Will local AAU scene change with Hardaway at Memphis?

Ernie Kuyper knew Memphis men’s basketball assistant coach Mike Miller was seated in the stands at Christian Brothers High School last Friday night, surveying the scene on one of 13 courts around the area being used as part of the third annual Memphis in May Invitational.

So Kuyper phrased what he said next about Miller’s new boss carefully.

“I’m happy Penny Hardaway is the coach of the Memphis Tigers for a lot of reasons. For the city of Memphis, but also for the AAU scene,” said Kuyper, who is also Miller’s cousin. “He’s Michael Jordan to those kids and now he’s gone. He was the titan of AAU basketball in Memphis and I was competitors with him for five years. That’s a tough job.”

The hiring of Hardaway, and his decision to add Miller as an assistant coach, didn’t just alter the trajectory of the Tigers’ basketball program this offseason. It also fundamentally changed the local grassroots basketball scene. The effect their move to the college ranks could have is a topic being discussed in gyms around Memphis right now.

Will Memphis AAU basketball stay the same?

Over the past decade, Hardaway helped turn Team Penny into a nation-

man Florida together.

“Through the years, it became a way for me to spend time with my father,” Sass said. “We both loved bikes and we did a lot of biking and racing together.”

Even when her father couldn’t run some races, the two always talked to discuss race strategy. After each race, he was the first person Sass would call to share how it went.

At the USAT National championships last year, Sass won both the Sprint and Olympic distance races on consecutive days. On her blog, she called it the highlight of her career but the best part was her father there as her biggest supporter.

“He was my coach, my training partner, my racing partner, my best friend, my rock,” Sass wrote on her blog.

Racing for his memory

On Mother’s Day she went for a bike ride and couldn’t help but think of when she had similar rides with her father and just quietly shared the moment without worrying about training.

“That was our special time and we loved it,” Sass said, “A lot of people get caught up in the competitiveness and the focus on specific training and interval. But for us, it was always about just really enjoying being out together on the bike and taking the time to appreciate the sunrise.”

This weekend won’t be the first race Sass has run since her father’s passing.

She ran a triathlon in March while serving as a guide for a visually impaired triathlete. When she did a duathlon in South Carolina, the emotions came flooding back as she approached the starting line.

Now with this weekend in Memphis, she acknowledges this will be her most difficult race. She’s run it before while four months pregnant with her first child but now it will be without the man who helped start this racing chapter.

But she also remembers the motto that her Dad instilled her after a duathlon in 2015: KMF – Keep Moving Forward. Even if this weekend and her racing career won’t be the same without his voice, his presence reminds her why she still enjoys the anticipation before each race.

“There’s something about (racing), it just helps balance out the rest of my life and I just love it,” Sass said. “Even after my Dad passed, I wondered if I would be able to do it by myself without him. When I did that race in South Carolina, as soon as I toed the line, I was like this is right where I need to be and right where I want to be.”

That’s the attitude Sass plans to bring this weekend. Although she will be sad, she knows the peace that comes from doing a race she and her father loved.