Belmont's NCAA tourney hero inspires off the court
If it wasn't for Andy Wicke, Belmont might have been just another flattened No. 15 seed. In one of the most memorable first-round games from the 2008 NCAA tournament, the then-junior came off the bench to bury five of his seven shots -- including four long 3s -- for 14 perfectly timed points. With Wicke's help, the Bruins came within a single point of shocking two-seed Duke.
"Looking back on it is almost surreal," said Wicke of that 71-70 loss. "When you're in the moment like that, you don't understand the importance and significance of what was going on. … We were trying so hard to win. But we played so well, a lot of people connected to the program look at that almost as a win. You know, I can only really remember bits and pieces of the game. I don't remember the noise or the crowd, everything was so intense."
But not as intense as the five months that followed. His whirlwind summer adventure spanned from Brazil to Florida to the wilds of Tennessee, multiple academic disciplines, and a number of life-changing moments. What Andy Wicke did on his summer vacation was earn a world's worth of perspective.
Three months after his team's stunning near-miss at the Big Dance, the Bruins guard found himself in a house near Dale Hollow Lake in remote central Tennessee, accompanied only by his loyal dog Ernie.
"It was just an opportunity to take a step back from it all," said Wicke. "I got some time to think abut my life and all that kind of stuff, what I wanted, what's important."
Wicke was there for a purpose, and it wasn't to reenact Henry David Thoreau's woodland survival adventures. He's an environmental studies major at Belmont, looking to become the school's first graduate in the program's seven-year history next May. The 6-2 guard known around the Atlantic Sun Conference for his impact on games spent 24 days in June testing the human impact on the local ecosystem.
"I would get up every morning and go to the river," he explained. "There's a river below a dam on the lake, and I'd test the river's water quality. There's a stream that comes into the river and my question was whether or not that was acting as a source of pollution to the river. So I tested the water above and below for pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen. … I'd take microvertebrate samples. Anything that's alive and moving that wasn't a fish, I collected samples of."
During the evenings and nights, with his cellphone switched off and half a mile away from the nearest house, Wicke studied for the Dental Admission Test in preparation for graduate school in 2009. If you're wondering how somebody goes from testing water samples to drilling cavities, you're not alone.
"My friends kid me all the time," said Wicke. "They say I'm going to be the 'Green Dentist.' My grandpa's a dentist, my uncle's a dentist, so it runs in the family. I actually came into Belmont as a biology major with a premedical emphasis. And I've that found after looking at different dental schools that they like to diversify their incoming class, they don't necessarily like taking every kid with a biology degree."
Wicke might be able to beat out other applicants based on his list of extracurriculars alone. In May, he ventured into the sweltering samba of Rio de Janeiro with 11 other Belmont student-athletes. The two-week Brazil trip included a series of free basketball camps, all part of a unique sports mission program offered by the private Nashville-based Baptist university.
"We'd visit two or three schools in a day," said Wicke. "We'd show up, and the kids would be sitting in the gym waiting for us. We'd play a little bit and put on a little demonstration, go through some drills. We'd pull kids out of the crowd and relay line, let them play with us. Then we'd sit them down and talk about Jesus, talk about God, discuss making good decisions in life and not doing drugs. Then we'd hang out for a little while. The kids loved to ask us questions about America, what it's like to be in college and play basketball."
Betty Wiseman, a former basketball coach, spends 10 months a year coordinating and planning the program's annual trips.
"Student-athletes who go through this program see the world from a different perspective," said Wiseman. "Their priorities change. They're humbled to the core, and perhaps for the first time they realize how blessed they really are. As kids clamor over them and want to play with them, that's pretty humbling. They learn to recognize that you can impact people's lives just by loving them, reaching out with a smile or a touch or a hug, or just bouncing a ball with them."
The Brazil trip was Wicke's third consecutive trip with Wiseman's program. Over the previous two summers, he travelled to the Ukraine and Venezuela.
