Taking Command
From San Luis Obispo, California to Chicago, Illinois, Chattanooga, Tennessee to Brooklyn, New York, Maurice Commander has not only traveled miles to play basketball, but long distances internally. No
Conversing with Maurice Commander is like speaking to an old soul sans the Future references (unclear if he owns Gucci flip flops).
The Illinois product, who stands at 6 feet tall, has the Roosevelt Lakers in a position to achieve what the school has never seen floating above their court: banners.
The head coach? A household name in the state: University of Illinois point guard Dee Brown, who led his team to the national championship. They would suffer defeat via Sean May and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The camaraderie, from player to coach, is what every great hooper envisions. “You know how hard it is to find someone and be yourself?” Commander would ask rhetorically. “I am forever grateful for that.”
The two have bonded over pit stops in their careers, injuries, and family setbacks. They are on the cusp of forming the greatest player-coach duo the school has ever seen.
COMMANDER was born to parents Sherree and Maurice in San Luis Obispo, California. How the two met, per his mother, didn’t have the sense of longevity.
Maurice would see the apple of his eye at a nightclub. She thought he should consider a friend. Nothing transpired until they saw each other at the same club again.
From there it was curtains.
Sherree, the small town kid from Live, Florida, went with Maurice to his home city of Chicago (Hyde Park to be exact). They’d have two children: the younger Maurice and a daughter named Imani.
“I WAS NEVER THE SELFISH GUY” Maurice Jr. would say. Teammates I spoke with agreed. On the come-up Commander would succeed at each level of basketball. He appeared at nationals in second grade, then saw his team ranked nationally two years later. Small Fry to Phenom Camp, AAU and everything in between, Commander tasted the potential for his career, but it came at a price. “We couldn’t afford to be there,” he would say of each and every camp his dad took him to. “It was multi-day. We could stay maybe a day or two. We would stay with fellow parents we knew. My dad didn’t even have a room! He would sleep on the floor just so I could be there. That dedication was everything.”
And it paid off.
“I wanted to play at the highest level.” -Maurice Commander
247Sports, Rivals.com, and Scout.com are some of the most well-known recruiting sites. When going through the logs of signees and TBD’s, five star recruits appear at the top. According to Statista, in the year 2021-2022, there were a registered 521,616 boys playing basketball at the high school level.
With more than 2,000 colleges from division one to the NAIA there are bound to be some who slip through the cracks. Additionally, with the hyper-driven highlight era sports consumers live in (Overtime, Ball is Life to name a few), the latest stepback/dunk/crossover is the basketball dopamine hit that keeps retention rates soaring. “I was never touted as a five, four, even three star recruit,” Commander said. Alas, a player who prefers getting teammates in the right spots, playing hard, happily sacrificing for the betterment of the team, he was overlooked. Even as the wins piled up.
However, off the hardwood, the strains of life were paramount.
“MY DAD WAS DIFFERENT,” Jr. told me. “He was in the army. Always had a focus about him. He mentored me and my sister. He was my first coach in life [and] in basketball. He was always there since I was younger. He was always there. If he wasn’t coaching he was a fan.”
When life hits hard, it’s like an avalanche. Uncontrollable twists and turns, hoping for the best.
Maurice Commander Sr.’s health would begin to decline. Jr. reflected on laser surgeries, his father dealing with dialysis, having to go a couple times a week. In addition, he tried getting a kidney transplant. Dozying off became more and more strenuous. “Whether it was tough to sleep or tough to be up, it got to the point he couldn’t be a normal person each day, but he always got up everyday,” Jr. shared. Following his earlier trends of getting to the gym his son was playing at, no matter how far or taxing it would be, Maurice Sr. would seek out a ride to every game in an effort to remain present. “I looked at it like I had to be focused and make sure that everything that’s going on, I had to be the best version I can be through the storm.”
In 2012, Maurice Sr. was hospitalized. Even with his vision impaired, Sherree reminisced: “He would always say, ‘I’m still blessed!’”
The diagnosis was kidney failure. He had to get on a machine. Later: stage four kidney disease. To help pay the bills, Sherree had to sacrifice. The American health insurance industry did her no favors. With one provider, they only agreed to pay twenty percent of what she was charged. Nonetheless, they kept some sense of normalcy, even as Sherree detailed how her husband “sat at the bottom bleachers so he could follow Maurice out of what he called a keyhole,” at every game.
TO UNDERSTAND MAURICE COMMANDER, step away from sports. A loving son and brother (he calls his sister “twin”), a man respected by teammates, peers, and coaches, and a student parents dream of (4.0 GPA, 29 on the ACT) that drive intertwined with sports.
