First 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. 

Dwyane Wade wasn't always a lock for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Before the NBA championships, Olympic medals and career earnings north of $200 million, he was an unknown, skinny kid in Chicago trying to attract the attention of college basketball coaches.

Wade will be inducted into his sport's pantheon on Aug. 12 in Springfield, Massachusetts, the first former MU player to earn that honor. His three years in Milwaukee were a crucial stop on his path to basketball immortality.

People at MU saw the potential in Wade as an overlooked recruit, then helped prepare him when Wade had to sit out his first season as a partial-academic qualifier and finally watched him ascend to the No. 5 pick in the 2003 NBA draft before he reached global superstardom.

Golden Eagles coaches and teammates shared their memories about all those steps. Up first: Wade's recruitment to MU.

Dwyane Wade was under-the-radar at Richards High School and with Illinois Warriors

Wade was a good player at Richards High School in Oak Lawn, Illinois, but he didn't get a lot of recruiting notice with his AAU team because talented teammates overshadowed him. But then-MU head coach Tom Crean and his assistants saw something in Wade.

Todd Townsend (MU forward, 2001-05): "Dwyane and I have known each other since eighth grade. He grew up on 59^th and Prairie in Chicago and I grew up not even a mile away on 60^th and Wood Street in the Englewood area of Chicago. And then we played AAU basketball together for a team called the Illinois Warriors, which was filled with talent."

Tim Buckley (MU assistant coach 1999-2000): "Coach (Jack) Fitzgerald, his high school coach, was somebody that I knew through the years and we were talking about him. Obviously we went out to watch him play with the Illinois Warriors. They had a lot of high-profile guys on that team and Dwyane was the guy we kind of zeroed in on. Him and Odartey Blankson. He started maybe half of the games, but when it came time to win the games he was the guy that was always around the ball. Whether it was to make the defensive play or the offensive play. And he made things look so effortless. We charted everything back then and you would find that at the end of the game, he’d make it look so easy, you’d go ‘I wonder how hard he was going.’ And then you’re like 'He’s got 12 deflections.' That type of stuff. So it was really good to chart that so you could see it."

Dwayne "D.J." Stephens (MU assistant coach, 1999-2003): "The first time hearing Dwyane Wade’s name was actually from his AAU coach, Larry Butler. We were recruiting several kids on his AAU team, none of which were him at the time. Larry said, ‘This is a kid you better take a look at.’ And while we’re looking at some of his teammates, we said, ‘This kid can play’ and Coach Crean fell in love with him. I just remember his ability to get in passing lanes. He was unreal at getting steals and getting out in transition. He was a big-time rebounder. And he could score the ball a little bit."

Tom Crean (MU head coach, 1999-2008): "What I liked about him right away was the length. You could see the length, you could see the shoulders before you ever see him get going on the court. I liked his movement. I thought he was very fluid. I thought, obviously, there were things that he would have to get better at with his shooting and his fundamentals."

Townsend: "In April of 1999, we were playing in an AAU tournament here in Wisconsin hosted by Wisconsin Playground Warriors. Crean had just gotten the job no more than a month beforehand. And because of his relationship with Larry Butler and we already had a couple of Illinois Warriors on Marquette in Brian Wardle and Cordell Henry, we went on an unofficial visit. The whole team did. Darius Miles, T.J. Cummings. Those unofficial visits matter. People don’t think they do. Before we went back to Chicago, we did a half-day visit here."

Crean: "There was concern, right off the bat, that we knew Dwyane had some challenges with the grades. But from my phone conversation with him from June 21 of 1999 on a Thursday night, I’ll never forget it, I was driving from the offices at Marquette to our house in Mequon. There was only a couple days during the week, and it was right when you could first start calling people (per NCAA rules), that you could call him because he wasn’t at home and he didn’t have a cell phone or anything like that. So you had to have a certain time, we did it, the phone call lasted probably 25 to 30 minutes. Even though I hadn’t seen his face yet. Just talking to him, it was one of those things, it was an incredible feeling. It was one of those things. When I saw him, I walked in with a preconceived bias, that I wanted to like him and I wanted to believe in him. From the first conversation on. And that’s rare. Sometimes you get that. He’s not the only one that I’ve had that with. But usually I’d seen them play before I’ve had that conversation. And with Dwyane, I hadn’t seen him play. But I trusted Tim Buckley and Tim Buckley had seen him play. And so when we get to July, I just see tremendous upside."

Townsend: "Larry Butler was one of the very first believers in Dwyane. He was telling the people at Nike, ‘You got to get him to All-American Camp!’ At the time, Dwyane was going through this growth spurt. Where his knees would hurt and then they wouldn’t hurt. Every time the Nike people were in front of Dwyane to watch him play, he was in pain. This is spring (of 1999) before our senior year. We had Darius Miles, T.J. Cummings, we had all these people that’s on our team. We had a really good culture. We all believed in Dwyane, he just didn’t perform in the spring at that time. And then that summer after All-American Camp was over - he didn't get an invite, I got an invite and I would say it worked out well for Marquette – Dwyane dominated. We were in San Diego and he put on a show at a Nike Championship AAU event where we were playing against New York Riverside and they had (highly regarded prospect) Omar Cook. "

Stephens: "At the time it was us and Illinois State. We were the only ones that were recruiting him. By the end of the summer, right before we got him, there was a lot more interest."

DePaul too late with its recruitment

One of those programs with late interest was Wade's local school in DePaul. The Blue Demons had some talented teams in the late 1990s under head coach Pat Kennedy that included Chicago-area stars like Quentin Richardson and Bobby Simmons.

