By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

I feel extremely fortunate to have seen senior guard Amir “Primo” Spears play basketball this season at UTSA.

As Roadrunners coach Austin Claunch says, Spears likely will be playing the game for “a long time” after he leaves the hills of oak and cedar, so to watch him closely at this stage of his development has been a real treat.

To have the opportunity to sit at courtside again Tuesday night when the Roadrunners are scheduled to host the 16th-ranked Memphis Tigers, in what likely will be Spears’ last home game at UTSA, well, that will be pretty cool, too.

Before the Tigers and the Roadrunners tip off, though, I wanted to share some insight into what makes Spears the athlete that we see today. The player who brings constant energy. The guy who has led the team in scoring, dazzling all year long with a variety of drives, spin moves and jumpers.

I mean, we’re talking about a kid who has played four seasons at four different schools – Duquesne, Georgetown, Florida State and now UTSA — and has scored 1,687 points.

Last fall, a few games into his first season with the Roadrunners, I had a chance to chat with him about a harrowing experience he had when he was a prep standout from Hartford, Conn., and how it shaped his career.

A harrowing experience

Here’s what happened: In the summer between his freshman and sophomore year of high school, Spears had already emerged as a highly-rated basketball prospect.

How good was he? His father, Amir “Big Primo” Spears, said St. John’s University offered his son a scholarship as an eighth-grader.

Given his burgeoning prowess on the court, “Little Primo” was in New York City in August of 2017 after his ninth-grade year, playing in an all-star game with some of the best ballers in the Northeast as his father watched from the grandstands.

During the game, late in the second half, a player on the opposing team drove down the left side of the lane to the basket. Spears leaped to defend the play and was undercut, causing him to fall.

To brace himself, he put his left hand down on the floor, and the impact sent a jolt through his arm that, ultimately, would threaten to alter the course of his career.

Spears didn’t know what had happened initially, but he knew it was bad when he looked at his elbow and saw bone protruding through the skin.

Immediately, “Big Primo” rushed out of the stands at the New York Gauchos’ facility to see what had happened. Shocked at the severity of the injury, father and son tried to sort out their next move.

They decided against seeking help at a hospital in New York and elected to drive home to Hartford, a trip that would take two hours.

“One of the worst days of my life,” “Big Primo” said in a telephone interview on Monday. Asked what he thought and felt immediately after he fell, “Little Primo” said his arm initially just felt numb.

“Somebody tried to help me up,” he recalled. “And when I looked down, that’s when I felt the pain and I (saw) the bone. The pain was just relentless.”

Spears said he didn’t want to seek treatment in New York because he knew he would be uncomfortable coming out of the emergency room, still so far away from home.

As he recalled, he said he instead took “six or seven Tylenol” for the drive back to Connecticut.

When doctors examined him in Hartford, it was determined that he had a “Terrible Triad Injury.” In other words, he dislocated his elbow, fractured the head and neck of his radial bone and ruptured an adjacent ligament.

A ‘devastating’ injury

Kevin Burton, an orthopedist in Hartford who repaired the elbow surgically, said in a video years later that “these are devastating injuries and often can be career ending.”

He said the initial procedure was critical to his patient’s recovery.

“I was happy to get all the pieces back together,” Burton said in a video taped at the ceremony when Spears signed in 2021 with Duquesne. “That was my goal, and I didn’t have to replace the radial head, which was an achievement for the night.”

At that point, the doctor said, he knew there was a possibility that Spears could come back to play competitive sports again.

Spears said he remembers going through three procedures, or, operations.

The first came on the day of the mishap, to pop the elbow back into place. The second followed some five days later when more extensive repair was done, with the insertion of a plate and four rods.

A third followed a few months later when doctors took bone from his wrist and grafted it to the elbow.

“We had to do a bone graft to get the fracture to heal,” Burton said. “So, fortunately, a few months after that, he did go on to heal and complete the recovery process.”

Burton applauded Spears for doing the work.

“Those are tough injuries,” the doctor said. “Recovery is painful. It’s hard. It’s very hard. And he did the work. It takes a lot of grit and determination to get back from this injury, and defy all those odds, and that’s what he did.”

A proud father

“Big Primo” Spears sat and watched in the Convocation Center on Sunday night as his son hit six three point shots and scored 25 to help lead an 84-56 victory over the Rice Owls. He plans to stay in town to watch the Memphis game, as well.

In a telephone interview on Monday, “Big Primo” said his son’s experience with a major injury and extensive rehabilitation at such a young age, however traumatic, helped him develop “a fire in his gut” for competition.

He said his son suffered in the days after the injury with pain medications and their side effects, which led to stomach aches and a loss of appetite. As a result, his son lost weight.

After the bone graft surgery, the grind continued. He started working with physical therapists on conditioning.

