2011 MSU Athletics Hall of Fame Class: Mateen Cleaves
9/22/2011 12:00:00 AM | General
Sept. 22, 2011
Michigan State will induct five new members into its Athletics Hall of Fame on Thursday, Sept. 22. In the fifth of a five-part series this week on msuspartans.com, online columnist Steve Grinczel profiles former three-time All-American Mateen Cleaves, who helped lead MSU to the National Championship in 2000.
Mateen Cleaves had every opportunity to lower his expectations from the day he arrived at Michigan State. He could have settled for ordinary. He could have accepted mediocrity. He could have gone through the motions, played some minutes as a role player and called it a career.
He could have quit altogether, never to be heard from again, and no one would have blamed him.
The excuse-card was the first Cleaves was dealt in 1996, but he kept it facedown for four triumphant seasons, always trumping it with drive and determination few could match and a case-hardened smile that told you things weren't nearly as bad as they appeared - even if they were actually worse.
"My whole sole purpose was to try to help Michigan State win a national championship," Cleaves said as if it was inevitable regardless circumstances he had to confront along the way.
The Cleaves-led Spartans defeated Florida in the 2000 NCAA title game that Monday night in Indianapolis, but such a feat, in and of itself, wouldn't be enough to stamp his ticket for the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame, said head basketball coach Tom Izzo, nor would his distinction as the Spartans' only three-time All-American.
The numbers are impressive and some are great. Cleaves should stay atop MSU's all-time assist list, with 816, for years, if not decades, to come, and it's hard to envision another Spartan handing out 20 assists in a game like he did against Michigan in 2000. Not even Earvin "Magic" Johnson had 274 assists in a single season, as Cleaves did as a junior, although his grip on the No. 14 spot on the school's scoring list with 1,541 points is tenuous.
"None of that's what sets him apart," said Izzo. "That just makes him another real good player. What sets him apart in more of the Magic Johnson mold was his ability to motivate people to do things they never though they could do. He had such an ability to get on other people and hold them accountable, and they loved it.
"He was a pied piper. They would have followed him off the building and I might have joined them. He never big-timed anybody, so he talked with them and never down to them. I just think the smile and the intangibles are what made Mateen Cleaves a hall-of-famer, not the stats."
Cleaves' single-mindedness was evident at his first preseason practice as a Spartan freshman. Although he joined fellow Flint native (and then sophomore) Antonio Smith as the second cornerstone of Izzo's program, he got off to a slow start.
 | "When I was at Michigan State, I never thought about individual goals. I never thought about being an All-American or going into the Hall of Fame. All I cared about was winning championships." -Mateen Cleaves |
Cleaves suffered with a lower-back injury that required him to wear a turtle-shell brace from his hips to his chest for six weeks in practice and a few games. Despite being overweight and never quite in top game-condition, he started 24 of 29 games and averaged 10.2 points.
After following through with his commitment to "live" in the gym the following offseason, a slimmed-down Cleaves led MSU to the first of his three consecutive Big Ten Championships while earning conference Player of the Year honors.
"He was cocky enough to use his mouth, but then he backed it up," Izzo said. "He was just a tough kid who had his own dreams and goals and was going to do everything he had to do to achieve them. Between his freshman and sophomore years, when he was 25 pounds overweight, his goal was to be cut and in the best shape on media day, and he did it.
"That showed me he could accomplish things he put his mind to. A lot of people can talk it, but not many can walk it."
The injury bug struck again the following summer when he sprained his ankle while playing for the U.S. national team in an exhibition game and was unable to play in the World Championship. A month later, he fell down a flight of stairs and separated his shoulder.
Nevertheless, he had a record-setting junior year and was named first-team All-American, first-team All-Big Ten and conference player of the year for the second straight season. The Spartans won the Big Ten regular season and tournament championships and advanced to NCAA Final Four for the first time since 1979.
