Sometimes, Glenn Sergent feels more like a kindergarten teacher than a basketball coach.

His team, Nike Elite, spends more time on name games than it does on lay-up drills. Team meetings revolve around sportsmanship lessons. Often, players lose their tempers too quickly.

‘I got into this job for a little bit of glory,’ said Sergent, 74. ‘Obviously, that’s not what I’ve found.’

Instead, after 50-plus years of coaching, Sergent has a bunch of basketball misfits connected by nothing other than the Nike Elite jersey. They meet for a few days of practice and then travel the country to play top college teams. That’s why, when Sergent brings his Nike Elite team to play Syracuse at the Carrier Dome tonight at 7, he’ll be thrilled to escape with his pride.

‘We’re not going to win most of our games,’ Sergent said. ‘We’re just hoping to be competitive. I don’t get the best or the brightest players. I get the other guys, and it’s my job to get the best out of them. We’re playing against a stacked deck.’

Sergent selects his players over the summer. Usually, he aims for solid college players who professional teams don’t want. He gets calls from dozens of agents eager to find a gig – any gig – for their athletes.

After a tryout camp in September, Sergent calls his group together for two days of practice in late October. Sometimes, the players arrive woefully out of shape. Though Nike Elite formed in 2000, Sergent has plenty of experience coaching other barnstorming exhibition teams.

‘I went to pick up one guy at the airport about 15 years ago, and he had long hair and 75 extra pounds,’ said Sergent, then the coach of a traveling exhibition team named Marathon Oil. ‘I told him ‘Do me a favor and just turn around and get back on the plane.’ I didn’t even drive him home.

‘At best, our guys show up kind of in shape, like an eight out of 10. We play teams that have all 10s.’

The stacked deck doesn’t end there. Consider:

n Unlike college teams, Nike Elite sometimes plays back-to-back games. Last night, it opened its eight-game season at Connecticut. Tonight, it plays Syracuse.

n Forget charter flights. Nike Elite players usually get stuck with long bus rides. Today, for instance, Nike Elite will trek five hours from Storrs, Conn., forcing it to miss a morning shootaround in the Dome.

n Nike Elite doesn’t get to stay at the posh University Sheraton hotel like most visiting teams. Instead, they’ll be in the Holiday Inn at Carrier Circle.

n ‘Not only do we not play home games,’ Sergent said, ‘but refs don’t really tend to be our friends. They’re looking out for the college teams, most of the time.

‘We’re like second-class citizens.’

Not to say Sergent doesn’t get talented players – sometimes. This year, his team features former Kansas star Jeff Boschee and Nick Sheppard, a 6-foot-11 Pepperdine graduate who nearly made the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.

‘We’ve got enough to stay competitive,’ Sergent said. ‘We don’t have anything more than that. We never do.

‘Are we good? Not really. But that’s not what we’re about.’

Published on November 3, 2003 at 12:00 pm