Final in a four-part series on former Marquette star and NBA great Dwyane Wade as he prepares to be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Aug. 12. 

Since he left Marquette, Dwyane Wade has ascended into a global celebrity.

He was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People Magazine in 2005. He attends Fashion Week in Paris. He's got his own wines.

Now he is the first former MU player elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

But former Golden Eagles coaches and teammates fondly remember a young kid growing into his own skin.

Greg Clausen (MU center, 1997-2001): "We would always go back to Humphrey Hall, and this dates me here, but we would play Mike Tyson’s Punch Out on Nintendo 64. We would battle back and forth until like 1 or 2 in the morning. I’d be like, oh, we got to be at Valley Field at like 6 a.m. for conditioning. Like, D, I’m a senior I can handle it, you’re a freshman, you might want to get your rest."

Travis Diener (MU guard, 2001-05): "I’ve told this before and it’s been documented, he’s a horrible sleeper. We were roommates on the road and I’m a very light sleeper. But I would have to almost race to fall asleep first. Otherwise it wouldn’t work, he’d be snoring his ass off and I’d be pushing him. I’d be chucking pillows at him. At times, I would have to find a different room to go sleep in or a couple times I actually slept in the bathtub. It was fun. And obviously he deserves everything to come his way and he’s worked extremely hard. To be one of the greatest basketball players of all time is the pinnacle of our sport."

Chris Grimm (MU center, 2002-06): "My favorite D-Wade moment was my freshman year. It was probably about zero degrees outside. You know that freshman doldrums, where everything was just really hard? I was walking across campus by myself, freezing my butt off and I heard someone call out to me. 'Chris! Chris!' I’m like ‘Who is calling me?’ And it was Dwyane and he came sprinting up to me. He was like ‘Hey, how’s everything going? I was just checking in on you and make sure you’re doing OK.' I was like, ‘Yeah, you know, school’s going fine.’ He said ‘Listen, it’s hard. Forget it. Coach is hard. But we need you to do this. We need you to do that. Coach expects a lot out of us and we’re going to get through it together.’ He probably won’t remember that conversation but it meant a lot to me. Then we just walked to practice together and got after it."

Jeff Strohm (MU assistant coach, 2002-05): “One story I always tell people that I always remember about Dwyane, and it tells you the type of person he is more than basketball player, but after we got back from the Final Four after we lost, I can still remember this: everybody knew he was leaving. He had such a great year and everything. Usually the managers and freshmen would help unpack the bags and I’m underneath the bus grabbing bags and I look over next to me and it’s him. Most guys, you get back from the Final Four and you’re going to the NBA, they wouldn’t be doing that. But that was him. And nothing changed."

Karon Bradley (MU guard, 2002-04): "On my recruiting visit, he was my host. Coach Crean had set it up for me, we went to the Milwaukee Bucks game. At this time, playing for the Bucks, you had Ray Allen, you had Big Dog Glenn Robinson, Sam Cassell was there. So on my visit, they’re playing the Washington Wizards in 2002. (Wade) surprised me, I didn’t know we were going to the game. After the game, we went to the back to the locker room area and we’re first approached by Sam Cassell. He comes up to D-Wade and says, man, you had a great year. Rip Hamilton was with the Wizards at the time and came up to us. They all knew of D-Wade at this time. At the time, Ray Allen was my absolute favorite player. I watched ‘He Got Game.’ He was my all-time favorite player, especially at that time when I was in high school. So I got to meet him on the visit. Now he comes up to me and D-Wade and he said ‘Man, you had an amazing year.’ And he told Dwyane, he said – and I’ll never forget this conversation - ‘Listen, whenever you get to the NBA, you want to work on your shooting. Because the NBA is losing their shooters and they’re better shooters in Europe. … Where it got me was, hey, whenever you get to the NBA. I’m thinking to myself at the time, D-Wade, he was known in Conference USA but he wasn’t really known nationwide like that. The Great Alaska Shootout, he went crazy in that one, that was the coming out. But beside that, he had a solid year, a great year, but for them to talk about when you get to the NBA. He’s pretty much saying you’re going to be there. I remember standing there, hearing that and thinking, man, how good is this guy?"

