Bellarmine basketball coach tells stories. The intended topic is the change in road the Knights are about to take – in some ways, a journey like no team has ever taken. This from their campus in southeast Louisville, where he has made the sport he loves a very big deal. But asking Scott Davenport to stick to one story is like asking the Pacific Ocean to stick to one wave.
Davenport would no more suppress his emotions – his wanderlust – than he would carry a bucket on his head on the bench during games. When he gets to the heart of his stories, his voice tends to rise, as if bouncing on a trampoline. For example, his feelings for his players.
“That’s where my investment is. For what? I lost my father when I was 9 on Halloween to a massive heart attack. My mother grew up in a one-room schoolhouse. The teachers, coaches, principals, and counselors saved my life. I’ve lost eight teammates in the last two years. This is the basis of our program. I had the chance, thanks to great teachers and coaches, to get involved in something bigger than myself and that was basketball. The consequence was that it brought out the best in me.
“I am the luckiest coach to ever coach any sport, male or female, at any level. I am, without a doubt. I apply this every day, with the attitude that allows me to go and coach and teach, not that I have to. There’s a big difference.”
He does it on behalf of a program that is only in its third year in Division I, but already with two winning seasons and a conference championship that has made Bellarmine a cause, all the way to the governor’s mansion and beyond. If you want to hear Davenport in full voice, wait until he addresses this topic in a moment.
But first, about this upcoming trip and why it’s so special.
Bellarmine is 2-1, and the first win was huge, 67-66 over Louisville, its first win over the hallowed program just three miles away. It is also Davenport’s alma mater and where he spent nine years as an assistant to Hall of Famers Denny Crum and Rick Pitino. How could he have dreamed of such a moment in 2005 when he walked those three miles and took over a Division II Bellarmine program with no national reputation? That is, until he put the Knights in four D-II Final Fours and won the 2011 national championship. But beating Louisville at the KFC Yum! Center? Imaginary world. Until it wasn’t.
“It’s the one that represents the before and after image. I’ve been here 18 years, so I understand the journey,” he says. “The response I received from former players, from our first four seniors in 2005 to today, was truly impossible to express.”
And now look where Bellarmine takes this 2-1 record. Davenport made it clear he’s not afraid of daunting schedules. When the program begins its transition to Division I in 2020, its very first opponent? Duke. Last November, the Knights faced Purdue, Gonzaga and UCLA. They lost by 39, 42 and 13, but so what? They finished 20-13.
Here is a new challenge. Clemson Friday, Duke Monday, Loyola Marymount next Friday, UCLA Sunday. Then red-eye from Los Angeles to Atlanta and connection to arrive in Louisville around 8 a.m. and bus to Lexington to play Kentucky the next evening.
UCLA. . . Red eyes. . . Kentucky. Who do this ?
“We looked at it from every angle possible,” says Davenport. “For example, we could have gone to Dallas and spent the night in an airport hotel. But what would happen if something crazy happened weather-wise? If something crazy happens in Atlanta, weather-wise, we can take the bus to Lexington.
Problem is, Davenport can’t even sleep on planes. He will study cinema on these red eyes. “But if you coach under Rick Pitino,” he says, “you learn that sleep is overrated.”
It’s natural to ask: why do it?
“Maybe you’re not aware of it. . . “, Davenport begins, and you know there’s a story coming.
“Only four schools in the history of college basketball have played at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Pauley Pavilion and Rupp Arena. They are North Carolina, Notre Dame, St. John’s and Louisville. Only four. The closest ever occurred over two seasons, 333 days, from December to the following November. We’ll do it in nine days. If you were a Bellarmine player, would you be excited about this? Yes. So, in this program, our players are priority. Whatever it takes. It’s not just about talking.
“I could bring in Coach Pitino and Coach Crum and we could come up with the best practice plan in the world, but I can’t simulate playing with Cameron and Pauley and Rupp. I can’t simulate that in practice. What better environment to learn in? When you talk about these players playing at Cameron and playing at the Yum! Center and playing at Pauley and playing at Rupp Arena, they’re part of something that’s bigger than them, to bring out them things that they perhaps don’t even know exist. That’s what teaching is.
So he doesn’t see it as a burden, but as a gift for Bellarmine and his players. And his city. He grew up four blocks from where the Kentucky Derby is held, in a neighborhood that has seen better days. Another story . . .
