The Coach Knew it All Along
John Giannini knew all along what America East observers are just finding out this season: center Mark Flavin is pretty good. The 2002-03 Maine media guide quotes Giannini on Flavin as saying, “He is a big man we are developing to contribute to this year’s team and I think he can become an elite player in the conference over time.”
Looking at his career statistics entering this year, the casual fan might have started to wonder if Flavin has been a bust or if Giannini didn’t know what he was talking about. But the regular season that just concluded showed that the eighth-year head coach knew better than we all did.
Flavin didn’t finish the regular season in the top 10 in America East in scoring, in fact he was third on the Black Bears in that category. He was fifth in the conference in rebounding and second in blocked shots. By the fourth game of the season, Flavin had already equaled his career total for points just this season and surpassed his career total for rebounds. Both he and Giannini felt that everything else followed from the early going.
“When I’m out on the floor, I get some sweat, into the flow, I get more confidence,” Flavin said.
“After Mark started to get his 10-20 minutes a night – that’s when he took the next step,” Giannini said. “Then he just got so productive that we made him a focal point of what we do.”
Flavin is just the latest in Giannini’s tenure to play few minutes behind veteran stars and then emerge as a star. The coach cites players like Carvell Ammons and Rickey White among them, and says that freshman Olli Ahvenniemi will be the next one. But that’s not what makes his emergence into one of the conference’s best big men such a good story.
The native of Weymouth, Massachusetts didn’t have an easy upbringing. He has never seen his father to this day, raised by his mother and with his older brother being the closest thing he had to a father. He knows his brother couldn’t make up for his father not being there, but appreciates that he did all he could for him. So when he got to Maine, he had a real opportunity, and has taken advantage of it.
“I’m really proud of Mark because he’s a kid that did not have a lot of advantages in his background,” Giannini said. “There are so many people in life that have their families go through really difficult times, and Mark is just one of those, he’s one of many. But the difference with Mark is that he’s really matured and worked hard academically and personally to make the most of his opportunity. Mark did not have anything easy, in terms of life before Maine. He’s a survivor who has learned not just to survive, but to start to flourish, and he’s going to have a very good life because of it. It speaks very well to his character.”
When Flavin was a senior in high school, he was nobody’s big-time prospect. He was a 6’9″, 200-pound post player who wasn’t highly recruited and was considering prep school to help his development, when Maine came calling. He liked the coaching staff, as well as the players he met on his visit, and decided to come to Maine instead of prep school. He hasn’t been disappointed.
His development picked up when he played alongside now departed teammates like Justin Rowe, a top shot-blocker the past two seasons, as well as Rickey White and Clayton Brown. With the assistance of the coaches, he has worked hard in the weight room and now stands at a solid 240 pounds, which along with his good footwork and post fundamentals have made him a tough player to stop on the low blocks. He worked a little harder last offseason to prepare for the opportunity ahead this season, and said that new assistant coach Calvin Oldham, who played overseas, has been instrumental this season.
Giannini said Flavin took well to not playing many minutes early in his career, knowing who he was playing behind.
“He knew he was as good as them, and I told him that he was going to be at that level,” he said. “I just believe in players knowing their roles.”
Flavin has enjoyed his college years, finding the area to be to his liking and his teammates and coaching staff to be good supporters. He’s lived a normal life as a college student and continued to grow. His teammates have been an important part of his college life both on and off the court.
Right now, the communications major is unsure of what he wants to do after his basketball playing days are over, but he’ll probably have some time to think about it. With his continued development and size and strength, opportunities may well come calling overseas if not in the United States. He has enjoyed helping at camps the past few summers, and from his interaction with the coaching staff feels like coaching is one possible calling after he is done playing. He says he likes working with kids, and could see that being a possibility. Regardless of what he does, he certainly has immense respect from his head coach.
“Sometimes people have legitimate hardships, and they have to overcome them,” Giannini reflects. “I respect those people, like what Mark has done, more than anything.”
