Homer Drew Basketball Camps - Valparaiso University

Homer Drew Basketball Camps

Coaching Staff

Bryce Drew

The man perhaps most synonymous with Crusader basketball, Bryce Drew just concluded his third season as a member of the Valparaiso coaching staff and his second year as the associate head coach.   Bryce is responsible for basketball development, recruiting, and scouting for the Crusaders.

Drew joined the Valpo coaching staff prior to the 2005-06 campaign as an assistant coach under his father, Homer. In his three seasons on the bench so far, he has helped lead the Crusaders to 55 victories, and this past year helped guide Valpo to a berth in the inaugural College Basketball Invitational. In addition, he has prepared and developed four players for international pro basketball careers.

Bryce, Indiana’s Mr. Basketball in 1994 at Valparaiso High School, began his collegiate career at Valpo by garnering Mid-Con Newcomer of the Year and Mid-Continent Conference Tournament MVP honors as a freshman. Bryce piled on the accolades while at Valpo, earning a spot on the All-Conference First Team his final three seasons after landing on the Second Team as a freshman. It was during the conference tournament, however, that Drew really shined, earning All-Tournament team honors each of his four seasons and picking up three Mid-Continent Conference Tournament MVP awards. He was also twice decorated as Mid-Con Most Valuable Player, one of only three players to be so honored twice in their career.   In addition to his individual accolades, Drew led the Crusaders to four Mid-Continent Conference regular season championships, four tournament titles and three trips to the NCAA Tournament.

Drew, the career leader in points (2,142), three-point field goals (364) and assists (626) at Valpo, etched his name into the American consciousness in 1998 when he hit “The Shot” in the Opening Round of the NCAA Tournament to beat Ole Miss. The play, in which Drew caught a tip pass from teammate Bill Jenkins off a full-court feed from Jamie Skyes, won Drew an ESPY award and gave Valpo its first NCAA Tournament win in school history. Two nights later, the Crusaders knocked off Florida State in overtime and took their Cinderella journey to Saint Louis for the Sweet 16.

Following his collegiate career, Drew again made school history when the Houston Rockets drafted him with the 16th pick in the 1998 NBA Draft, the first time a Crusader had been chosen in the first round. Drew’s NBA career lasted six seasons with the Rockets, Chicago Bulls, and Charlotte and New Orleans Hornets before he headed to Europe in 2004. Drew’s best professional season came in 2001 when he started 41 games for the Bulls, averaging 6.3 points and 3.9 assists per game. A prolific shooter, Drew set a Hornet record when he connected on nine consecutive three-point attempts. Twice as a pro, Drew competed in the postseason, with Houston in 1999 and again in 2002 as a member of the Charlotte Hornets. In his NBA career, Bryce scored over 1,000 points and made 37% of his three-point attempts. In 1999, Drew was honored by the NBA with the Henry P. Iba Citizen Athlete Award for sportsmanship. During his career, Drew played alongside All-Star teammates such as Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon and Scottie Pippen, and learned the game from many successful NBA coaches, including Rudy Tomjanovich and Paul Silas.

Bryce follows not only his father into coaching, but also his older brother Scott, who served as an assistant coach at Valpo for nine seasons before taking over the program in 2002 and leading the Crusaders to a 12-2 Mid-Con record and berth in the National Invitational Tournament. Scott left Valpo in 2003 for Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he just concluded his fifth season as head coach.

Drew graduated from Valparaiso in 1998 with a degree in sports management and a minor in business. He and his wife Tara currently reside in Valparaiso.

Luke Gore

Luke Gore concluded his sixth season with the Valpo basketball program in 2007-08. Gore is in his second stint as a full-time assistant coach, and has also previously served as the director of basketball operations and as an administrative assistant.

In his current role, Gore works with player development, with an emphasis on post play. Over his first six years, Gore has guided six all-conference post players and seven post players who have gone on to professional basketball careers overseas. He also serves as recruiting coordinator, helping to sign recruiting classes ranked as high as 27th in the nation. Gore also works as director of Valpo’s summer basketball camps and is responsible for future game scheduling.

In his six years with the Crusaders, Valpo has made trips to the NCAA Tournament, the NIT and the inaugural College Basketball Invitational in the 2007-08 season. Over his tenure, the Crusaders have won 108 games, captured two Mid-Continent Conference regular season titles, and won one Mid-Con tournament title.

Before arriving at Valparaiso, Gore spent the 2001-02 school year as an intern in the Fitness/Recreation Department at the University of Notre Dame. The next year, 2002-03, Gore served as Assistant Director of Intramurals and Campus Recreation at VU.

A starting forward at NAIA Bethel College in McKenzie, Tennessee from 1998-2001, Gore earned Academic All-America honors as a senior. He helped Bethel to the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title during the 1998-99 season after transferring from Cumberland (Tenn.) University where he played his freshman year.

Gore graduated from Bethel in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Education and received a Masters of Arts in Sports Administration from Valpo in August of 2006. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Gore was raised in Paris, Tennessee.

Luke and his wife Cheryl currently reside in Valparaiso.

Chris Sparks

Chris Sparks returned to Valparaiso for the 2007-08 for his first season as an assistant coach. Sparks previously played for the Crusaders from 1997-2000, becoming the eighth former player under Homer Drew to return as an assistant coach.

With the Crusaders, Sparks assists with post and perimeter player development and recruiting. He also serves as the team’s academic supervisor and travel coordinator.

Sparks arrives at Valpo coming off of a two-year head coaching stint for the Canterbury Rams of the New Zealand National Basketball League. In his time as head coach, Sparks was nominated a Coach of the Year finalist by Basketball New Zealand in 2006. His responsibilities did not end with coaching, however, as he also had to work on recruiting both local and international players for the Rams. Sparks was also responsible for organizing clinics and marketing the organization, and also ran Chris Sparks Basketball Camps throughout New Zealand.

During his time with the Rams, Sparks recruited and developed the 2006 NBL scoring champion, Dennis Trammell, on the lowest import budget in the league. He also recruited and developed four NBL top-10 Power Ranking players in his two seasons on the sidelines. Two more of his players received contracts in the Australian National League after their time with the Rams.

Prior to his time in New Zealand, Sparks served from 2001-2005 as a volunteer assistant coach for Athletes in Action. He helped guide fall collegiate tour teams, as well as international tour teams during his time with AIA. Sparks also played on one of AIA’s international tour teams during the summer of 1998, playing against clubs in Croatia and Switzerland.

Sparks spent three seasons with the Crusader basketball team, during which Valpo made the NCAA Tournament on three occasions, including the Sweet 16 season of 1998. He was a part of two Mid-Continent Conference regular season championship squads and three Mid-Con Tournament championship teams. Sparks played his first two seasons at Vincennes University, helping the Blazers to a sixth place finish at the NJCAA National Tournament in 1997.

Sparks received an Associate’s Degree in Business Administration from Vincennes in 1997 and graduated from Valparaiso with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management in 2000.