Hey Justin Wimmer, what were your first couple weeks at Three Rivers College like?
"It was awful. It was damn awful. It was awful. It was absolutely miserable. I called my dad and told him I was coming home. I thought Gene was crazy."
Wimmer was in trouble almost from the start when he arrived on the scene in the early 1990s. The athletic 6-foot, 8-inch, Memphis forward slept in and missed class the second day of school. For punishment, he was at Bacon Park at 5 a.m. and ran five miles with Three Rivers men's basketball coach Gene Bess present, as well.
"I was like, 'Oh wow. This cat is for real,'" said Wimmer, who famously blocked a shot in the final seconds of the 1992 championship game. "And he was there running. At that particular time, he was actually there at 5 a.m. running with them. I'll bet he did two or three (miles) at least."
As a high school senior, Wimmer didn't give playing in college much thought. He was dumb about the idea and didn't realize he could or that he was any good. He was just a kid who liked dunking.
His coach at the time was Herb Slayton, who was the assistant coach for the 1979 Three Rivers national championship team.
Slayton talked Wimmer into playing college ball, and fed the naive, rebellious, undisciplined teenager to a college coach who keeps 20-year old practice plans in his office because you never know when you might need them.
So Wimmer goes from Memphis to the Missouri Bootheel and gets in trouble almost immediately. And continues to get in trouble for sneaking out, missing curfew, skipping class and showing up late for stuff.
"He didn't actually try real hard to do the right thing all the time, but his heart was right. I'm really proud of the way he's turned out," Bess said. "We had our differences when he was here, but that's just part of that coach and player relationship. You have all kinds of relationships and they are all rewarding."
Wimmer redshirted his first year. So a guy who didn't really like practice got to do solely that for a coach who prepared for every practice.
"My redshirt year was kind of rough. Gene and I didn't really see eye to eye. I don't think he really wanted me back. I think (assistant coach) Tom Barr was the one who talked him into having me back," Wimmer said.
Wimmer continued to get in trouble for not touching the line on drills and other things that came back to the same conflict of discipline.
"(Bess') way is grit and grind. His way is discipline at all times. His way is, you are going to play 100 percent or you are not going to play at all," Wimmer said. "He has one way and one way only. There is no swaying from what he does."
It took nearly a year for Wimmer to grasp the point of it all. The summer after his redshirt season, he was at a tournament in Memphis and discovered his disciplined approach had made him one of the better players there.
"My style of play didn't really change, it just got better and more disciplined. I was wild and crazy. I could put the ball in the hole and all I wanted to do was dunk, and still got disciplined in myself," Wimmer said. "(Bess) never wanted me to quit doing what I do, he just wanted me to do it more disciplined and better. We fought about it for a little while, but he won as usual."
Three Rivers then won its second national championship.
"I don't know if I ever did (get through to him)," Bess said. "He seems to have a good hold of what's going on and is doing well for himself. So we're proud of him."
Wimmer went on to play at Memphis, win the Great Midwest Conference and reach the Sweet 16. He played overseas year-round after that.
Wimmer played primarily in Spain, but in the offseason he'd go to Asia or South America and play there. In about 11 years of pro ball, he played in 16 countries and every continent except Antarctica.
Once basketball finished, Wimmer returned to the states and bought a health club and ran that for about 11 years. He sold it off, bought 50 apartments, and has been in the real estate business since.
Along the way he got married in 2000, coached eight years of college basketball and has been an AAU coach the past 16 years in the Bristol, Tennessee, area, which is tucked into the northeast corner of the state. The state line with Virginia is two streets over. The Bristol Motor speedway is seven streets over. North Carolina is a short drive through the Appalachian Mountains.
In 16 years, his mostly white, working class players have earned more than 65 scholarships and $7 million in school has been paid for.
"For one team in this area, I believe our success is pretty outstanding. We've had people play for Mississippi State, Virginia Tech all the way down to Division III schools," Wimmer said.
Of the things Wimmer adopted from Bess, he's most taken the disciplined coaching style he nearly quit college to avoid.
"His style of coaching is obsolete. It is a dinosaur, but he gets people to respond to it. He's probably one of the only coaches in America, and I'm talking about at any level, that can coach the way he coaches," Wimmer said. "His way still does work. His philosophy still works. It's just the type of kids are so different now. But he gets them to buy in."
Wimmer and Bess are friends now. As their once testy relationship mellowed, Wimmer grew to see a humble and honorable side to Bess.
Wimmer was there when Bess was honored by Three Rivers for winning 1,200 games. He was there in February when Bess was inducted as a "Legend" into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
"(Bess has) told me he loves me a lot of times."