By Samantha Franz

Sports Editor

There is an expression in theatre that states, “There are no small roles, only small actors.”

This year, men’s basketball senior Patrick McCloskey’s hoops career will be coming to an end, but the hard-working, undersized 6-foot-7 center has certainly made the most of his time on the hardwood. McCloskey has gone from high school star to key role-player for OU, never complaining along the way. 

School days

Every athlete has a story and McCloskey’s basketball odyssey began on the high school hardwood of Marshall High School in Marshall, Mich., a small town of 7,459 residents about 14 miles outside of Battle Creek. 

Marshall High School varsity boys basketball coach Dan Coddens knew he had something special on his hands when McCloskey came to shoot around with the varsity team in his first year of high school. 

“In eighth grade, we saw he was pretty good,” Coddens said. “But when he came to open gym in ninth grade, my two captains said they wanted him on the team.” 

Things only looked up from there. 

McCloskey became Coddens’s only four-year varsity player in his 12 years as head coach and made first-team All State as a senior. Along the way, he led his team to three straight district titles and a 42-5 record his junior and senior years. 

According to Coddens, McCloskey played the game with his eyes on the prize and didn’t mind sharing the spotlight with his teammates, despite scoring more than 1,000 points in his high school career.

“Patrick wasn’t a very emotional player; he was about business,” Coddens said. “His highs were never too high and his lows never too low. He was all-business and his teammates looked up to him. If someone else was scoring points, that didn’t bother him. He just wanted to win the game.”

Going to Grizzly country

When it came time to choose a college, several factors went into McCloskey’s decision. In addition to being a four-year letter winner in basketball, he was also a two-year letter winner for Marshall’s football team and he contemplated which sport to play at the collegiate level and where. 

“It was between playing basketball at Oakland and playing football,” McCloskey said. “They [OU] had been recruiting me early in high school and I had a few visits and liked what I saw. I was being recruited by some Big Ten schools to play football, but I had only played two years in high school and I wasn’t sure if I loved football. So I stuck with basketball.”

So the decision was made. McCloskey donned the number 44 in black and gold in 2004 and played in all 32 games with 16 starts in his freshman season. It was also in his first season that Oakland University took the conference title and won the play-in game against Alabama A&M to earn a seed in the NCAA tournament, an event Coddens calls one of his “proudest moments as a coach.”

The 2004-05 season was also his introduction to head coach Greg Kampe, arguably one of the most spirited coaches in Divisi

on I basketball. 

“He’s an intense guy,” McCloskey said. “He tells you straight up; he’s not going to lie to you, so you know what to expect from him. You can respect that.”

For the next two years, McCloskey took a role off the bench as Kampe brought in other big men. 

“He doesn’t draw fanfare, but he does his job,” Kampe said. “He’s our best defender in the post and you know whenever a shot goes up, he’s going to go for the rebound. He does all the little things right. He does have some limitations in scoring the ball, which is what makes him a role-player and keeps him from being in the limelight all the time.”

McCloskey has made some key plays for the Golden Grizzlies as of late, among them his 11 rebounds in the statement-making victory over then 21-ranked University of Oregon Dec. 22 and a momentum-building layup at the buzzer to cut Oral Roberts’s halftime lead to three points on Jan. 12.

“It’s basically my job to come bring intensity and energy every game,” McCloskey said. “I get rebounds, do a lot of the dirty work, put up some put-backs and do whatever I can for the team.”

McCloskey is especially motivated to play hard since, at 6-foot-7 and 229 pounds, he is undersized for a Division I center.

“There’s been some tough games for me, going against some 6-11, seven-foot guys at the college level, so that was a bit of an adjustment,” McCloskey said of starting at center as a freshman. “But I think that’s what helped me with all the energy I bring because I had to work my butt off to compete with those guys.”

McCloskey has been back in the starting lineup recently, earning his fourth consecutive start against IPFW Jan. 19. 

“We just decided this is his senior year and we’re giving him a chance to remember his senior year and make a name for himself,” Kampe said. “He plays the game the way you’d want your son to play. He’s plays hard, does all the right things and everybody looks at him and thinks, ‘Now that’s a good kid.’

2008 and beyond

In addition to finishing up his basketball career at OU this year, McCloskey completed another milestone this past semester, earning his undergraduate degree in December in marketing. He’s now entering his first year of graduate studies at Oakland, looking to earn his MBA with a concentration in supply chain management. 

“He takes his career at Oakland seriously,” Coddens said. “He is a role model for my current high school players. I can brag about him at home that he is a very good player and a good student.”

Even with his eligibility concluding at the end of this season, McCloskey only sees the Oakland University basketball program growing stronger. 

“Every year, the talent is getting better and better,” he said. “They do a great job of recruiting and as people can see, we are competing with top-tier teams now and I think it’s only going to continue to get better.”

Coddens, who still visits with McCloskey on occasion, foresees his former star growing stronger as well.

“He’s been successful on the basketball court for eight years and I expect bigger and better things out of him as a person,” Coddens said. “I know in his career of choice he will be successful.”