Now healthy, Tum Tum Nairn will be Spartans' leader

EAST LANSING – It looked impossibly high when he threw it, and if it weren’t for the heavenly athleticism of its intended recipient, the pass would’ve sailed harmlessly out of bounds.

Michigan State’s Tum Tum Nairn knew better. He’d gotten the ball on the break and had sped down the court when he spotted Miles Bridges trailing to his left. He flicked the ball underhanded, a parabolic lob, and as the ball rose so did the crowd in the bleachers at the Moneyball Pro-Am in Dimondale.

Bridges leapt, caught the ball at its apex, and thunderously redirected it through the hoop. Nairn raced back down the court to set up for defense.

If we’re thinking about what next season’s MSU basketball team might look like, this is a good place to start. Outrageous athleticism on the wing. Darting, relentless speed at the point.

For most of last year, MSU missed that breakneck push up the middle, because the player responsible for that battled a nasty case of plantar fasciitis. Even when Nairn felt relatively pain-free, in the first couple of weeks of the season, he was still walking around in a protective boot.

It just got worse from there. So much that the player who’d performed as a one-man fast break at a Wooden Legacy tournament in southern California — he’d even made a few jump shots — was a ghost of himself by Christmas.

By the time Iowa rolled into the Breslin Center in mid-January, Nairn could barely move. That night, in a blowout loss to the Hawkeyes, the diminutive sophomore point guard appeared lost on defense … for the first time in his life.

“I remember calling him into my office after that game and finally saying, ‘Tum, how bad is it?’ ” said coach Tom Izzo.

It was the first time Izzo had ever seen tears from one of the toughest players he’s ever coached.

At that point, Nairn was in so much pain he couldn’t sleep. He needed roommates to help him get around his apartment. Yet he was so worried about his basketball future that he had kept it from Izzo and his coaching staff.

When the truth came out, Nairn broke down.

“He was relieved,” said Izzo.

Nairn grew up in the Bahamas, in a single-room house with plywood floors and no running water. His father was a steelworker who had to hustle to find work. At night, he shared a bed with his dad, his mom and his brother.

“But we didn’t want for anything,” he said.

Seidel: After tough journey, Nairn thankful to play for Izzo

At 13, a coach from Florida saw him play in a showcase event and invited him to move to Ft. Lauderdale. Nairn shared a house with 21 kids. He got up at 4:30 a.m. for workouts. He played ball. Studied. And cried himself to sleep every night for the first three months he was in the states.

“It was hard waking up and not seeing (my family),” he said.

He eventually got used to it, and survived by the routine. … Ironing his school clothes, washing dishes, helping to make his own meals. At 16, the school closed and he moved back to the Bahamas.

Five months later, another coach came calling, asked him to get to Freeport for a showcase, then didn’t show up. Nairn played like he always had anyway, fast and relentless. A coach from Wichita, Kansas noticed, and invited him to join his team at a Christian school in that city.

Again, he was on his own. This time, though, he found the right coach. They met at the gym every morning at 5:30.

He always had the drive. That wasn’t the issue.

Consistency in personality was. Sometimes he brought his naturally outgoing self to practice or lifting sessions, and sometimes he didn’t. Sure, he always worked, but his coach noticed if he was quiet, the rest of the team didn’t work as hard. They needed his leadership.

“One day my coach got into me and said, ‘Look, you are never going to be LeBron, you are never going to be Kobe, this is who you are. You need to be this way all the time,’” Nairn recalled. “I’ve been that way ever since.”

Izzo didn’t begin recruiting Nairn until late in his senior year, after MSU had missed out on higher profile guards. Nairn didn’t mind. He was considering Indiana and Minnesota when MSU finally called. Nairn got on a plane for Lansing the next day. Izzo picked him up at the airport.

“The first thing he said to me was that I smiled like Magic,” Nairn said.

“Yeah, I remember telling him that,” said Izzo.

What took him longer to spot was Nairn’s ability to command a locker room. Actually, it was Draymond Green who noticed first.

“Coach, I don’t think you’ve had a freshman captain have you? Well, you’ve got one now. The guy is unbelievable,” Green told him.

Nairn became captain last season as a sophomore, one of only three in the history of MSU’s program — Magic Johnson and Mateen Cleaves were the others. He’d worked on his game in the off-season after his freshman year, then he hurt his foot.

Four months ago, doctors performed a small surgical procedure to help relieve the pain. He walked on crutches for three days, stayed off it for 10 more, and hobbled for the next eight weeks as it healed.

Two months ago, he returned to the gym. Pain free. With a couple of stud freshman in tow — Bridges and Josh Langford. The three of them arrive at the Breslin practice facility every morning at seven. They work. They lift. They shoot. Then they study and rejoin the team for lunch.

After film study and free throw work in the afternoon, the team gathers for dinner. Maybe even a movie.

“We take turns picking one out,” said Nairn.

Nairn fell in love with MSU because of its togetherness.

“I was away from my family and needed another one,” he said.

Now he is its leader. And healthy. And anxious to show off his improved jumper.

With all the expectation of the incoming freshman class, Nairn’s presence is as important as anyone’s.

“He’s just different,” said Izzo. “Every day I see him he’s smiling. He tells me he’s happy to be alive. That it’s a great day. Every single day. I’ve never met anyone like him.”

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.

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