Scott Merritt (MU forward, 2000-04): "This happened twice in college. There was a couple of us walking. One time it was me, D-Wade and Odartey Blanskon and maybe Terry Sanders. And we’re going to practice. A bird poops on D-Wade. That’s a rare thing. A few months later, we’re walking to an exam. I think it’s myself, Blankson and D-Wade again and he gets pooped on again. They say it’s good luck. For some reason, it happened twice in a short amount of time."

Tod Kowalczyk (MU assistant, 2000-02): "When I was at (UW-)Green Bay, his rookie year (with the Miami Heat), I went down to see the last regular-season game. And we went to dinner afterwards, just he and I, at a restaurant not far from the arena. And I swear to God, not one person in there recognized him. Or they didn’t acknowledge it. And then a week or two later, he went off in the playoffs. And then all of a sudden, that summer is the Olympic stuff, and his life changed that quickly. Within six months. We’re at a restaurant right next to the arena and no one recognizes him and then six months later he could walk into a restaurant in Wyoming and everyone would recognize him. His life changed that quickly."

Steve Novak (MU forward, 2002-06): "It was always really cool playing against D (in the NBA). Just because we went through it, we had been to the Final Four. I think the teammates you win with are just that much more special. You just have that bond. And then the success he started to have by the time I got to the league, he had already elevated himself to being a top-five pick to being a guy that‘s winning championships. He’s playing with Shaq, he’s proven himself as an all-star. I just remember being so proud to be associated with a D-Wade and to be his teammate and for people to know, oh, you know Dwyane, you played at Marquette with him. I think it just elevated all of our status and respect because of what he was doing."

Always willing to help a teammate

One common thread among all the interviews with former coaches and teammates is how Wade is willing to help them out.

Diener: "It’s always good to be around Dwyane because he feels – and he said this to me last year – so comfortable coming back to Milwaukee because I think people here have genuine care for him and he just feels at home."

Brian Wardle (MU guard, 1997-2001): "My wife now, Lecia, as a senior she helped Dwyane in a couple classes. And he signed a Final Four ticket for her back in the day. He signed it to her because he remembered how she helped him. Just character things. Little things that he’s done over the years that he probably doesn’t remember but it means the world to other people because of the player he has become."

Grimm: "What I’ll say is that he never forgot where he came from. He always remembers. We saw him at the golf outing in August. All my kids came up and met him and then when we saw him again in January, he’s like ‘What’s up, guys!’ There’s something special and something unique about Marquette and the brotherhood that truly exists. I think he’s the perfect representative of that. My sons wanted autographs and my daughter was sheepishly hanging back and he’s like ‘Come on, Ellie, you’re going to hurt my feelings if you don’t ask for my autograph.’ "

Darrin Horn (MU assistant, 1999-2003): "When I first become a head coach, I was at Western Kentucky University. We were in the Sun Belt. Florida International was in our league, which is in Miami, and Dwyane actually came over to a game. And he came into the locker room to talk to our guys. Great presence, took time to visit with every kid, had great message for the team. And one kid says ‘Hey, man, Coach is always talking that he had to play with and against you in practice and talking like he had game.’ And Dwyane was like ‘Nah, nah, nah, Coach was pretty nice. He had some game. I ain’t gonna lie.’ And then he got this look on his face and was like ‘But he was a foulin’ dude.’ Because the only way I could stop him was to foul him."

Todd Townsend (MU forward, 2001-05): "Dwyane reaching the pinnacle of basketball with the hall of fame … how many things have to fall in line, how many people had to believe in him, how many had to fight not being jealous of him, how many people had to say ‘I’m going to take my personal time and help him out’ because they believed in him. How many of those things had to go right? The hall of fame is not an easy thing."

Tom Crean (MU head coach, 1999-2008): "He's like a family member. He treats my family like its his family. I view his family as my family. It's just been like that forever and it's just very, very natural. My whole family will be sitting there when we're there (to see Wade get inducted into the hall of fame.)"

Part 1: Dwyane Wade was an underrecruited gem

Part 2: Wade develops during his sit-out season

Part 3: Once on the court, Wade becomes a star

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Oral history of Dwyane Wade at Marquette Part 4 Off-the-court memories