“Many people have a swing in their garden. I had Churchill Downs. I drove past my house on Labor Day. It’s not the same, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But I almost went home that day, put my lawn mower back in my car and went to cut the grass.
He attended Iroquois High School, which also had its share of struggles. Another story, about being invited to speak to faculty at a professional development day in September. At least that’s what he thought. . .
“It is the lowest performing school on standardized measures in the state of Kentucky. I arrived on a Saturday and I mean, I got ready, I’m ready. I arrived on Sunday and have everything polished, I’m ready to go. I ran four miles that morning, I’m ready, I’m dressed, I’m going over there, I’m opening the door. . . “
He was greeted not only by the guy who invited him, but also by former teammates, family members, neighbors and friends he had known his whole life. It was not a speech, but a celebration of him, with a big banner: Scotty’s Iroquois. ” I had no idea. I cried five times. I had no chance.
Now in his sixties, his mind that day returned to the authority figures who had meant so much to him. More stories. . .
“My father never saw me do anything. My mother told me just before she passed away 13 years ago, “you could get a real job and make something of yourself.” I never had a job because a job is a vocation by definition. I had a plea. What I defend is for young people, just like it was done for me. After we won the national championship, I was going back to the locker room and I said, “I wonder what my mom is thinking now?”
“The first police officer I ever met in my life, there was no EMTS, no defibrillators, no CPR, nothing. They picked up my father in a station wagon and took him away on a stretcher. I don’t know yet where they took him. The next time I saw him was at a funeral home. But this was my first interaction with a police officer, so you can imagine how respectful I am to police officers.
And he remembers the little people. He started a Davenport Family Scholarship. Do you know who for? Student managers. During the announcement, he asked the superintendent of Louisville Public Schools to say a few words. “Want to know his background? Student manager for Coach Knight at IU.
Yes, Lawrence and Evelyn Davenport’s boy is doing well, and his hometown loves him for it. Take last spring, when Bellarmine beat Jacksonville at Freedom Hall to win the Atlantic Sun Conference tournament. The fans were over the moon. Their small Division II program had grown very quickly. Davenport remembers a postgame celebration when an elderly man asked him to sign a ball. Another story . . .
“He hands me a Sharpie and I look down and it’s a ball with the ASUN logo on it. He removed it from the rack and left Freedom Hall.
Two years in Division I, and the Knights won a championship title. But not the big price tag that usually comes with it. Not an NCAA tournament bid, or even a berth in the NIT. The NCAA imposed a four-year waiting rule for schools moving up to Division I, and that slammed the door.
Davenport could last there for hours.
“It has totally consumed my life since March 8th. The reason is that I look these players in the eyes every day. If it was 3 and a half minutes and we were down four and they gave up on me, can you imagine what that locker room would be like? So how could I stop them?
“The ironic thing is that on May 14, two months later, five players earned eight college degrees: five bachelor’s degrees, two master’s degrees in business administration and one master’s degree in education. And they’re going to tell my guys they can’t play, and they won’t explain to me why their rule is the way it is?
“When all the changes happened in college sports, they became very optimistic (about reversing the four-year rule). They’re going to get a change, too — and they didn’t. Everything else has changed. The portal, NIL, everything has changed. I don’t understand how we made all the changes except this one. There’s a kid in this community who went to four high schools and then he went to Auburn, Tennessee and Washington State. He never missed a possession. What do you think my children think?
“We watched the selection on Sunday together because I wanted to support my players, because you knew what was going through their minds. It wasn’t just that, we were led to believe we could play in the NIT the day we transitioned. We ran up the Freedom Hall ramp that night and thought we were in the NIT and the next day we found out we weren’t.
Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, wrote letters on Bellarmine’s behalf, and he wasn’t just a politician trying to score points with his voters. His sons went to Bellarmine’s summer basketball camp. When that didn’t work, he sent the team to the governor’s mansion to honor his achievement.
Davenport, once a fatherless kid from Louisville, was ecstatic. But there was also work to be done last spring; a schedule to be carried out for the 2022-23 season. And he had an idea.
Cameron Indoor Stadium. . . Pauley Pavilion. . . Rupp Arena. All at once in November. Think about the stories he would have to tell. There’s always room for more in the world of Scotty Davenport.
