McCallie basketball coach John Shulman directs players during their Dr. Pepper TEN Classic basketball tournament game at McCallie School on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017, in Chattanooga, Tenn.During those rare spare moments that John Shulman isn't coaching McCallie School's basketball team, helping Amy raise their three sons or working hard for his favorite charity, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, he has become addicted to ESPN's 30-for-30 and E:60 documentaries.
"I watch them every chance I get," he said this week. "So often they're about overcoming adversity of one kind or another. It's a message we all need to hear."
Those documentaries previously have inspired Shulman to reach out to longtime TBS and TNT broadcaster Ernie Johnson and former University of Michigan basketball player Austin Hatch to headline the first two Mountain View Auto Group tipoff luncheons for McCallie's midwinter Dr Pepper TEN Classic high school basketball showcase.
This year's choice for the headline speaker at the Super Bowl weekend event?
"We're going with Ryan Leaf," the McCallie coach said of the player chosen with the No. 2 overall pick in the 1998 NFL draft, just behind some guy named Peyton Manning.
If any former pro athlete is the picture most perfect of self-inflicted adversity, it's Leaf, who was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article this year detailing his fall from NFL quarterback to pain-pill addict: "I was a bad person. When I came to the NFL, there were three things that were important to me: money, power and prestige. I just had zero perspective on what was important."
Within five years he was out of pro football. At the age of 35 he tried to commit suicide. Soon after that he was sent to prison for 32 months for attempting to steal pain pills from neighbors' homes.
In the final months of that incarceration he went with his cellmate to the prison library to teach other inmates how to read. Noted Leaf in the L.A. Times article: "It was the first time in my life that I had ever been of service to anybody but myself. Ever."
Given those brief glimpses into his past, it would seem certain that Leaf will be of service to many during his McCallie visit on Friday, Feb. 2.
Not that plopping down $50 a person for the luncheon (or $300 for a table of seven) includes the four terrific games spread over Friday and Saturday nights. But $20 per night for general admission will.
And the basketball is also pretty special, starting with perennial national power Oak Hill Academy, which features recent Kentucky signee Keldon Johnson. Throw in Hamilton Heights Christian Academy, Ensworth out of Nashville and McCallie and you've got high school hoops at its highest level.
The weekend also includes a Friday afternoon dunk contest for the participating teams' players as well as a 3-point contest Saturday night between the Ensworth-Oak Hill (6 p.m.) and Hamilton Heights-McCallie games.
Friday's matchups in McCallie's Sports and Activities Center are Ensworth versus Hamilton Heights at 6 and McCallie-Oak Hill at 8.
There will also be a free youth clinic for first- through fifth-graders from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. Oak Hill coach Steve Smith and Shulman will run the clinic.
"The free clinic makes it more of a community event," McCallie athletic director Jeff Romero said. "We've had good attendance in the past, and we hope that will continue."
If Shulman can keep bringing in speakers such as Johnson, Hatch and Leaf, the Dr Pepper TEN Classic should continue for years to come.
"In a way, Ernie ruined it for everybody else," Shulman said as he recalled Johnson's amazing and emotional talk about not only beating cancer but the rewards the whole Johnson family had received raising their adopted special-needs son Michael.
"He was so good that first year that everybody who followed him couldn't just be a well-known name, they needed to have an inspiring message. Then Austin talked about surviving two plane crashes that cost him his whole family. We think Leaf's story of redemption will be equally powerful."
After all, ESPN doesn't do documentaries on folks who don't have a compelling story to tell.
Anyone interested in attending any or all of the Dr Pepper TEN events should register at http://bit.ly/2kwILud. For this weekend only (today through Sunday), patrons can receive a 20 percent discount on their entire tickets order. The discount will be taken upon checkout. Use the Promo Code GOBIGBLUE.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.