There is no Levan Alston Sr. or Shizz Alston Jr. without legendary Temple head coach John Chaney.
Literally and figuratively.
Alston Sr. began his college career in New Orleans before Chaney recruited him to Temple for his junior and senior years. Without him transferring to play at Temple, he wouldn’t have met his future wife and the younger Alston may have never been born.
Not to mention Chaney, who Alston Sr. describes as the best coach ever, helped mold both he and his son into professional basketball players. He also taught the elder Alston generations worth of life lessons that he later passed down to his son, who currently plays overseas in Greece.
Alston Jr., who never played directly under Coach Chaney, said he always saw him as a grandfather figure. He added that a lot of the important lessons former head coach Fran Dunphy taught him also came from things that Chaney passed down.
In his time at Temple, the Philadelphia native led the American Athletic Conference and the Big 5 in scoring his senior year culminating in a trip to the First Four of the NCAA Tournament in 2018. He also ranks 13th on Temple’s all-time scoring list with 1,597 career points and decimated the program’s best career free throw percentage shooting an 88.5 percent clip across his four-year career.
Here are some excerpts from OwlScoop.com’s exclusive interview with Alston Jr.
Alston Jr. on two favorite Chaney memories:
“After the selection show [in 2018], when we found out we were in the tournament, I went upstairs to talk to some media and my dad brought me the phone. It was Coach Chaney. He was just talking about the previous games and cursing me out for some of the turnovers I had. He was just telling me how focused I would have to be for the tournament game coming up. He was just stressing that stuff but his main thing he was cursing me out about was not turning the ball over. And he was letting me know how important the games were for the university and for Philadelphia.”
“One day I had a crazy game. I think I had like seven turnovers. My dad said he was driving back home after the game and he got a call from Coach. He said Coach was screaming at the top of his lungs, cursing him out. He was saying, ‘Why did you let Shizz have seven turnovers? What are you doing having seven turnovers? This is your fault! I told you not to turn the ball over when you were here and now your son is doing it.’ And my dad was like, ‘Coach, it wasn’t me. I didn’t have the turnovers. Shizz had the turnovers.’ He said that Coach said, ‘When I see him I’m gonna kill him. When I see him I’m gonna curse him out. You can never have that many turnovers.’ I thought that was a funny story because my dad got cursed out for me having seven turnovers.”
Alston Jr. on Chaney’s impact on his family:
“Coach took a chance on my father when he was young, giving him a scholarship to Temple. From there, that affected my life just because that’s where my dad met my mom and that’s where my love for Temple came from. The way my dad taught me the game, there were a lot of lessons that Coach Chaney taught him. Hearing stories about Coach and just talking to Coach only grew my love for Temple and grew my love for the game. He made my dad a smart basketball player which, in turn, made me a pretty smart basketball player. I'm indebted to Coach forever because of the lessons that he taught my dad and the lessons that he was able to relay to me from Coach.”
Alston Jr. on his earliest memory with Chaney:
“I’m pretty sure I met him when I was just born because my dad was a senior at Temple so I met him during that time but I had gone to his camp when I was younger. Me, Jalen Brunson was there and a couple other former players’ kids. I was probably about three or four, I remember him being there. Like I said, he’s like a grandfather to me. I just had a feeling of knowing he would always look out for me and that he always cared throughout my entire time at Temple. I always knew he always cared about me and he was paying close attention to the things that I was doing.”
Alston Jr. on Chaney’s legacy:
“A man that lived his life wanting to help others more than he wanted to help himself. He always put others first and it was always about the team, and the players and the people in the Philadelphia community. He always wanted to better our society. He always wanted society to be better and his players to have bright futures. I always respected that the most about Coach because it was never about him. Coach [Fran] Dunphy taught me that when I was at Temple. It was never about you and I would say John Chaney embodied that. It was never about him, it was always about how he could help others and how he could push the needle forward helping the community. I think that’s how he should be remembered. Not only as a great basketball coach, but a great leader of men.”
