Oct. 19, 2003

Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Carroll Fadal appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.

When Jerome Tang talks basketball, it's with evangelical fervor. Of course, he also talks about life, kids, marriage and education in the same manner. Tang, the latest addition to Scott Drew's basketball staff, has spent the last eight years as head basketball coach, teacher, youth minister, confidante and surrogate parent to students at Heritage Christian Academy, an Assemblies of God-related private school in Cleveland, just northeast of Houston. Talking to Tang, you get the feeling he could have been pastor, too, because in addition to his unbridled enthusiasm, he mentions God in just about every sentence.

"I THINK IT WAS a God thing," Tang said of his decision to leave a highly successful Heritage Christian program to join Drew's staff in trying to resurrect Baylor's troubled basketball program. "I'd always said that when God was ready for me to move, he would move me and would make it very obvious. If I had waited for two years until I completed my degree, it would seem like something that I did. I don't want to live my life like that. Everything I have is a gift from God." It's a little piece of that sentence, the part about him not having a degree, that has caused some Texas newspapers to question Tang's qualifications to coach at the college level. But neither Tang nor Drew sees it as an impediment.

"Not everybody in life is blessed with the opportunity to go to school for free and have school paid for them," Tang said. "It was not a matter of me not wanting to get a degree; I couldn't afford to get one. I worked to help pay my wife's way through school, because I didn't want her to have to stop (going to college). Our number one focus when we got married was to have my wife complete her degree. When she completed hers, our plan was for me to go back to school and finish mine, but my wife got pregnant, so our plans changed. It's not a matter of me not thinking education is important, it's a financial matter. Who better to stress to kids the importance of academics than someone who's pursuing it himself? I always showed my kids how not having a degree affected my life."

"IF HE DID NOT VALUE education, then he would not be at Baylor University," Drew said. "Part of the reason he was interested in coaching was getting his college degree. He worked and his wife finished her degree, and now he's getting his degree. If we wanted to pick several successful people who don't have a college degree, it wouldn't be hard."

Tang is now enrolled in the College of Biblical Studies in Houston, pursuing a degree in Biblical Leadership, and he hopes to finish in a year and a half. And while completing his education is very important to him, it's helping kids that is his driving focus. That's a fact that seems to have been lost on a couple of Houston-area high school coaches quoted in Metroplex newspaper stories critical of Tang. But not of all of his high-school coaching peers find fault with Tang.

"As a coach, I tend to judge coaches by one question: could my kid play for him?" said Johnny Price, in his seventh year as head basketball coach at Galena Park High School and a Tang rival. "That takes in a whole lot. How do you treat a kid, help him become a better man? As a person, are you going to guide and steer him? Jerome is one of those types of individuals. I'd be proud for my kid to play for him. As a person, he's a great guy, honest and dependable.

"Jerome's all about the kids. Kids don't make every decision; mom and dad have a little to say about that, too. If Jerome is selling moms and dads that their kids can come to this little private school (Heritage) and be successful, then he can convince them that their kids can come to this private university (Baylor) and succeed."

And that points up what appears to be at the root of some people's problem with Tang. While at Heritage Christian, a tiny, formerly all-white private school in a small town, he was able to draw top-notch 4A and 5A public-school hoopsters to come play for him. That didn't sit well with his rivals, who have to play the hand they're dealt.

"Those other reporters stopped one question short," Tang said. "Why would a kid leave a 4A or 5A high school and have his parents pay for him to go to a small Christian school in East Texas? Even if we give them a reduction in tuition, they're still paying something. Like Cedric Hensley's parents, $700 in a year is a large amount of money. They (the reporters) didn't dig to find out why. The why is because we could help them succeed."

"In public school, we're not allowed to recruit, but he's in private school, and he can recruit," Price said. "The school he was coaching at had no facilities to offer; the kids went to school there because of the recruiter who recruited them to that school. He's a terrific recruiter. And he did a great job once he got them there. In a school of that level, there's one-to-one instruction; he didn't get them there just to play basketball, he helped them achieve their dream. That is commendable. There's not one guy who went through that program who has come out with ill feelings. Some of them simply got their high school diploma that might not have because of friends or environment. Kids have been coming out of there doing good things. That says a lot. Jerome benefited kids. There are other private schools out there, but they can't recruit like he can."

Drew took it a step further, blaming some of the negative attitudes on a common human emotion.

"It's a classic battle," the Bears' new head coach said. "Private schools are allowed to do things public schools can't do, so it becomes a rivalry thing. Some of those players he had developed a relationship with wanted to play for him. Anytime you have a successful coach, because they won four state championships, you're going to have some jealousy."

Tang developed those relationships by coaching AAU and summer basketball, taking primarily at-risk minority kids and molding them into formidable teams. Some of those players then wanted to follow him to Heritage. His interest in helping kids develop basketball and life skills is longstanding, and it probably can be related to his own teen-age experiences.

