The knee is much better. The weight is down. The drive is still there.
Satch Sullinger is ready to give himself to basketball again. The 2010 Naismith prep coach of the year will be an assistant coach for Carmen's Crew, the Ohio State alumni team led by Jared Sullinger, Satch's son. As the team returns to The Basketball Tournament with a revamped roster after a one-year hiatus , the father-son combo will team up in hopes of making a run toward the $1 million prize.
And in explaining the decision to bring his dad out of retirement, Jared Sullinger couldn't resist getting the final word.
"It's nothing like having a former head coach be your assistant coach," he said. "The biggest thing about him is the attention to detail. On top of that, having the roles reversed, now he has to listen to me. It was a perfect opportunity for me to put him in a position where I can get him to shut up and listen."
It's an apt summarization of the relationship between the two Sullingers. Loquacious, personable and passionate about basketball, the two teamed up to win a state title and earn a No. 1 national ranking at Northland in 2010 before Jared Sullinger went on to play two seasons at Ohio State and be taken in the first round of the 2012 NBA draft.
Satch Sullinger stopped coaching in 2011 , and while retirement allowed him to spend more time with his growing family (he now proudly counts nine grandchildren), his body was showing signs of wear. With a painfully swollen right knee, exercise became difficult and his weight climbed to nearly 400 pounds before he found a solution. Sullinger sought non-surgical treatment at QC Kinetix and within months said he was seeing significant results.
"I didn't want to go through surgery," he said. "Correcting my knee gave me my life back. I know I'm 74, but I don't have to act 74 because I don't feel 74. The years on this body is 74 years, but guess what? I don't feel it."
That, plus subscribing to the healthier diet followed by his wife, Barbara, has Sullinger down to about 260 pounds. While playing golf last week, Sullinger said he was even able to do a very slight jog up a hill toward the green.
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"That's a lie," his son said with a deadpan voice. "That's a whole lie, but he's definitely moving better."
As Carmen's Crew got practice underway inside the practice gym at the Schottenstein Center, the younger Sullinger stood near midcourt with a whiteboard and marker in hand while his father stood near the base of one of the baskets. Jared Sullinger is responsible for the overall product and specifically the team's offensive plans while his dad is in charge of transition defense and baseline out-of-bounds situations. Eastmoor product Leon Rodgers rounds out the coaching staff.
In huddles, each coach has his opportunity to address the team. As Jared Sullinger diagrammed offensive sets on the whiteboard, his dad stood just over his right shoulder, listening and nodding along.
Satch Sullinger was clear: his job is to support his son, a man he believes will be a full-time head coach in the future.
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"I'm going to be the assistant and I'm going to follow his lead with enthusiasm," he said.
Whenever his time with Carmen's Crew comes to an end this summer, Satch Sullinger said he hopes this is just the start of a coda to his coaching career. His hopes for what could lie ahead helped lead him to this job.
"I told Jared, 'I'm going to contact (Ohio State coach) Chris Holtmann and see if he wants to hire me as a consultant,' " Satch Sullinger said. "I don't want to go out and recruit, be on the road, but all these other programs take an older guy and have him as a consultant. Chris is considering that.
"I'm going to be the assistant to (my son) that I always wanted for me. That's what I'm gonna be to him, and hopefully that what I'm going to be one day for Chris Holtmann."
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Jared Sullinger adds dad Satch to Carmen's Crew staff for TBT