Townsend: "DePaul had a bunch of Illinois Warriors as well. Quentin Richardson and a bunch of people and they had a great relationship with Larry Butler as well. Them and Illinois State offered Dwyane a spot. But Crean did a really good job of knowing what he wanted and had a vision."

Cordell Henry (MU guard, 1998-2002): "Quentin Richardson, who is my best friend, we grew up together. So Gary Adams coached Quentin Richardson (in grade school) and Gary Adams two years later coached Dwyane Wade. And Dwyane Wade looked up to Quentin Richardson. So when it was time for D-Wade to choose a school, DePaul was one of his options and when he went to visit, Quentin said ‘You need to go down to Marquette with Cordell. Because I’m about to leave.’ He was about to go the NBA after his sophomore year. So that’s kind of how it got steered for him to go to Marquette. Obviously Crean laid the foundation, but Q was the one …. the connection with Gary Adams, he looked up to Q and Q was like ‘I’m not going to be here if you get here.’ "

Crean: "I remember vividly the visit to (then-girlfriend and future wife) Siohvaughn’s house with her mother. And Jack Fitzgerald was there and Tim Buckley and I went. And I remember us putting together a diploma to show that he would graduate and spelling his name wrong. We spelled it the old-fashioned way and not the Dwyane Wade way. I remember feeling bad about that, but they laughed it off."

Buckley: "Obviously from that moment on it was ‘D-W-Y-A-N-E.' "

Crean: "It was a big deal to me when we had him on campus. It was a we-have-to-get-him type of mentality. And really, in all honesty, not knowing how his grades were going to turn out, I wasn’t 100% certain that we were getting him in, but I knew I was going to fight for it."

Jon Harris (MU forward, 1998-2002): "Oh yeah, I remember (his visits to MU's campus). Quiet. Obviously, he’s got a lot of personality but he’s not, like, loud. I don’t think he is now even, honestly. Just a quiet, unassuming guy."

Strong first recruiting class for Tom Crean

The early inroads for MU paid off when Wade and Blankson committed together in November 1999. They joined Wauwatosa East's Scott Merritt and Terry Sanders, who played at Milwaukee Vincent and then Hargrave Military Prep School in Virginia, in Crean's first recruiting class. Townsend would join his former Illinois Warriors teammates after a year at New Hampton Prep School. That group laid the groundwork for a MU hoops revival.

Scott Merritt (MU forward, 2000-04): "We had played against each other in AAU. Multiple times. He played for the Illinois Warriors. I played for the Playground Warriors. I don’t know exactly how many times, but definitely multiple times. Because him and Odartey Blankson were on the same team. To be honest, I didn’t really remember him because early on in high school he was an erratic guard out there until he matured into what he was. The first time we met, I was the only one committed at that point if I remember correctly. We came to Midnight Madness and I think that was the first time I met D-Wade."

Brian Wardle (MU guard, 1997-2001): "That was a talented class that Coach Crean brought. I remember being a senior, you got Scott Merritt, Odartey Blankson, Dwyane Wade. Those kids, they could play, and when they came to open gym right away you could see, OK, these guys are long, they’re athletic, they could make plays."

Buckley: "What a great recruitment. Obviously zero entitlement. Dwyane deserves the majority of the credit for his success. And then the people along the way, whether it was his family or Coach Fitzgerald, Coach Crean, Coach (Darrin) Horn, Coach Stephens, all those guys on the staff that were all a part of it. I know all of us are so proud and happy with the way his career and life has gone and now to get the opportunity to go into the Hall Fame. Obviously that's not what we saw when we saw him playing for his AAU team as well as his high school team at Richards."

Wade has 89 points in one day as senior

It soon became more clear that MU had landed an overlooked gem with Wade. He had a strong senior season at Richards, including an auspicious day at the St. Xavier Christmas tournament.

Stephens: "They played two games in one day and I was there for both games. And in the first game, he had 48 points and then in the second game he had 41. It was one of the more impressive things that I have ever seen. I remember calling back to Coach Crean and Crean was super excited. I have never seen that before and never seen anything even close to that since."

Tod Kowalczyk (MU assistant coach 2000-02): "When I got there that summer, I remember vividly the coaches all talking about his talent level. How good he was. There was a specific day where he played and he scored 86-something points in two games. That story was going around the office all summer long."

Crean: "I think he also had 30 rebounds that day. I think he had 17 rebounds in one game and 13 rebounds in another. But D.J. was so excited watching him play. We just felt great. And this was before we knew he was going to be not eligible."

Tom Crean worked to get Dwyane Wade enrolled

Crean worked with the MU administration to get Wade enrolled. But Wade didn't get the necessary test scores to be eligible his freshman season. Per the NCAA's then-Proposition 48 rule, Wade could practice but not play in games or travel with the team his first season.

Crean: "The football coach (at Richards High School), I think he coached there 28 years, and he said this is one of the three finest young men that I’ve watched in this school that didn’t play for me over my career here. I was sitting in his office, I’ll never forget it, and I used that as a testimony for him (for enrollment at MU).

"You sign your scholarship, but that doesn’t mean you are admitted. The man that deserves all the credit for that is (former MU President) Father Robert Wild. There’s no question. Because they did something they’ve never done. They’d never allowed a partial qualifier in to my knowledge. And Father Wild OK’d it. Because if Father Wild doesn’t OK it, then it doesn’t happen. Obviously it has to go through admissions, but if he doesn’t OK it, then it’s not happening. And he deserves tremendous credit for that because he believed in me and trusted my vision and what I was saying about Dwyane."

Up next in the oral history: Behind the scenes of Wade's sit-out season.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dwyane Wade recruited to Marquette by Tom Crean from Illinois Warriors