“Through it all, I think it built a lot of character in him,” “Big Primo” said. “Ever since he was three years old, he’s played football and basketball all year long. I think it brought a lot of structure and a lot of character and work ethic.

“When that’s taken from you, you feel like your world’s coming to an end. So , it was tough not to play any sports that year. This happened after his freshman year. He already had his first offer from St. John’s, so it was tough.

“There were doctors who didn’t think they’d be able to put (his elbow) back together to where he’d be an elite athlete again. So, in our minds, he beat the odds. We feel like, in his journey, it built a lot of character and a lot of fire in his gut.”

“Big Primo” said he doesn’t think the injury has limited his son physically in any way.

“No, not at all,” he said. “That arm is about as strong as it’s ever been, thanks to some amazing doctors … from Hartford HealthCare, with Dr. Burton and Jeff Flaks, the CEO. I think he’s stronger than ever.”

Anyone watching Windsor High School athletics teams at that time of his return knew that “Little Primo” was on his way back.

After he was cleared, he played basketball as a junior in 2018-19 and averaged 25.3 points, 9.5 rebounds and two steals, leading the Warriors to a runner-up finish in the Division I state championship tournament.

By the next year, as a senior, he played both football and basketball. In football, he made all state, pulling double duty at both cornerback and wide receiver.

“Little Primo” said he really wanted to play football all four years in high school. When he brought up the idea of playing his junior year, immediately after his year-long rehabilitation, he said his parents were opposed to it.

Told what his son had said, “Big Primo” laughed. “Oh, my gosh,” he said. “He snuck on the football field (as a senior) and by the end of the year he was all state and had Power Five interest.”

“Little Primo” often calls “Big Primo” his best friend.

“He’s the one that put the ball in my hands,” he said.

Leaving a legacy

It’s safe to say that Austin Claunch, in his first year with the Roadrunners, is one coach who is happy that Primo Spears gave up running pass routes on a football field to devote his time to shooting jumpers in a basketball gym.

Even though the Roadrunners haven’t been as successful as the coach has wanted to this point, Claunch applauded the example set by Spears, Raekwon Horton and Damari Monsanto. UTSA saluted those three in “Senior Day” ceremonies before the Rice game.

“Senior Day is always a special moment,” Claunch said. “Especially in (this) being our first year here (as coaches). Those are three guys who could have gone to a lot of places. They took a leap of faith and came here to begin the process of building something.”

Claunch said he knew about Spears’ elbow injury from high school, but he said the two never discussed it at length. One thing he does know is that he will miss his leadership and the way he plays the game.

He’s averaging 20 points, which is a career best. He’s also averaged 3.8 rebounds and 1.7 steals.

Showing off his improved three-point shooting — 37 percent for the season — he hit six from beyond the arc against Rice, all of them in the second half, no less. The Owls would try to defend him with different looks, but it didn’t matter.

Sometimes they would switch and send one of their taller players out to meet him. Spears would merely take a step or two back and shoot another rainbow, higher and farther, with the same results.

“You guys see the end product,” Claunch said. “We see him in the gym three times a day. Some of those shots don’t look as open for some people (shooting them), but these are things he’s working on every single day, and I see him make ‘em at a consistent level.”

In the book on Primo Spears, Claunch joked that he’ll probably be mentioned on one “little” page. That may be the case, but, oh, what a story it’s been. I’m just happy to have chronicled some of it.

Records

Memphis 24-5, 14-2
UTSA 11-17, 5-11

Coming up

Memphis at UTSA, tonight, 6
UTSA at Charlotte, Sunday, 3 p.m.
(end of regular season)
UTSA at AAC tournament, March 12-16

Notable

A UTSA victory tonight would be the program’s first in 30 years over a Top 25 team. The last time a Roadrunners’ men’s basketball team defeated a ranked opponent, they beat the 13th-ranked Arizona State Sun Devils 87-85 in overtime in the 1994-95 season, on Dec. 18, 1994, at Tempe, Ariz.

The 16th-ranked Memphis Tigers hold a one-game lead in the AAC standings with two to play and can clinch at least a tie for the title and the No. 1 seed in the tournament if they can beat the Roadrunners tonight.

It would be the first regular-season title at Memphis for seventh-year coach Penny Hardaway and the first for the Tigers men’s basketball overall since 2013. They close out their schedule on Friday at home against South Florida.

The Tigers are 14-2, followed by North Texas Mean Green at 13-3. North Texas (22-3 on the season) plays at home Thursday night against the Charlotte 49ers and on the road Sunday against the Temple Owls.

Memphis has the head-to-head tiebreaker on North Texas. The Tigers won at home on Jan. 5, beating the Mean Green, 68-64. The Tigers, led by the backcourt of PJ Haggerty, Tyrese Hunter and Colby Rogers, have won three straight and 11 of their last 12.

Guard PJ Carter, who played last season at UTSA, comes off the bench for the Tigers.