, I can't help but flash back to over 30 years ago in August of 1983 when my former high school classmate arrived in Lawrence to attend LHS his senior year after a standout career at Page High in Greensboro, North Carolina., where he teamed with future NFL star Haywood Jeffires and led the Pirates to a state championship and undefeated season his junior year, one of the best prep seasons in North Carolina history.

Of course, we all know the story how KU coach Larry Brown hired Manning’s father, Ed, as assistant coach in the summer of ‘83. The Manning family moved to Lawrence, and Danny shortly committed to Kansas and inked with the Jayhawks in the November early signing period. 

Ted Juneau, Manning’s basketball coach at LHS, close friend, and now director of basketball services at Tulsa, was in disbelief when he first heard a high school star from North Carolina might be joining his team. Juneau was going about his business preparing for a new school year and basketball season after winning the Class 6A state championship the previous March with my former T-Ball teammate Chris Piper leading the way.

Juneau said Jayhawk assistant John Calipari and the KU coaches kept calling his office.

“(Calipari) said, ‘Ted, there’s a chance that the best high school player in America is going to move to Lawrence.’” Juneau recalled in a 90-minute interview in 1998. “I said, ‘Right.’ He said, ‘Yeah, really.’ Lo and behold, they called (again) and said they’re going to hire Ed as an assistant coach and their son, Danny, is going to be here, (that they were) pretty sure he’s coming.

“From that point on, what I thought would have been a good season, that we’d be competitive, suddenly the pressure was on.”

Juneau and senior co-captain Jeff Johnson went to meet Manning at the Holidome when Danny and his family first arrived in Lawrence. 

“Ed answered and we introduced ourselves,” Juneau said. “Danny was lying on the bed watching TV. He got up, and it was just like seeing all legs come up. He didn’t weigh a lot. He was pretty skinny, but boy, you looked up and said, ‘Oh my God, this is for real.’

“So the ride began.”

Both Juneau and Johnson recall Manning being very genuine and classy during that first meeting.

“My first reaction was ‘Holy (cow), this is a big kid,’” Johnson said. “My absolute number one first impression, other than man he’s tall, is what a nice guy. He was very polite. His mom would say ‘Danny,’ and he would say, ‘Yes mam.’ He was just a sincere guy and somebody at that time I didn’t know at all but was looking forward to getting to know and play with obviously.” 

With the arrival of Manning at LHS, the fortunes of Lawrence High hoops and KU basketball would eventually undergo a dramatic transformation. Long known as a tradition-rich football school, suddenly fans were arriving early for the LHS Junior Varsity games to get prime seats to see the new miracle worker in action.

The gym was packed and rocking every game night, and Ed Manning and Brown were regular visitors. They’d sit in the balcony by themselves, and politely clap every time Manning scored a bucket or made a good play. 

There would have been more powerhouse coaches in the stands had Manning not already signed with Kansas. In fact, then-North Carolina coach Dean Smith visited Lawrence High School before Manning committed to KU to give one last recruiting pitch to woo him to Chapel Hill.

The likes of Smith and former Georgetown coach John Thompson and N.C. State coach Jim Valvano sure missed a show that season. There’s one particular home game that stands out in my mind. It was Lawrence High’s battle against Wyandotte on Dec. 13, 1983, the Lions’ second contest of the season. Wyandotte was an extremely talented team featuring future Oklahoma forward William Davis and future KU football star receiver Willie Vaughn.

On the game’s first possession, Manning dribbled upcourt, stopped on a dime above the free-throw line, and swished a jumper. The crowd went off. On Lawrence High’s next trip down the floor, the 6-10 Manning again dribbled upcourt and pulled up at the same spot. 

Swish.

The fans stomped their feet on the bleachers and roared. It was the loudest I had ever heard that gym; the cheers still echo in my mind 30 years later.

Manning finished with a game-high 27 points, but Wyandotte prevailed, 66-57.

While Manning could take over games at will, he always felt more comfortable passing to his teammates. Johnson remembers times “smacking him on the butt and saying, ‘Just shoot that.’”

Like Brown would cajole Manning at KU, Juneau urged Manning to be more assertive. Juneau and Manning now laugh about old times, but the former LHS coach had to “pull teeth” (in Johnson’s words) at times to get Manning to shoot the ball.

“I can remember telling him, because he was being so unselfish, sharing the ball, making the passes, not taking an eight-foot shot to get someone a two-foot shot, and the ball bouncing off someone’s nose because they weren’t expecting it, in some respects, he was being selfish trying to be so unselfish,” Juneau said.

“He tried so hard not to dominate the game,” Juneau added. “He just wanted to be one of the guys.”

Juneau, though, said he genuinely appreciated Manning’s selfless nature and respected him for being such a team player. He called Manning a true joy to coach. 