At the high school level he chose to attend Marist and played under Gene Nolan. It couldn’t have worked out better. “One of the best offensive minds I’ve ever been around” he confidently stated. After playing varsity as a freshman and starting his sophomore year, junior season was the explosion of his career. “Best year in Marist history!” he says, giving credence to team chemistry for unlocking the doors of prosperity. The accolades:
Record: 27-3
Won conference
Won regional (previously not accomplished for 10+ years)
Team ranked in top15
Maurice named Player of the Year
“That season definitely shaped me to [be] the player I am today.”
But why would he transfer to Curie?
Getting there was another journey.
Sherree would say Marist blocked the move even after all fees were paid, which she says was $1,100 per month, though the school raised prices. “My husband cried and cried” she emotionally shared. With her lifetime partner’s health declining and her first born’s basketball career being halted, the family made the decision to financially save costs, and the students recognized that, expressing grave displeasure in the school.
So why did Marist give in? Sherree gave a simple answer: “[They] cleared him once I went to the Sun-Times!”
Under Mike Oliver, the good times rolled on the court, and so did the offers. Chattanooga, UC-Davis, Wofford, Navy, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Evansville, to name a few, came calling. “I knew I worked for it,” said Maurice, Jr. “I knew the time I put in. I didn’t have anybody walking me and training me to make sure I was on top of my game.”
“I GREW UP THERE,” said former Marist and University of Chattanooga teammate Justin Brown of his time in Tennessee. “The coaches recruited him but I sold him on how great it was.”
The two would bond over video games and life. Brown would admit Maurice was his biggest support system while at the school. Years later, nothing has changed but the miles apart. “We talk pretty much every day to this day,” he’d say.
For Maurice, the lack of playing time started to wear on him. “He wanted to come home,” said Sherree. “My husband didn’t let him come immediately.”
Simply put, “Reese wanted to have a bigger role in offense and instead was asked to be a game manager,” recalled Brown. “His role could’ve grown.”
How would one feel if a coach makes it a point to recruit hard, sell a dream, and conclude with a nightmare? Ask internally what the next chess piece to move would be? Maurice answered it after his sophomore year, the deadline his father gave to ride it out.
The University of Illinois-Chicago would not respond to an interview request for head coach Luke Yaklich.
After his spell in Tennessee, Maurice Jr. had interest from various schools, including San Diego, but he chose to come home. “It was beautiful,” Sherree said via Zoom. “It was so great. You could see the smile. I thought ‘my son’s back!’”
And who recruited him? University of Illinois-Chicago assistant coach Dee Brown.
The year was 2020. COVID-19 would shut down the world. Maurice had ambitions of playing in front of his family. Instead he balled in empty gymnasiums. It’s easy to sense the disappointment in coming home yet simultaneously feeling like he was on a different planet.
In this world it is the little things that make the biggest differences. Maurice Commander Sr., per the people I spoke with for this story, could not give more glowing endorsements. He served as a father-figure and mentor to many showing deep care. His character and reputation were bar none.
With time came a weakening figure. A man who once, as Sherree puts it, would drive across the country with no GPS, needed help navigating life.
“He was doing treatments three days a week for three and a half hours to four hours, dialysis for renal failure,” Sherree detailed. “The kids saw him deteriorating but you try to stay strong.” On November 18th of 2020 Maurice Sr., when getting himself ready for another treatment, fell in his home. Imani immediately dialed 9-1-1 and he was rushed to the hospital. With COVID guidelines in place only Sherree could go in his room.
She was with him in his final moments.
A man built on strength, integrity, knowledge, counseling, understanding, was with the heavens. “He had a smile like he was at peace,” Sherree would say with a smile of her own. “It was beautiful. And I was looking like daddy’s not in pain anymore. There was a calmness with it, like he was at peace.”
Mrs. Commander would plead with the staff to allow the kids entry to the room. The kids would say goodbye to their rock one last time.
“Maurice idolized his dad,” she told me.
The loss weighs heavily on him. The sorrow, the pain, it is all encompassing of a family member losing their best friend. No one person can prepare another for the grief and agony it shall cast as we navigate unchartered territory in life without what we knew. It is in fact a puzzle, putting all shapes and sizes together but never having that last piece to make us complete. We must somehow find a way to live without having the final touch.
To this day he tears up thinking about his dad. “The smiles and joys is what I miss the most,” he said.
Maurice T. Commander died on November 28th, 2020. He was 52 years old.
