By Dylan Fink | Sports Writer
Baylor’s highest-rated recruit in school history, a projected first-round pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, was almost completely removed from the team.
Isaiah Austin first heard of Baylor in the eighth grade when, having just moved to Arlington, he saw a figure in a green and gold sweatshirt sitting in the stands of his first middle school basketball practice.
“Paul Mills was sitting up in the top of the basketball gym, and my coach pulled me aside and told me that he was there from Baylor to watch me play,” Austin said. “I remember telling my parents how excited I was to have a college coach there to watch me. I didn’t know anything about Baylor, but I began to take basketball a little more seriously after that.”
The 7-foot-1 center committed to the Bears early in the recruiting process, signing the summer after his sophomore year. Austin finished his high school career as the third-highest-ranked recruit in the class of 2012.
“I wanted to go where I was loved and where I was wanted,” Austin said. “Coach [Scott] Drew created that.”
Austin came to Baylor in the fall of 2012 and was considered one of the best players in the country, and he knew it. The projected lottery pick quickly became a fan favorite through his dominant defense in the paint and prolific three-level scoring ability, which was extremely rare for a center in college basketball at the time.
Austin also became known for his attitude, both on and off the court.
“I wasn’t the easiest player to deal with,” Austin said. “I was very egotistical and thought I knew everything, but at the end of the day I didn’t know s—.”
Austin became known in Waco for his competitive emotions while playing basketball. Nighttime visitors to the Ferrell Center in 2013 could expect to see Austin’s dominance on the court, accompanied by a multitude of outbursts at the coaching staff.
“The families used to sit behind the home bench at the Ferrell,” Austin said. “Any given night, I would be cussing out Coach Drew and the rest of the staff if I didn’t like something that was happening. I was cursing at grown men, disrespecting them in front of their wives and children.”
The 2013 season, Austin’s freshman year, ended with an NIT tournament championship for head coach Scott Drew and the Bears. Austin shone in the championship game against Iowa, posting 15 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 5 blocks.
Austin declared for the NBA draft following the tournament, hoping to be a top-five pick. The freshman began to prepare for the combine, but his plans were thrown off course when he tore a ligament in his rotator cuff. He was forced to pull his name out of the draft.
“Teams began to tell me that if I got healthy and played another season of college ball, then I could still go as a top pick,” Austin said.
Despite his elite play, though, Drew and his staff were wary of Austin’s attitude and ego. They were conflicted over whether they wanted the five-star center to return to Waco.
“At the time, Coach Drew and the staff didn’t want me to return,” Austin said. “I was so uncoachable and such a bad teammate that they weren’t sure if they wanted to risk bringing me back.”
Austin desperately wanted to come back to play for the green and gold, but first, he had to face the music. Baylor’s entire coaching staff staged an intervention, featuring his parents and high school coach, telling him he needed to sign a contract of personal conduct to return.
“We wanted to assist Isaiah in any way we could,” Drew said in a 2014 interview with Yahoo Sports. “We thought the best thing was to bring everyone up to see him and that when Isaiah found out, he knew that he had a united front behind him.”
The intervention worked. Austin rejoined the team with a new attitude.
“I had to agree that I wouldn’t be a nuisance to the team and that I would step up as a leader,” Austin said. “That night alone changed my life for the better for the rest of my life.”
The following season, 2013-14, was something special.
Averaging 11.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game, the monster center anchored a Baylor team that, when counted out, made an electric run in the NCAA Tournament to the Sweet Sixteen.
Austin did exactly what was asked of him, and as a sophomore grew into a leader on the court for a Bears team that featured four future NBA players — Cory Jefferson, Royce O’Neale, Taurean Prince and Ishmail Wainwright — as well as NFL journeyman Rico Gathers.
Austin, who finished the 2014 season as a projected first-round pick, was forced to medically retire from basketball. The discovery of an irregular heartbeat at the draft combine led to the center being diagnosed with Marfan syndrome.
Marfan syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects the body’s connective tissue that holds all the body’s cells, organs and tissues together. Continuing to compete at a high level would have been too dangerous to risk, rendering Austin’s NBA dreams impossible.
Austin was still honored at that year’s NBA Draft, being selected with an honorary first-round pick and added into NBA 2K15 as a free agent. He spent a few years bouncing around other professional leagues after being medically cleared to play in November 2016, before ultimately turning to coaching.
Austin is still involved in the basketball world. He now serves as an assistant coach at Florida Atlantic under former Baylor assistant John Jakus.
“John and I have always been very close, because he was my best friend when I was at Baylor,” Austin said. “He showed me that being a good human is much more important than being a good basketball player. I heard from him every week of my life, even when he was off winning national championships, up until he called me and asked me to join him here at FAU.”
As his career has taken him from front-office positions for the NBA’s league fellowship development program to now coaching at the Division I level with his friend, Austin remains tied to Baylor.
“Coach Drew does the best job in the country of keeping a relationship with his players open and honest,” Austin said. “We have a group chat of about 50 of us that he texts every week, just sending encouragement to all of us.”
Austin has no regrets about the way his basketball career turned out. Now 32 years old, he looks back on his time at Baylor as a period that shaped him into the man he strives to be.
“I owe so much to the coaching staff at Baylor and will always be grateful for everything they did for me,” Austin said. “They changed my life in a way that now I am able to live my life in full fruition, and profess my faith in a public way without any shame. I learned there to strive to live every day the way Christ did, and that still echoes in the way I do things now.”