Born in Trinidad, West Indies, Tang spent his early years in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, playing cricket and soccer. When his family moved to the Houston area when he was nine years old, young Jerome tried to play traditional American sports such as baseball, football and basketball, "But I wasn't any good," he said. After failing to make a junior high basketball team, Tang immersed himself in watching instructional videos and hours of practice, eventually improving enough to play first for North Central Bible College, then Normandale Junior College, both in Minnesota.

"I watched a lot of Rick Pitino tapes, and I really improved,." Tang said. "When I came back home and played against guys I'd played with in junior high and high school, they said, 'Wow, what happened to you?' I realized then, because of what happened to me, that if you work with a kid, he can get better."

From that revelation was born a desire to coach basketball in a Christian environment, a dream he articulated to Mike Allard, his youth pastor at Green's Bayou Assembly of God. Two days later, in what some would call a coincidence but Tang refers as the God's hand at work, Heritage Christian founder Dr. Jennifer Cooper called Allard asking for recommendations for a basketball coach. Allard gave Cooper Tang's name, and despite the objections of his friends and family -- "Cleveland is where the Klan is," he said -- he took the job.

"One of the things that really touched my heart with the guys, Dr. Cooper had them sit in the stands and ask me questions and I could ask them questions," Tang said of his job interview at the then-all-white school. "One asked me if I took the job, would I stay for two years. He said they had been praying for someone who would stay for two years. That they would be praying for a coach who would stick with them touched me. I told my mom, and she said, 'You need to pray about it.' I prayed, and the Lord said, 'You're going to take that job'. I got up the next morning and told Dr Cooper I was going to take the job."

As time went by, Tang assumed more duties, including teacher and youth pastor, all the time adding more programs to help kids.

From that humble beginning, Heritage grew to become a powerhouse, primarily because Tang would find kids who had talent but might have academic or behavioral problems and get them into his program that featured lots of one-on-one, hands-on help, not just with basketball but with academics and life as well.

"He's been an extremely hard-working, good Christian accountability partner," Drew said. "He has great relationship with players, and he's going to really help us in a lot of different areas. The most important thing about any coach is how his past players treat him, respect him and value him, and he has a great relationship with his past players. He had eight players nominated for McDonald's All-Americans and one that made it."

Tang loves to talk about his former students who've succeeded. "A couple of guys came in who were basketball players, Russell and Robert Johnson," he said. "They got hate mail from their friends saying they sold out their community. Russell was the first African-American to graduate from Heritage.He went on, got his degree and now he's back at Heritage. Since those two guys came to the school, we now get African-American kids in elementary school, and now the school is 25-30 percent minority.

"There's been a big change that's taken place in the whole ministry. Robert Johnson was labeled academically retarded by the public school he was at, but he was dyslexic. In three years, he went from a third-grade reading level to 11th grade. He scored a 1060 on the SAT and got a scholarship to Oral Roberts."

And he speaks just as fondly of the Johnsons' mother, who came to church because of her son's affiliation with the school and two weeks later, won salvation by devoting her life to Christ.

Obviously, because of his experience at Heritage Christian and his network of high-school contacts, Tang would figure to be a good recruiter. Critics, however, have suggested that he won't be welcome on some Houston-area campuses. Price, for one, pooh-poohs that theory.

"I think it's going to be in the past," he said. "Let's face it: Baylor is a Division I school, and it makes coaches look good to put players in a D-1 school. For that coach to tell Jerome Tang, no, you can't talk to that kid, he's denying that kid an opportunity. It's about the kid. A coach's personal vendetta could not, should not and I don't think it will be used against Jerome or Baylor.

"I can't see any coaches doing that. I know some guys who just can't stand Jerome Tang's guts, but I can tell you now that coach won't stop that kid from going to Baylor University if it's a good match for that kid."

Drew agrees, adding that Tang already is making recruiting inroads. "Will be a strong recruiter for us," Drew said. "He's already shown his value in recruiting. Several other college basketball programs schools in the past tried to hire him, including several in the state."

While neither Drew nor Tang would identify other colleges who approached BU's newest assistant, Tang said the past contacts came with strings attached. "They always wanted me to bring a player," he said, "but I wasn't going to do that."

Now, he sees a bright future for Baylor, one that he hopes can fulfill another dream.

"I'd always sit with the guys and say the biggest stage to proclaim the Gospel in the Final Four," Tang said. "Can you imagine being at a Christian college and being with a bunch of Christian kids and win the Final Four? Can you imagine the impact we could have on this world if that could take place? There's no reason this can't be one of the best athletic programs in the nation because of facilities, the town, and because everybody here wants the Lord to be lifted up. Kids will want to come to Baylor because they want that kind of environment."

And to that end, Price feels Baylor got a bargain.

"I think he'll be a greater benefit to Baylor than Baylor will be to him," Price said. "The events of the summer have hit hard and heavy with the kids right now. They're looking at Baylor and Waco as a no-no. The kids say, 'If you don't work hard in the weight room, you'll end up at Baylor.' But Jerome Tang will help bring Baylor around the corner quicker than they think.

"Is he a reflection of Baylor University? Yes. It's a Christian University, a private school, a small, quiet community. That's what Jerome Tang is. He'll make Baylor proud."