ESPN College Hoops Analyst Digger Phelps Speaks to Avon Old Farms Students

The evening began in a classical ESPN fashion with a video montage profiling moments from Richard "Digger" Phelps' illustrious career at the second ESPN speaker series lecture at Avon Old Farms Monday night.

As the lights dimmed on the crowd of young Winged Beavers and their faculty, the screen illuminated with a shot of Digger joyously sprinting across the home basketball court of Notre Dame and dancing while shaking hands with the opposing team’s head coach Jim Boeheim.

The video slipped into a parody of Digger where all of the commentary and highlights suddenly focused on his affinity for dancing when covering college basketball games. Finally the AOF crowd received a specialized introduction from Rece Davis, a fellow ESPN analyst, of the dancing Digger.

Digger’s fondness for dancing explains a lot about his accomplished and varied career. He is confident, passionate, loud and large, aggressive and a great storyteller. The fact that he shows no signs of hesitation or embarrassment when dancing in front of 20,000 college basketball fans and displaying his moves on national television reveals the true essence of his charisma.

When a member of the AOF audience asked why he chose to become a coach, he responded that coaching chose him after he was denied entry to the military academies due to poor verbal scores on his SATs. The man with low test scores would go on to become as special assistant to the Executive Office of the President for National Drug Control Policy (1992-93) for President George H.W. Bush's administration, working closely with the office’s Operation Weed and Seed anti-drug program. This same man also is deeply committed to national education reform and has been instrumental in providing pragmatic aide and financial support in the recovery of New Orleans.

Digger could have used the platform of the event to speak about his rich history in sports and surely would have won over the young, athletic, male crowd.

Instead, he focused on the changing state of the world today and how ever-increasing globalization will affect the citizens and environments of the world more and more. He challenged the boys to not take the easy route and to shape their own destinies rather than let them take form through external influences. This would all be possible if, he said, the students valued the global network AOF provides and to understand, nourish and grow as part of that network.

In a final exercise, displaying the fine verbal skills he has developed and his large personality, as well as his coaching prowess, his message about AOF’s invaluable international scope, and perhaps his good rhythm on the dance floor, he instructed the audience to clap once after he said the words, “Put your hands together.”

Digger said, “I will then say, ‘Who are you?’’’ and you will respond, “we are (clap twice) Avon - Old – Farms."

After a building chant he continued, “Okay, now comes the money-round."

“Put your hands together!” Digger proclaimed, a unified clap follows a beat later.

“Who are you?!” Digger asks.

“We are,” clap, clap,  “Avon – Old – Farms!” chanted the baritone audience.

Message received, another win for Digger Phelps.