AT UIC, Maurice would go on to start, shoot 43% from three, 84.6% from the free throw line, and average 10.5 points per game. However, after just losing his role model, there would be more setbacks. He would hurt his back and doctors couldn’t pinpoint when it occurred, concluding with ‘wear and tear.’
“It was the year my dad had passed away so I was just focused on playing. My mind was just on the court and just trying to get my mind off it.” Heat pads were a constant during timeouts and intermissions. He would persist through the pain to have basketball serve as a distraction. “I just wanted to ball. When I was going through that pain I just had to play through it.”
After a 9-13 showing, UIC drew Youngstown State in the Horizon league conference tournament. They’d get bounced in the first round, 74-58. In the offseason another injury was revealed with Commander: a hip labral tear.
“I did so much stuff” Maurice said, outlining the tests he’d undergo and the strain his body felt. “I couldn’t sit down in class. It was hard to walk. Just everyday stuff that you can do, I couldn't do it. Every time I tried to sit up from getting up out of a chair it felt like I was eighty years old.”
A break is what he could not catch.
“You have to imagine that the hip is a ball and socket joint. So the ball is the femoral head and the socket is what we call the acetabulum. They need to match perfectly for a good function,” said Dr. Jorge Chahla, team physician for the Chicago White Sox, Chicago Bulls and Chicago Fire. In addition he is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in the treatment of complex knee, hip, and all sports related injuries.
“The labrum is like a rubber band that goes around the socket and provides stability to the joint. So you can imagine with time if you keep rubbing it every time you do let’s say squats or any deep flexor exercises, you put that at risk. So then the cartilage and labrum end up being injured.”
For Maurice to have both hip and back pain, it makes sense.
“They work together,” Dr. Chahla told me via Zoom. “Certainly one of the things we see very commonly is people that come in with hip pain they also have back pain. It’s easily explainable because if your hip is not doing well and you have pain you tend to get yourself in weird positions so the back will suffer and vice-versa. I would say thirty to forty percent of the people that we see for hip pain have some sort of back pathology as well.”
When we discussed his career, which stemmed from his time on an international rugby team in his native Argentina to present day, he told me he has done well over 1,000 surgeries.
Maurice would go under the knife. The rehab was *brutal.* Immobile and mandatorily on crutches, he described that time as lonesome. He questioned basketball. He questioned what he was doing with his life. It gave him time to reflect.
“This was all he knew,” Sherree shared. “His dad died. He didn’t have basketball anymore cause now you’re not keeping yourself busy with the sport. He had to try and heal. It was hard.”
Living on his own in an off-campus apartment, his mind raced a mile a minute. “After surgery, like mentally, I didn’t even know what to look forward to. [The medical staff] told me it would be a six month rehab. It gave me time to think. I knew it was gonna be difficult and hard to get back and play at that level but I was determined.
“He would always bring up his dad,” said ex-teammate Damaria Franklin, a leading scorer at UIC who would go on to play under Penny Hardaway at Memphis. “He wanted to be done playing basketball but at the same time he knew it was their dream and he wanted to keep living that legacy.”
Then, more bad news surfaced. Out of the blue, UIC head coach Luke Yaklich informed Maurice he would not have a spot going forward. “I cried when UIC dumped me,” he said. “They told me they recruited in my departure. I didn’t understand. I felt like I gave my all. I felt like they really didn’t back me."
Franklin agrees.
“I felt like that was crazy at the time. I felt like you should’ve just waited to see how he would be when he got cleared and came back. He was gonna miss half a season then come back. Cutting him at the beginning of the season and leaving him out to dry like that I felt like that was a bad thing to do.” Franklin would tell me the mindset of the team shifted after seeing how their comrade was treated. “[Coach Yaklich] didn’t know how to communicate with other players. Going forward, everybody put s*** on themselves. People are being more careful, not speaking up, more closed-off with the coaching staff.”
There was a silver lining, however.
“Coach Dee Brown is the reason I went to UIC,” Franklin said. After the fallout with Commander, Franklin says, “Dee Brown was that centerpiece. D.B. was that guy that everybody went to, to talk to.”
Brown and Commander’s bond grew and grew. He would call Sherree Commander routinely to check in. It would pay dividends down the road.
Just recently, on March 10th, the Chicago Sun Times reported Coach Yaklich was fired after four seasons after compiling a 47-70 record.
“If I ever get on the court again, I know I can hoop with the best of em.” -Maurice Commander.
Uncertain of his future Commander, having not played for what he says was a full year, saw his phone buzz from an unknown number. He picked up.
It was LIU-Brooklyn. They would make a hard pitch.
