Former UConn Huskies trainer and 13-year NBA veteran Kevin Ollie was hired as head coach and director of player development for its Overtime Elite, a brand new professional basketball team for best chances between 16 and 18 years old.
“I am ready to return to what I had been born to perform: empowering and supporting and encouraging young people, and helping them develop,” Ollie said in a statement. “There is no better location for me to do this than OTE, an outstanding league for outstanding young guys. I believe it my mission to assist these elite athletes realize their visions ”
Ollie will operate with Brandon Williams, Overtime Elite’s executive VP and head of basketball operations, to build what is anticipated to become a 40-person operations team, such as coaches, sports science and functionality employees, coaches and advisers to work with young players.
The OTE’s plan would be to provide six-figure financial bundles and a academic tutoring element for high school players to compete against homework faculty and global teams at a yearlong training regime. The league’s version would allow for gamers to share in potential revenue from title, picture and likeness and earnings of custom jerseys, trading cards along with non-fungible tokens. These players would drop school eligibility but you need to be in a position to progress ahead of the G League and NBA draft at a more basketball-intensive atmosphere.
After winning a national title in his second season as coach at his alma mater at 2014, Ollie progressed to a more NCAA tournament prior to an acrimonious departure in 2018 due to an NCAA investigation. Ollie filed a lawsuit against UConn to regain $10 million in back cover, a procedure which has gone to mediation.
That is Ollie’s initial basketball occupation as leaving UConn three decades back.
Ollie built a solid reputation for mentoring young celebrities on his teams from the league, such as LeBron James at Cleveland and Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook at Oklahoma City. Ollie turned into a NBA head-coaching task with all the Brooklyn Nets early in his UConn tenure.