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Norton Hurd IV built Team Thad as a Memphis underdog. Now it's a Nike powerhouse | Giannotto

Norton Hurd IV is sensitive about the criticism, even though it fits into a narrative all successful endeavors eventually must confront as they reach new heights.

Team Thad, the Memphis-based grassroots basketball program Hurd created in 2012 with his friend and former Mitchell High School teammate, NBA veteran Thaddeus Young, might just have the best 17-and-under team in the best league in the country this spring and summer. But the roster doesn’t actually feature anyone from the Memphis area this year.

It’s “the only slight and knock I’m getting from people,” Hurd admitted this week.

But his awareness, of what he changed about his program and what he couldn't allow to change, helps set the scene for this Memorial Day weekend, when Team Thad will be a star attraction at perhaps the most prestigious AAU basketball event Memphis has ever hosted.

Team Thad director and coach Norton Hurd IV has turned his Memphis-based grassroots basketball program into a national juggernaut over the past decade.
Team Thad director and coach Norton Hurd IV has turned his Memphis-based grassroots basketball program into a national juggernaut over the past decade.

This year, right as Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League comes to the Memphis Sports and Event Center over the next few days, Team Thad sits in first place in the standings, all but guaranteed a spot in Nike’s culminating Peach Jam event in July.

It could be a crowning moment for Hurd, who moved his program from Under Armour to Nike four years ago. He has successfully morphed Team Thad into a program thriving with a collection of blue chip recruits, as opposed to the feisty underdog that took under-the-radar players and helped elevate them into coveted Division I prospects almost by sheer will when Hurd started out.

“There were some naysayers, there were some people who wondered if he could have that same success at Nike,” Hurd said earlier this week. “Anybody who truly knows ball or followed my journey or my story, they knew what it was going to be.”

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Hurd will tell you he could have reached this point faster if not for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 36-year-old from the Walker Homes neighborhood in south Memphis has done everything ahead of preconceived schedules with Team Thad.

Hurd was once the youngest program director in the country to earn a major shoe deal. He won the prestigious Fab 48 tournament in Las Vegas just five years later. Then, in 2019, Team Thad became the first Tennessee-based 17-and-under team to capture a title in one of the three major shoe company leagues when it won the 2019 UAA Finals. That, combined with Penny Hardaway’s move to the college ranks, prompted the biggest shoe company of them all to come calling.

Coach Norton Hurd IV gathers his Team Thad players for a huddle as they scrimmage  at the Memphis Elite Allstars court in Cordova on Tuesday, July 6, 2021.
Coach Norton Hurd IV gathers his Team Thad players for a huddle as they scrimmage at the Memphis Elite Allstars court in Cordova on Tuesday, July 6, 2021.

The consensus for years now is that Nike’s EYBL is the best circuit to compete on in grassroots basketball, with a majority of the nation’s top prospects usually electing to play for a Nike-affiliated program each year.

It was a notion Hurd fought against until he switched sponsorships. Now, he’s taking advantage of that prestige and the reach. Team Thad is the only program Nike sponsors in the state of Tennessee and coaches can pull players from any neighboring state. Since the Memphis basketball scene is in a bit of flux, with the best local prospects increasingly choosing to finish their high school careers elsewhere, Hurd adapted.

“They put me in a position where they want guys like us to take care of an area or a region now,” he said. “It’s not just a Memphis, Team Thad or Hurd problem. Every state now, every Nike (program), if you look at their roster, it’s spread out more and more.”

“It’s a year by year basis,” Hurd added, noting his top team the past two years featured Memphis area prospects like Chandler Jackson (Florida State), Kam Jones (Marquette) and Amarr Knox (Alabama State). “Whether you’re in Memphis, or whatever city you’re in, some years don’t have the talent – and when I say talent, they might not have the EYBL talent. You need a couple high majors.”

Team Thad this year features top-50 2024 guard Lebaron Philon out of Mobile, Alabama, and 6-foot-10 2025 big man Jayden Quaintance out of Raleigh, North Carolina, 2024 shooting guard Larry Johnson from Savannah, Georgia and 2025 guard Jasper Johnson from Kentucky. Memphis, Hurd said, has offered a scholarship to almost all of them.

Norton Hurd IV started Team Thad with his former Mitchell High School teammate, NBA veteran Thaddeus Young, in 2012 and has the program on the cusp of another historic achievement this season.
Norton Hurd IV started Team Thad with his former Mitchell High School teammate, NBA veteran Thaddeus Young, in 2012 and has the program on the cusp of another historic achievement this season.

They will play games in Memphis over three days starting Saturday, but Team Thad isn’t just a single entity anymore. The program will have six different teams in various age groups playing this weekend, including another 17-and-under team full of prospects from Memphis and Tennessee on Nike’s Elite Youth Champions League.

“The foundation is still the same. The culture is still the same," Hurd insisted, and the EYCL “helps me help more kids, in general, and more of my area and still be competitive."

So yes, Team Thad is different today than it was when Hurd and Young started it more than a decade ago. It’s bigger. It’s more well known. But it might just do what no Memphis-based grassroots program has ever done – again – because Hurd knows to only change so much.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Norton Hurd IV built Team Thad as underdog. It's now a Nike powerhouse