"Going to Rio was different than when we were in the other two places," said Wicke. "Rio is such a big city, you still feel the hustle and bustle and the high-society life they have there. The one thing that impressed me the most, especially in the Ukraine, is that every day at eleven o'clock in the morning everything shut down. You couldn't go anywhere, nothing was open. Everyone went to their homes, families got together, they'd cook a meal and eat together for two hours. They'd just hang out. I was so impressed by that.
"I've found that when I come back to the States, we're so busy all the time, always searching for the things we don't have. We think that by working more, we're going to find happiness by providing more material things for the people we love, instead of just spending time with them."
He'll go overseas again next May, when Belmont's sports ministry travels to South Africa. Wiseman says that Wicke isn't someone she needs to spend too much time convincing to go.
"Andy made that commitment as soon as we got back from Brazil," said Wiseman. "These trips have had such a profound impact on him as a human being. He has this dream of forming an organization of dentists where each one of them has their own practices but will donate one day a week at a local ministry … so they can treat and care for people who can't afford to come to their office. I can't wait to see what God's going to do in his life."
In July, Wicke made another sort of commitment, popping the question to his childhood sweetheart.
"It's kind of like one of those fairy tales, something you might read in some book," said Wicke. "Emily grew up four houses away from me in Hendersonville. We've been next-door neighbors and best friends since we were 11 years old. When we were sophomores in high school, we started dating. We've been together for seven years now, so we knew we wanted to get married, our friends and families knew we wanted to get married. It wasn't a big surprise to anybody."
But the proposal itself, carefully planned during Wicke's time in isolation at Dale Hollow Lake, was as intricate and surprising as a triple screen play.
"Her dad's a banker," Wicke explained. "He told the family he was going to a bank convention in Naples, Florida, and that they were going to use it as a weekend vacation. Emily bought that whole gig. Then I told her that my brother, who's an architecture student at Auburn, was flying to a presentation with his professor in Marco Island, which is just south of Naples … and that my family was flying down to see his presentation and hang out for the weekend. She didn't suspect anything at this point."
Emily remained in the dark until the last minute, when her family gathered for an evening dinner at their rented beachfront condominium.
"When her family got out there, my mom and dad and brother came walking down the beach," Wicke continued. "They were like, 'Wow, what a coincidence.' Emily was starting to figure out that something was up, and she asked where I was. 'Oh, he couldn't make it, but he wanted you to have this present.' So she opened up this box, there were two dozen roses and a card inside, and while she read the card I came walking up behind her and proposed. It was thunderstorming everywhere except for a one-mile radius around where we were, and then a school of dolphins came by off the coast.
"It's like I paid those dolphins."
Needless to say, Emily said yes. But before they tie the knot, Wicke has to finish his undergraduate degree from Belmont and -- oh, yeah -- lead the Bruins back to the NCAA tournament.
As a member of a program with three straight Atlantic Sun championships, Wicke will aim for the storybook win that barely eluded his squad back in March. He's looking to become one of just eight current players in Division I to play in his fourth straight Big Dance.
"I really don't want to look back and think I could have done more," said Wicke. "When I'm 40 or 50 years old, I want to be sure that I did everything I could to help my team get back there. I want to play well, I want to have the best year I've had. I've been reflecting on this all summer … every night this year when I put my head on the pillow, I want to know that I've done the most and the best that I could possibly do that day."
And as a member of a four-senior starting five, he'll be the one his coach relies upon to instill that message in his teammates.
"He's the kind of guy we've built our program around these last several years," said Belmont coach Rick Byrd. "He's been a vocal leader and a positive force every moment that he's been here. Our guys tend to be sort of quiet … not Andy, though. If he wanted to, he could be a senator or a governor."
A Green Dentist Governor. Duke never graduated one of those.
Kyle Whelliston is the national mid-major reporter for Basketball Times and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
