It was in the back of a small chartered plane during some Northern Michigan University road trip when Tom Izzo leaned toward Wildcat teammate Mike Garland and unveiled his long-range plan.
“He said he was going to be a big-time coach and he wanted me to be his assistant,” Garland recalled. “I said I don’t want to be a coach; I want to make money. And he said, well, after you make your money you can come coach with me. We were just 19-year-old kids.”
Some 40 years later, Garland was standing on the steps going up to the grand entrance of the Springfield Symphony Hall where his long-time friend was about to inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.