“I thought it was perfect, especially me being a grad. They told me they love my game, they were confident in my skills.” Head coach Derek Kellogg communicated what Maurice’s role would be. Commander bought in.
After he had just arrived, more heartbreak ensued.
“At the end of the summer session, we were at [Coach Kellogg’s] kids camp. I was working the kids camp at the school,” Commander recalled. Kellogg’s cell went off. Administrators with the school got in touch.
“It was halftime of the games [at the camp] and everybody starts looking at their phones and we all just look at twitter and see this big notification,” said Tre Wood, an ex-teammate of Commander’s at LIU-Brooklyn. “Then the next thing we see is texts coming from family members and friends. We’re all confused.” With the camp ongoing, Wood says he and Commander saw the athletic director and assistant athletic director go into Kellogg’s office and tell him to pack his belongings. “There was no clear cut reason why he was fired in the first place.”
For the the umpteenth time, Commander still could not catch a break.
“He called Coach Dee, he called his mother, just trying to get different opinions on what he should do cause he felt like everything that he was trying to do to progress to take steps forward he was always getting setbacks,” Wood said. Commander contemplated leaving basketball. Meanwhile, LIU-Brooklyn would make a splash hire.
Rod Strickland was named head coach in June of 2022. Professionally he suited up for the Knicks, Spurs, Blazers, Wizards, Heat, T’Wolves, Magic, Raptors, and Rockets. Entering the school after the six-week period, Strickland came in at the conclusion of the summer session. The players were barred from working out with their new head man.
Commander described the setting: when the team scrimmaged there was supposed to be two full games. He saw the court for five minutes. As a grad transfer, Commander felt abandoned. Player and coach would meet face-to-face afterwards. “He was a player’s coach. He understood where all my mental stresses were coming from. I told him I had been down there since the summer trying to work my way back. I’m giving you all I got but in the midst of it my groin was tightening up, my back was tightening up. There had never been no bad blood.”
Maurice Commander would leave LIU-Brooklyn. Rod Strickland, through a team rep, declined an interview request.
“I THOUGHT HE WAS DONE [PLAYING BASKETBALL,” said Sherree. “When Reese came home he didn’t know what he wanted to do.” At this point Maurice was 22 going on 23. As he says, it was the first time in his life he had nothing going on.
“I embrace the abnormal,” he told me.
While at LIU-Brooklyn, Dee Brown was hired to coach the Roosevelt Lakers of the NAIA. Upon his return, Maurice reached out to “It was one day where I just needed somebody to talk to.” Basketball was not the topic of discussion.
If anyone could understand what it was like to be a ball player it’s Dee Brown. If there’s anyone who could comprehend losing a parent, Brown could relate. If a single basketball player could understand hip problems, Brown was the guy (two hip replacements).
“I went down to chop it up and it was crazy; he already had a presentation for me.”
When Commander dug in further, he found Roosevelt offered a real estate program. “It’s rare that universities have it,” he said. “I look at the big picture. And the big picture is Dee Brown getting his first university, my mentor, my good friend who taught me a lot and helped me be the player I got to today. It was inner-city Chicago where all my family, friends, my mom, my sister, can come see me play.”
Commander would sign with Roosevelt. In his first game he netted twenty one points off the bench. His family would have a front row seat to witness the wins tally up.
Maurice would be named All-CCAC First Team, scoring 14.3 points per game, compiling a field goal percentage of 44% and shooting 41% from three point range. He helped lead the Lakers to their first ever CCAC title. They finished 18-2 in league play and an overall record of 25-4. This year’s squad is one win shy of tying the most in program history.
At this juncture, Maurice Commander is a full-time student getting his master’s in real estate development. Outside of his studies he serves as a case manager at a nonprofit. When not crushing in the classroom or helping his fellow man, he’s a starting guard for the number four ranked Lakers.
Maurice Commander is tough. He is a man with integrity, drive, passion, and a relentless approach towards life. Over the course of our interview I learned of an individual who suffered a great deal of loss, whether on the court or off. He would get knocked down so many times and refuse to be counted out. He refused to surrender. He refused to give in and take the easy route. Towards the end of our discussion Commander, not one to applaud himself, acknowledged his road. “You’re a warrior, bro,” he said. Come March 26th there’s only one word left to add to his arsenal, a goal he has strived for from his AAU days, Marist, Curie, Chattanooga, UIC, surgery, crutches, rehab, recovery, LIU-Brooklyn, and now Roosevelt: champion. For his family. For his father. For his team.
No one should doubt him.
Love. Great story.
Amazing story. Very well written!