‘Very Spartan’: UK’s next opponent mixes basketball with military discipline

Kentucky’s opponent in Sunday’s game struggles to adhere to the NCAA’s 20-hour limit on time spent on athletics activities per week. But there’s no need to alert the NCAA enforcement staff. The rigorous time demands placed on Virginia Military Institute students make it difficult for the players to spend as much as 20 hours each week on basketball.

“I think it’s safe to say we don’t get there, so I don’t have to worry about that,” Coach Dan Earl said. “So you can look at that as a positive in some ways.”

Earl said he and his players usually spend about 18 hours on basketball each week, he said.

“It’s not like we’re practicing for 30 minutes a day,” he said.

But it’s also not like the players are doing a lot of lounging around nor forming a “Breakfast Club,” the term UK gave to the voluntary workouts some players did prior to classes in the 2011-12 season.

Michael Sparks, a Tates Creek High School product who played for the Keydets, recalled a “very vigorous” lifestyle at VMI.

“Very Spartan,” he said. “You live it 24/7.”

Sparks recalled two or three 10-mile marches per school year. There were visits to military bases. There was study hall from 8 to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday.

A bugle sounded reveille at 7 each morning. Students marched to breakfast. Another “formation” — what civilians call dinner — came in the evening. Curfews were in place at night.

The rules were enforced with drill sergeant intensity. When asked if it was correct to assume students were yelled at, Sparks said, “Oh gosh. You are correct. It was a pretty common thing to have somebody in your face. You definitely develop some thick skin.”

Academic work is taken seriously.

“Part of the challenge is we take real students, not that everybody doesn’t try to do that,” Earl said. “But the academics — for lack of a better term — are real.”

Then there’s ROTC training.

And if basketball conflicted with an off-court activity? “Usually, to the coaches’ dismay, it would be all to the military aspect of things,” Sparks said.

Bringing in transfers is not practical. So no graduate transfer like, say, Reid Travis, could bolster a team. According to military rules, all transfers start off as freshmen. “How many kids want to do that as, say, juniors in college?” Earl said.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that VMI basketball has a losing record: 859-1,430 (.375 winning percentage) according to Wikipedia. Earl, a point guard for Penn State as a player, has a four-year record of 27-67 record as VMI coach. The last VMI coach to have a winning record was Guy Harvey “Pinky” Spruhan, whose teams went 38-9 in 1919 through 1922.

The Keydets have played in three NCAA tournaments. The most recent was in 1977, when VMI lost 93-78 in the Sweet 16 round to Kentucky.

“It’s one of the challenges,” Earl said of VMI’s lack of a winning tradition. “And I think all jobs have challenges. It depends on how you sell your program and you’re vision of your program. For us, a lot of times it’s, ‘Hey, come be a part and change that. Create your own footprint.’

“It’s our belief that if we get enough guys of the right character, that are hard-working, that want to be in the gym, that, hey, we can go build something. How proud would alums be? And would you want to be part of something like that?”

VMI alums include such seemingly unlikely people as actors Fred Willard and Dabney Coleman. Comedy legend Mel Brooks also attended VMI. Alums who made their mark in the military include World War II-era generals George Patton and George Marshall.

“The alumni give back so much to the school,” Sparks said. “It’s incredible what they do. You really make some lifelong friendships going to VMI and becoming a graduate.”

Sunday

VMI at No. 10 Kentucky

When: 6 p.m.

What: Ohio Valley Hardwood Showcase

Records: VMI 3-1; UK 2-1

Series: UK leads 5-3

Last meeting: VMI won 111-103 on Nov. 14, 2008, in Rupp Arena

TV: SEC Network

Radio: WLAP-630, WBUL-98.1