Hurd Witnessed Tang’s Journey ‘Out The Mud’

By: D. Scott Fritchen

The old light-blue stick-shift Honda Accord puttered through the streets of Cleveland, Texas like a wheezing man at the end of a race. A mangled wire hanger kept the rear bumper from dragging on River Street. On its best days, the Honda fired up on its second or third key turn ("Thank you, God!" Jerome Tang would shout), and on its worst days ("There goes the devil trying to fight again!" Tang would say) the youthful First Assembly of God youth minister and Heritage Christian Academy head basketball coach would ask the boys sitting in the back seat to pray again.

It went this way during the 1990s, as 11-year-old Lamar Hurd caught the basketball bug, and indomitable Tang took him in and cared for him like a son — a sixth-grader and his fatherly mentor permanently adjoined through that tattered orange ball that singed nets in hot gyms, and immersed in comeuppance before Heritage Christian shot up into notoriety as one of the top 25 high school teams in America.

There's a theme entwined within the fabric of this tale, as Kansas State entrusts its program to 55-year-old Tang, the former 19-year Baylor assistant-turned-associate head coach whose NCAA Division I National Championship ring isn't yet a year old. The very fingerprint of the immigrant from San Fernando, Trinidad, who migrated with his parents to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands until age 10, who took a birth-through-high school private school of 145 total students to unfathomable heights, then who joined Baylor head coach Scott Drew and earned his college degree in 2007 while helping rebuild the Big 12 Conference program in Waco, Texas, is now in Manhattan.

He occupies the driver's seat in the Flint Hills, many miles behind him and many more to go, while carrying a crazy, contagious energy that crackles on the recruiting road, and bearing an unshakable faith that with one key turn ("Thank you, God!" Tang would say) might elevate Kansas State to a NCAA Tournament berth — scratch that — to a Final Four — scratch that — to a first-ever national title.

"This is just the start of some really, really big things," Tang said at his K-State introductory news conference last Thursday. "It's going to happen. With everyone's help, with all the K-State family, the Wildcat Nation, we'll accomplish great things together, and it's not going to take long. It's not going to take long. I didn't come to rebuild.

"I came to elevate."

Hurd repeats Tang's words on the other end of the phone. Over the past few days, he's watched and re-watched the news conference and social media clips of Tang addressing the Wildcats.

"Everything he's saying, and his message to the kids, it's real," Hurd says. "I've seen this movie before. I lived it. People have no idea. You don't know because you haven't experienced it. Take whatever is your best experience and multiply it by a few. That's when you'll understand the actual reality of what he does."

While many know @CoachJTang as @KStateMBB's newly hired coach and as a champion college assistant coach prior, I was fortunate to be a part of his ride at the start: when I moved out of my mom's house @ 11yrs old to live with him & attend this school! https://t.co/XunyGJLaqH
— Lamar Hurd (@L_Hurd) March 24, 2022

Hurd, 38, currently provides basketball analysis and insight on all Portland Trail Blazers' broadcasts on Root Sports. He was a college basketball analyst for four years on the Pac-12 Network and broadcasted games for ESPN and Fox Sports Northwest. He was starting point guard for Oregon State, shared the team's MVP award, and won the 2006 Pac-10 medal, which is awarded annually to one male and female student athlete who best exemplifies excellence on and off the playing field.

Because of Tang's influence, Hurd has spent part of his adult life coaching youth basketball throughout the Portland metropolitan and remains intwined with community engagement.

"When I tell you he's the best coach I've ever seen, I'm not saying that because I lived with him," Hurd says. "I have no problem being critical. He's the best coach I've ever seen, and the big reason is because he has this really unique way of truly bringing out the best in players. I think it goes back to Heritage Christian. Some people might see one thing, but he sees another. When he gets a player, he recognizes things that maybe that player can't do, but the things that the player can do are so much bigger in his eyes.

"There's a confidence of 'I can get the best out of you.'"

Hurd remembers out the mud because he knows Tang's journey, which Hurd became a part of at Heritage Christian Academy. Tang embarked upon his 10-year stint at Heritage Christian in 1993. Lamar's older brother, Khari Gaynor, attended Heritage Christian, and returned home to Missouri City, Texas on weekends. Upon visiting Khari one weekend, Lamar begged his mother to join his older brother at Heritage Christian. She finally relented. Lamar lived with Tang during his sixth-grade year before Lamar's mother and younger brother Richard moved to Cleveland to reunite the family. Lamar began his freshman season at Heritage Christian in 1997-98 and was a part of three state titles. "I wasn't living with Coach Tang anymore but I kind of was because the relationship was so tight," Hurd says. "We were like best friends."

With that, Hurd expounds upon Tang's out-the-mud path. Not having any money. Out the mud. Not eating a real dinner because there wasn't enough food. Out the mud. Playing with shoes with holes in them, wearing jerseys that didn't fit right, and dressing out in a school restroom because there was no locker room. Out the mud. Not having enough people on a given night so you had to improvise and have someone join the team that maybe didn't even care about basketball, but were like, "Oh, this is fun." Out the mud. Not knowing any college coaches, and driving to five-star basketball camps, and cutting up through Louisiana, hitting North Carolina and walking around the Dean Dome and Cameron Indoor, then finally making it to the prestigious camp and showing up early to meetings and talking with every coach possible just to learn and try to figure everything out. Out the mud. Then, upon winning state titles, trying to schedule elite teams, although they wouldn't agree to play out of fear, then fighting to compete in every national tournament possible, but relying on a raggedy bus and praying to reach that weekend's destination. Out the mud.

Tang took the Eagles to four Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools League Division A state championships in 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2001. He joined Drew at Baylor in 2003. Tang said that he had $10.81 when Drew joined him and his wife, Careylyen, at their home for dinner prior to his hiring at Baylor.

"It all really started in sixth grade, our friendship, a partnership in a way, because we both set out like, 'We're going to build this thing,'" Hurd says. "That's where the journey started for us. Every year we got closer and closer to where we were trying to go. He knew that I wanted to be a scholarshipped college basketball player. For him, it wasn't necessarily even about being a college coach. It was just about maximizing the situation he was in. When he says, 'When I'm all in, I'm all in,' that's the truth.

"He knows what's inside of him. He doesn't let the situation define him — good or bad. He's not going to win the national title and say, 'I'm the best college coach out there.' He's going to make it a community thing. Everybody was a part of our basketball community because Coach Tang made them feel that way. There were people in Cleveland who just wanted to be a part of it even before we were any good because he made people feel like they were a part of what we were doing. People often say, 'So-and-so is one of a kind,' but you're going to find out there isn't anyone like him. I've been in a lot of serious basketball circles and haven't seen anyone like him."

On the evening of Sunday, March 20, Hurd was on a flight to Detroit after the Blazers' game at the Indiana Pacers, when his wife, Bethany, told him, "This report says Coach Tang is coach at Kansas State." Hurd had spoken with Tang two days prior. He phoned Tang. Tang called Hurd back five minutes later and shared stories about his incredible day spent in his living room with K-State athletic director Gene Taylor and athletic department officials. There was peace in Tang's voice, that familiar chord from a sweet song that Hurd had heard so many times before.

"I don't know how to describe my happiness," Hurd says. "I've seen the whole story and the whole journey. More than anything, I know how much he loved being at Baylor and his great situation there. I know he wasn't leaving just to be a head coach. He was leaving specifically to be head coach at Kansas State. There's something that he believes about Kansas State that is beyond special. He had it good at Baylor.

"If he's going to Kansas State, something special is about to happen."

Kansas State University Athletics

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