Spates Finds a New Home

Sometimes, going to school over 1,500 miles away from home is a good move for a young person.  The idea is that they get to discover themselves, learn to connect with their family without being present all the time, and grow up by having to be on their own.  It sounds good, and happens often enough, but it’s not quite how the script reads for Eugene Spates.  For him, going to school far from home has led to something more, and in an area one might not expect.

Spates is a very likeable young man who has been a key player in a season that has seen Northeastern contend for the Colonial Athletic Association regular season title.  His time at the school is the first time he’s been far from home for long, although there were times where the possibility of going away was there.  And while his play on the court has been the best of his career this season, it’s not an accident in light of the fact that he’s been in a good situation.

The 6′8″ senior grew up in Dallas as one of five children, but it’s a complicated picture.  His parents separated before he was born, and he’s the oldest on his mother’s side and youngest on his father’s side.  He grew up with his mother, and his father now lives in New York and had a hand in Eugene’s decision to go to Northeastern.  His father, with whom he did not have much of a relationship before college, told him the northeast would be a good place to come, and when the offer from Northeastern came, he took it.

Not only is his father just a few hours away, but one of his sisters went to high school in Andover, which is about 20 miles north of Boston.  She now attends Wesleyan College in Connecticut, but visited him often while in high school.  That’s made it easier on him being away from home for the first time, and when he describes Boston as being a “home away from home”, it doesn’t just mean he’s come to like the area.

Spates was not highly recruited coming out of high school.  He didn’t play travel team basketball consistently, which didn’t help in that respect, and as such didn’t have any Division I offers.  Nowadays, many kids would choose to do a year of prep school, but that wasn’t big in Texas – a state full of powerful junior colleges – and no one advised him in that direction, hence he didn’t give much thought to going away to a prep school.

That led Spates off to Dallas Colin County Community College, just 15 minutes from home.  He had a solid freshman year, leading the team in scoring and rebounding.  Since he was academically eligible coming out of high school, he could transfer to a four-year school and have three years of eligibility, so his recruitment picked up.  Northeastern head coach Bill Coen, who had just taken the job, remembered Spates from his high school days, as Spates on occasion played with former Boston College guard Marquez Haynes.  Coen remembered the 6′8″ forward from those days and liked the combination of size, athleticism and his skill set, feeling he could provide a matchup problem at either forward spot.

UTEP, which sent him letters during his high school days, offered him almost as soon as he arrived in junior college.  He also visited Texas Tech, which offered as well, and SMU was a consideration since it was close to home.  He didn’t have anywhere to go after visiting SMU, but shortly after that visited Northeastern and got a good feeling from Coen.  For the first time, he was heading away from home.

In his first two years, Spates had his moments, although he did not necessarily have a clear niche on the team.  Although dangerous from long range, that worked both ways, as he was at times a gunner.  He had some excellent defensive games along the way, proof that he could deliver a lot more than the three-point shot.  As the Huskies tried to find themselves with a largely inexperienced roster, to a degree Spates did as well, starting 10 games in two seasons along the way.

The off-season before this year set the senior season in motion for Spates.  When the team went on a trip to Canada near the end of the summer, Spates was one of the most consistent Huskies and had shown significant improvement in several facets of his game.  He showed some early improvement rebounding and on defense, and looked ready to finish his college career on a good note.

Then the games started, and he became a fixture in the starting lineup.  He’s started all but two games, has had more of those good defensive games, and while his rebounding numbers are in line with those of his first two years, he’s much more than a dangerous long range shooter.  In the Huskies’ win at VCU, Spates helped break the press a number of times with either a key pass or by dribbling past midcourt.  Perhaps the most telling sign of how much his improvement has coincided with the team’s success is that he shot over 42 percent from long range in January, and the Huskies went 9-1.

While he’s shown improvement in all of those areas, he has likewise shot better from long range than he has in his first two seasons.  It goes to show how he improved other facets of his game and his shooting just followed from it.  As a result, he’s led them to big wins with his shooting as well, like their win over Providence early in the season with 17 points that included making five of seven from long range, and he had a career-high 22 points at Wright State in February.

At Northeastern, he hasn’t played in front of big crowds, even this season as the Huskies have spent a lot of time in first place in the CAA.  All the while, he has witnessed the hockey team consistently selling out.  That’s led him to encourage friends that he goes to hockey games with to come to basketball games along the way, and it’s something he’s seen before.

Growing up in Dallas, the home of the Cowboys, football is king, and that’s also the case throughout Texas and not just at the professional level.  He didn’t play it much, although he liked soccer as a kid before growing into basketball, and says part of why he’s not the biggest football fan is that growing up, the football team at his school was king and basketball played second fiddle.  “People would sometimes come to the basketball games because they were going to the football games all the time,” Spates recalls.

The criminal justice major has a couple of ideas for what he will do when basketball is all over.  His junior college experience helped there, as his coach often had the players volunteer to mentor kids in the community.  While he hopes to become a police officer, that’s only the beginning, as he hopes to let that lead him into juvenile justice so he can give back to the community.  He knew the program at Northeastern had an excellent reputation, and has even had a class with well-known sociologist Jack Levin along the way.

In coming to Boston, Eugene Spates got time away from home, has had a good basketball experience in helping Northeastern rise again to contend in the CAA and is ready to get his degree in another year.  But he also saw his family relationships grow, and that was on display as much as any other time on Senior Night as his father and one of his sisters accompanied him during the pregame ceremony.  He went over 1,500 miles away from home and has gained more than he probably imagined he would.