Reasonable people know that small clusters of past outliers have no real predictive value in determining the potential success or failure of non-prototypical athletes. But Sports Experts (like us) know that if you can think of at least 2 or 3 past examples, you can argue ’till your face turns blue that Player X is not only capable, but in fact likely to achieve at an exceptionally high level. We’ve made it our mission to identify and catalog each secret Key to Success. This is the latest entry in an ongoing series.

College basketball recruiting season is coming to an end. The Letter of Intent signing window closes on May 20th, just two weeks from today. We’ve undertaken an extensive historical study for the benefit of coaches like Isiah Thomas, who got a late start on recruiting, and anyone else who may still have an extra scholarship or two laying around.

Who should savvy coaches target to take their teams to the next level?

The Key to Success: Congenital Heart Defects

The one thing that separates mere athletes from truly complete players is heart. To be a big time player, a guy has to have a big time heart. Unfortunately for the players in question, the cardiological reality is that a big heart usually turns out to be a weak heart.

But if you can find a guy with the heart to succeed (and still survive through four years of college), you’ve truly found the key to success.

The line of big and not yet broken hearts may have started with Bill Garrett back in the late 40’s/early 50’s. Garrett was Indiana’s Mr. Basketball, a two-time All Big 10 player, and an All American in 1951. Dennis “D.J.” Johnson played one dominating year at Pepperdine, averaging  more than 15 points per game before moving on to a 14 year NBA career and 5 All-Star game appearances.

Reggie Lewis, another future Boston Celtic, started for four years at Northeastern University (the alma mater of heart-healthy Dallas Maverick J.J. Barea), averaging more than 22 points per game over his career. Conrad McRae hustled his way to more than 200 blocked shots at Syracuse, also averaging 11.9 points per game and 6.6 rebounds.

More recently, Cuttino Mobley’s all around game helped take the University of Rhode Island all the way to the Elite Eight, just one basket short of a Final Four appearance. Jason Collier averaged more than 17 points per game at Georgia Tech, falling just .8 rebounds per game short of averaging a double-double. And Marvin Stone averaged 10 and 7, playing a crucial role in the Cardinals’ improvement from 12-19 to a 19-13 record in Rick Pitino’s first year at Louisville.

But when you recruit a player with a congenital heart defect, you need to make sure they’ve got enough in the tank to make it through their entire college career. Hank Gathers is one of just 100 players in NCAA history to tally 2000 points and 1000 rebounds. He averaged 32.7 points and 13.7 rebounds in 1988-89, making him just the second person in history to lead the NCAA in both categories in the same year. But during his Senior season, just before the start of the NCAA Tournament, Gathers died of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The Loyola Marymount team that Gathers left behind still managed to make it to the Elite Eight, but lost to eventual national champions UNLV by 30 points. Could Gathers, who averaged 29 points that year, have pushed LMU over the top? We’ll never know for sure.

Where to find them: Victory Junction Summer Camp

The good people at Victory Junction offer summer camp adventure programs for children with all sorts of serious health conditions, including heart disease.

In the new landscape of college basketball, eighth graders are already giving verbal commitments. Recruiting services evaluate and rank the potential of pre-teens. Once college coaches learn that players with congenital heart defects are the key to success, it’s only a matter of time before recruiters are swarming Victory Junction scrimmages and scouting pickup games at the Michael Waltrip Operation Marathon SportsCenter.

How can a program secure the Victory Junction talent pipeline before the organization turns into a corrupt, AAU-style cesspool of shady dealings? We recommend becoming a sponsorship partner to the camp. Much like international basketball scouting and baseball camps throughout Latin America, this is the new frontier of talent identification and development.

Lay the foundation, nurture the talent, and in a few years… Harvest the rewards.