Oct. 26, 2017
By Zac Ellis
VUCommodores.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Casey Shaw stood on the edge of the glistening hardwood floor at Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gym, where the Commodores’ men’s basketball team squeaked and sprinted through a preseason practice. In that moment, Shaw couldn’t contain his smile.
“My favorite part of the job? Right now,” Shaw said. “This was what I missed so much. When I finished playing, I didn’t miss the games as much as the practices and the locker room. There’s nothing like this.”
Coaching is still new to Shaw, in his second year as an assistant coach on Bryce Drew’s Vanderbilt staff. The former Toledo center had never worked full-time as a coach prior to arriving on West End in the spring of 2016. Now Shaw is hitting a stride he didn’t know he had, a welcome return to the game he loves.
“I told my wife the other day, I haven’t worked a single day in about a year and a half,” Shaw said.
Basketball has been ingrained in Shaw’s conscience since his playing days at Toledo, where he authored an all-conference career; he still ranks second in program history in career blocks (107) and sixth in career field-goal percentage (.546). Shaw went on to play in the NBA and abroad for 11 years. When his playing career ended, he joined Balasa Dinverno Foltz, LLC, in Chicago as Director of the Professional Athlete Service Team. There, Shaw helped mentor pro athletes in business, career, and investment decisions.
But Shaw’s future took a turn when his phone rang last spring. Drew, the longtime coach at Valparaiso, had just accepted the job at Vanderbilt. He wanted Shaw to join his staff as an assistant.
The connection was not random. Shaw and Drew first met when the latter took a recruiting visit to Toledo during Shaw’s freshman season.
“My coach comes to me and says we’re about to host a top-50 recruit. It ended up being Bryce,” Shaw recalled. “Turns out the only reason he even visited Toledo was to visit his sister, Dana, who was an All-American on the women’s basketball team.”
What does Drew remember about that weekend?
“Hanging out with my sister,” Drew said with a laugh.
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Drew didn’t end up at Toledo, but he did play unintentional matchmaker for Shaw and Dana Drew. The two hoops stars met, began dating and went on to get married. Today they have been married 22 years and have four children, and when Bryce Drew was assembling his staff at Vanderbilt, he knew his brother-in-law would be a perfect fit in Nashville.
Shaw had never coached basketball full-time, but the concept was not foreign to the former NBA player. He had coached his son’s AAU team and served as a tryout coach at the National Basketball Developmental League. Shaw even took part in the NBA Assistant Coaches Program in 2014, learning the basics of scouting and other intricacies of the job.
Drew had noticed a talent for coaching in his brother-in-law for some time. In Drew’s eyes, Shaw had all the experience necessary thanks to his lengthy playing career.
“Through the years, I’d talked to him about coaching,” Drew said. “It was something that was in his heart, if the right opportunity came up. Some people have coached for 20 years, while others have been in locker rooms for 20 years learning from coaches. You’re listening to Jerry Sloan talk or being taught by Larry Brown. That’s a different feel you can bring to the game.”
Since taking the plunge, Shaw hasn’t looked back. He primarily works with Vanderbilt’s post players, a group that must replace All-SEC center Luke Kornet from last season’s NCAA tournament team. After one year on West End, the learning curve is not as steep for Shaw. Now the ins and outs of college coaching come more easily.
So, too, do the memories of Shaw’s playing days – all which first sparked his love of the game.
“When I was in business, our CEO would talk about a ‘team culture’ in the firm,” Shaw said. “I used to sit and think, ‘You have no idea.’ With this team, to work with a group of people that you genuinely enjoy being around, all with a common goal, the only thing you might compare it to is a military situation. Now, getting to know the guys, seeing them mature, guys like Riley LaChance, Jeff Roberson and Matthew Fisher-Davis, these guys really grow up. It’s fun to see.”
“For me, it’s been a great fit at Vanderbilt.”
Zac Ellis is the Writer and Digital Media Editor for Vanderbilt Athletics.