As the 1999-2000 season got underway, Cleaves sustained a stress fracture in his foot and required surgery. Even that seemed like a part of Cleaves' master plan because while he was missing the 13 non-conference games, the other Spartans, such as fellow Flintstones Morris Peterson and Charlie Bell, learned they could be a strong team without him.
Consequently, when he returned for the Big Ten opener, Michigan State was primed for a 13-3 conference romp to another championship, a second league tournament crown and a storybook journey as a No. 1 seed through the NCAA Tournament, including a pair of unforgettable victories over Syracuse and Iowa State in the Midwest Regional at the Palace of Auburn Hills.
The national championship game in the RCA Dome gave Cleaves one more chance to surrender to misfortune and pain when he got tangled up with Florida's Teddy Dupay while driving to the basket early in the second half. Diagnosed with a severely sprained ankle, Cleaves could have hobbled back out on crutches and called it a career. After all, the Spartans, already tempered by his absence earlier in the season, increased a six-point lead to 11 while he was in the locker room.
True to form, however, Cleaves ordered trainer Tom Mackowiak to re-tape his ailing foot. He hobbled back to the court four and a half minutes later and brought the Spartans home with an 89-76 victory.
Cleaves added Final Four Most Outstanding Player accolades to the national and conference honors he was accustomed to receiving, but he remains being defined by a solitary achievement.
"That's all I ever thought about," Cleaves said. "When I was at Michigan State, I never thought about individual goals. I never thought about being an All-American or going into the Hall of Fame. All I cared about was winning championships, but I guess when you do that, those are the kind of things that happen because I couldn't have done it by myself. I had great teammates and great coaches and great people around me."
Cleaves' energy and enthusiasm at the age of 34 is hard to distinguish from how it was when he was an indomitable twenty-something.
 Mateen Cleaves is the Big Ten's all-time assists leader with 816.  | |
Entry into the Hall "does take you back and allows you to reflect on all the good memories," Cleaves said. "I've been thinking about when Coach Izzo first came to my house in Flint and recruited me as an 18-year-old boy. Everybody at Michigan State has something to do with this honor that I'm getting. I wish it was a big enough trophy, or whatever it is, so everybody's name can be on it because it just wasn't me. I had a lot of help."
Cleaves' great performances on the court are too many to list, and his game-winning shots forever memorable, but Izzo is especially fond of his game at Northwestern as a sophomore.
"He had two points at halftime and we were trailing," Izzo said. "I took him to the shower room and just chewed him out and asked him what he was doing? Then he goes out and gets like 30 in the second half, and he's not even a good shooter."
Actually, it was 32 points for a career-high 34 that held up to the end of his career.
Izzo also will never forget how the 68-62 loss to Duke in the '99 national semifinal all but guaranteed Cleaves would resist the lure of the NBA to return for his senior season.
"He said, I told you in high school what I wanted to do," Izzo said. "If he would have won a national championship (as a junior), maybe he would have gone pro but he hadn't finished business. The thing I most appreciated about him was he was so competitive but he'd never pout about a loss. He just vowed he'd do something about it."
"I remember the halftime of the Syracuse game when he threatened Peterson's and everybody's life if they didn't come back (from a 10-point halftime deficit). I heard him yelling and screaming from the hallway and I went in there and just grabbed a chair and sat down and hardly said a word. That was a defining moment."
With a six-year NBA career behind him, Cleaves has turned his attention to supporting the Boys and Girls Clubs of Flint, and broadcasting. He's a studio analyst with Fox Sports Detroit, was a regular on the Big Ten Network in 2010-11 and looking to expand nationally.
The Hall of Fame induction is evidence that his career continues even though his playing days are over.
"It'll never end," he said. "Whether I was 80 years old when I got in or 34 as I am now, it's just an honor to even be considered because it's not easy to get in. I'm just so very prideful to be in this category with all the greats that have come through Michigan State.
"We're in bed together till the day I die."