Coach Max Good needed to see just one play in a summer-league game 15 years ago to know he wanted Anthony Ireland on his LMU basketball team.
 
Purely by coincidence, Ireland and his New England Playas AAU team were on the LMU campus for a summer tournament. Good got a call from Ireland’s coach, encouraging him to check out the game. 
 
“I saw him make one play. He brought the ball down the court at rapid-fire speed. Got to the right elbow and made a crossover and got to the left elbow in one dribble,” Good recalled. “He could jump really high on his jump shot and he made that shot. I saw that one move and said, `I want him.’ ”
 
It turned out to be a happy and productive basketball marriage. Ireland, despite being barely 5-foot-8 on his best days, was a star for the Lions. 
 
He became one of just four players in West Coast Conference history to rack up 2,000 points, 500 assists and 500 rebounds in his career. He earned first-team All-WCC honors three times, and in four seasons never missed a practice or a game, according to his coach.
 
“I liked everything about him: I liked his grit, his determination, his no-nonsense play,” Good said. “He was NBA-clever with the ball. If he were 6 feet, he’d have been an NBA player for sure.”
 
Ireland never made it to the NBA, but after graduating in 2014 assembled a robust professional career overseas, making stops in France, Greece, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Portugal, Spain and Hungary. 
 
The still-unfolding second chapter of his story, devoted to helping young people in his hometown of Waterbury, Conn., shows promise to be even more impactful.
 
Ireland was caught entirely off guard when LMU Athletic Director Craig Pintens called to tell him he’d been chosen as the school’s 2024 inductee into the WCC Hall of Honor. 
 
Ireland and winners from eight other conference schools will be recognized in ceremonies March 9 during the Credit Union 1 WCC Basketball Championship in Las Vegas. He’s still wrapping his head around being honored this way at his age.
 
“I was like, `Wow.’ It’s huge, man,” he said. “It’s been hard to kind of put into perspective. I’m 32 years old and still in that space of being an athlete, being a basketball player, but now I’m transitioning into what I’m doing full-time. It’s almost like that Anthony was a totally different person. 
 
“Why did you work so hard? Instead of going out on the weekends, why did you choose to stay in the gym? It’s almost like giving me that pat on the back where I’m proud of that younger Anthony for making those sacrifices, for making those decisions. When this comes along, it’s like. `Wow, you did that. I’m not dreaming. It wasn’t a different person, that was you.’ “
 
Good, who is 82 but still talks on the phone twice a week with Ireland, is thrilled for his former player.  “I love him like a son. I can’t say enough good things about him.”
 
Ireland grew up in Waterbury, Conn., a working-class town of about 114,000 located 75 miles northeast of New York City. Originally settled in 1674, it’s home to a long line of accomplished people: portrait photographer Annie Leibowitz, actor Bob Crane of Hogan’s Heroes fame, legendary softball pitcher Joan Joyce, retired major league baseball player Jimmy Piersall, Watergate judge John Sirica, actress Gene Tierney and former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent.
 
Raised by a single mom, Ireland spent all his free time playing ball. It kept him safe and fueled his dream of playing in the NBA. Everyone who saw him play was impressed, but there was an issue.
 
Joe Summa, an attorney in Waterbury and once a Division III All-American at Wesleyan College, started an AAU team in town and 12-year-old Ireland was his point guard.
 
“Anthony was very tiny. He was probably 5-foot-3 and maybe 105 pounds. His shorts would go down below his knees,” Summa recalled. “But Anthony was like the purest point guard I’d ever seen in this area. We’d scrimmage at the end of practice and I would always try to make the teams as even as possible. What you began to notice over time, whichever team Anthony was on would win.”
 
Ireland had grown to maybe 5-8 by the time he led Crosby High School to a Connecticut state championship as a junior, just as as his father, Bernard, had done two decades before. The team made it back to the title game again the next season. 
 
“I did really good at Crosby High School,” he said. “But it’s my senior year and I have zero offers.”
 
So Ireland spent a year at Winchendon Prep in Massachusetts, where he learned life skills and roomed with fellow students from China, Brazil and South Korea — none of whom played basketball or spoke English. “It was the best time in my life,” Ireland said. “School was hard and we were poor. But we built a great relationship with each other and they’re all people I still keep in touch with to this day.”
 
His AAU showing that day at LMU got Ireland an invitation to make an official recruiting trip to campus. His mother, Lynda Carter, accompanied him and helped him make up his mind. “Anthony, this is where you need to be,” she told him.
 
Ireland was still all about hoops when he got to college, convinced he would play the game for a living. “That was the only option,” he said. “I was so set on Plan A, my Plan B was Plan A.”
 
Good knew better and now and then would poke his head in the door to make sure Ireland was in class. That prompted calls home, where Ireland reportedly got little sympathy from Mom. Good recalled her telling Anthony, “Maybe if you would get your butt to class he wouldn’t have to.”
 
On the way to earning his degree, Ireland was sensational on the basketball court. He scored 21 points his sophomore year as the Lions beat UCLA at Pauley Pavilion. After firing in 30 points in a loss at No. 6 Gonzaga a year later, home fans at The Kennel gave him a standing ovation. “They absolutely did,” Good recalled.
 
LMU seemed to constantly be plagued by injuries, but Ireland was always there. He scored 20 points or more 44 times, and put up 34 in a game against Santa Clara. By the time he was done, Ireland held the record for most games played in school history, ranked second all-time in assists and steals, third in points and fifth in 3-pointers made.
 
Before embarking on his pro career overseas, Ireland hosted his first youth basketball camp in his hometown. That was just the beginning of what has become a calling for Ireland.
 
Through his AI3 Academy, Ireland continued to put on camps, clinics and leagues, primarily for kids 10 to 16 years old. One mentorship program is designed to help to give a second chance to 16-to-25-year-olds coming out of incarceration.
 
He organized a high school holiday basketball tournament in December and last summer formed his Leadership University non-profit in order to merge basketball and education. 
 
“Basketball becomes the medium to teach kids about life,” said Summa, 73, who serves on Ireland’s board of directors. “Anthony’s expanding that — he’s doing a lot of leadership training in some of the public schools.”
 
Ireland, whose ultimate dream is to create a K-12 charter school in Waterbury, calls Summa a mentor. “He’s been essential in my life and huge in this next transition,” Ireland said. “Just giving me that confidence and putting the battery in my pack, essentially.”
 
Summa returns the credit to Ireland, calling him a Pied Piper for kids in town. “He’s built great relationships in the community. He’s a 5-9 kid who achieved the success he did in basketball by working hard and setting goals and staying focused, and he’s bringing those same characteristics to this next chapter in his life,” Summa said. “I have no doubt he’s going to be very successful.”