More Than Just a Game: Tom Izzo Cherishes the Memories of Coaching His Son at Michigan State

Steven Izzo was a walk-on at his father’s elite college basketball team, much like Hurley was at UConn. Typically, he would merely see the count in the closing seconds of the game as a formality. Rather of searching for a single moment of attention, the younger Izzo took great pleasure in watching Hurley dribble the time down into a turnover.

“My kid was laughing,” the elder Izzo told the “Jim Rome Show.” “He says, ‘He leads the team in turnovers, and he only plays 30 seconds a game’ because Danny always makes him hold the ball at end. You won’t even let him take a shot because he doesn’t want to rub anything in. I love that.”

Hurley and Izzo, for that matter, would not get to coach their sons again after this season. After five seasons with Michigan State, Steven Izzo is about to graduate. In 2019, the 5-foot-8 guard was a walk-on in his father’s squad. Izzo acknowledged that everyone knows his son “was not good enough to play at [Michigan State].”” Izzo even showed some jealousy toward his son, remarking that when he saw him warm up ahead of his first game with the Spartans he would’ve given “my right and left arm just to warm up.”

Izzo shared that he and Hurley had discussed how much coaching their boys was worth, but that being his coach was the “best experience.”

“It’s worth every minute,” Izzo said. “I’m sure it was hard in the locker room. We had a rule that what goes on in the locker room stays in the locker room. Can you imagine how many days those players were mad at the head coach and his son is sitting right there in the locker room? What I loved about my team is that they respected him enough that they knew he wasn’t going to say nothing.

“There were even sometimes I said, ‘Well, man, maybe I could ask Steven how the locker room is.’ But I never did that, and he never gave me any advice. For that, I truly love him [and] appreciate him, and I’d recommend it to anybody if the opportunity arrives, because so many of us don’t get to spend time from 1 to 18. I got him from 18 to 23, and I got to spend some quality time.”

Steven’s departure puts a bow on another era over Izzo’s 29-year tenure as Michigan State’s head coach. It also caused some to speculate if it would be the end of his time in East Lansing. Izzo will turn 70 in the middle of next season and many of his top contemporaries (Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Jay Wright, Jim Boheim) as the transfer portal and name, image and likeness have transformed the sport.

Izzo has some reservations about the game, but he does not want to follow suit just yet.

“I love my job,” Izzo said. “I love the players, I love the practices, I love the games. I’m really questioning our profession right now. That would be the best way I could put it. I think we let some things go, whether it be the NCAA, people talking about it, everybody seems to be taking sides.

“I’ve always hoped players [could] make more money, and we should have done more for them in some way. I’m not big on the transfer portal, and I’m not big on — there’s not a sport in America that has no salary cap. No, without contracts. Everybody says we have a one-year deal. Technically, it’s a one-day deal. Every day somebody can leave, every day something can change. That part of it is concerning. It seems good for a certain percentage of people. I think the majority of these kids in the transfer portal and everything, there are a lot more that are failing than are succeeding. That’s what I worry about. It’s not going to affect me.”

John Calipari is one of the few active Hall of Fame college basketball coaches, along with Izzo. However, some felt that before accepting the position in Arkansas on Wednesday, he had not adjusted to the new age, therefore his job at Kentucky was not safe.

Izzo is working to avoid a similar fate.