“That made that season a lot easier for me as a coach because of his attitude," Juneau said. “If he had come in and said, ‘I don’t need to listen to you, I can do what I want,’ it could have been a struggle.”

While there were some games when Manning scored just 12 or 14 points, make no mistake, he could light up the nets. The next game after the loss to Wyandotte, Manning exploded for a season-high 36 points in the Lions’ 67-59 victory at Shawnee Mission West on Dec. 16, 1983.

Being a star player, opposing teams loved to heckle him. And they occasionally went over the line. Take the game at hostile Leavenworth on Jan. 13, 1984.

“There was a sign up saying, ‘Danny can’t read,’” Juneau recalled. “Danny looked at me and said, ‘We’ll see what they can read after this game’s over.’”

Manning was on a mission that night and scored 27 points to lead LHS to a resounding 73-54 victory.

Ten days earlier on Jan. 3, Manning and the Lions had a hostile awakening in K-State country at Manhattan High School. Students threw a banana at him when he was introduced in the starting lineups. They even lit firecrackers underneath the bleachers as the lights went out.

Juneau and Howard Fulton, a starting guard on the LHS team and my former basketball teammate at South Junior High, remember that night quite well.

“I think we (he and Manning) joked about it,” Fulton said. “He couldn’t believe they threw a banana. Danny said, ‘C’mon man, let’s just go out there and play.’ I think he was real pumped up after that.”

Manning scored 10 points in the first quarter and a game-high 20 to lead LHS to a 60-38 victory.

“The kids were so angry, and they went out with a real purpose,” Juneau said. “We buried Manhattan that night.”

Johnson said Manning always rose above the opposing fans’ rude behavior.

“Not to be a cliche,” Johnson said, “but he let his basketball do the talking.”

Manning’s ability to dribble and pass the ball like a point guard and shoot as well as any high school big man in the country had his fellow students, fans, and even NBA scouts talking a lot that memorable season.

LeBron James talks KU's Andrew Wiggins

Andrew Wiggins has been called the best player to come out of high school since LeBron James. While James has not talked to Wiggins, the Miami Heat superstar forward has some sage advice for the KU freshman phenom.

“Just try to be the best student and the best teammate and the best player you can be every day,” James told a few reporters before his Heat played the Charlotte Bobcats in an exhibition game Friday night at Sprint Center in Kansas City.

“Don’t try to prove anything to no one. Obviously, his future is bright, but you can’t live today and worry about the future. You got to live in the present. The only thing he should concentrate on is being a great student and being a great basketball player for his team and everything else will take care of itself.”

That’s what KU coach Bill Self is counting on. Self is thrilled to have Wiggins on his team, yet cautions he’s not a star just yet, despite his many preseason accolades. Wiggins has been named CBSSports.com Preseason Player of the Year, the Big 12 Preseason Freshman of the Year, and a member of the 2013-14 Preseason All-Big 12 Team – a first in conference history that a freshman has appeared on the list. The 6-8 guard also graced the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Oct. 14th issue and was called a “once-in-a-generation” talent by SI.

“He’s very talented and has a ton of potential, but he’s just a freshman,” Self said at KU Media Day in late September. “He’s going to find his way like everybody else. The expectation that have been put on him by outside factors or media members comparing him to this person or that person are really not fair at all. He has a chance to become a great player. I would not say he’s a great player yet; he’s a great prospect. Hopefully he will develop in a way where he can become a great player quickly.”

Self stressed Wiggins needs to play with maximum effort consistently.

“I thing with Andrew is, he showed flashed of dominance (in high school) but he didn’t do it on a consistent basis,” Self said. “He’s a guy that relies on athletic ability and turning it on when it needs to be turned on. But when you get to this level and even at a very high level of high quality ball you have a lot of guys who play that way and you will never get it turned on. And so he has to become a consistent guy that tries to impact every possession in whatever way shape or form he can. 

“He could be our best defender, he could be our best shot blocker, he could be our best lane runner, he could be our best offensive rebounder, he can be a lot of things. But if he doesn’t do it every possession, he won’t be any of those things. He’s got to learn to compete in order to win every possession in the game.”

Self rates Wiggins and the other young players’ coachability as a “10.” Wiggins knows he can improve.

“I need to work on off-ball defending,” Wiggins said. “I’m working on my shooting and ball-handling because nothing is perfect. It’s just all (in getting) repetition.”

KU sophomore forward Perry Ellis loves Wiggins’ work ethic and attitude.

“He knows there’s going to be a lot of attention, but he’s working hard,” Ellis said. “A humble kid. I think he’s going to be fine as long as he keeps working.”

Wiggins is just having fun now bonding with the team and not thinking about his rising fame.

“(I’m) close with all of them,” Wiggins said. “When I took my visit everyone rolled like a unit, even now there are no favorites on the team. Everybody talks to everybody.”