Roe and Izzo: What they said
Without looking it up, I'm pretty sure Delvon Roe has won MSU's Antonio Smith Glue and Guts Award every year at the team awards banquet. That thing should be changed to the Roe-Smith Glue and Guts Award, or they need to come up with something new named after Roe. If they had a stat for plays made while gritting teeth in pain, I'm pretty sure he'd be high on the all-time NCAA list. Here's what Roe and Tom Izzo said at the news conference announcing his retirement from basketball:
“ Over the years I think we’ve built this program on toughness. I’m not sure we’ve had anybody any tougher than Delvon.”
“As I think back on what he’s done for us, he’s played with pain his entire career. I was at his game when he was in high school when he first hurt his knee. That was in 2008 I believe. It was a long time ago. He helped lead us to two Final Fours and two Big Ten championships. I’ve been a hard guy on some things and I’ve been soft on some things but I think I’ve cried twice (long pause) over a player. One was Mateen when he broke his foot his senior year, when he’d come back to school to try to win a national championship, thinking his dreams were dashed. And two was this morning. Delvon and I spent a lot of time today.”
“ It just got to the point where, he had another setback a week ago where he had some more fluid in his knee and they took some bone chips out. And I guess that 29th time, it was one time too many.”
“I think if you look at what he’s done for us, if you ever consider a Spartan a warrior, you’d probably rate him right up there in the top.”
“I remember when we lost everybody, as we’re playing Butler, Kalin was out, Allen was hurt and we knew Delvon was hurt but we just blew it off because Delvon can always play. Day-Day said today, ‘Delvon always played.’ Four minutes into the game I took him out and he came over and said, ‘I can’t go no more.’ I said, ‘You’re done.’ And he said, ‘You can’t do that to me.’ And I said, ‘OK’ and then he limped around and played some more, but we talked a lot today about, when it started getting to be the bone spurs again and all that, it was just one time too many. And I think one thing he talked to me about was, ‘Is it fair to the development of the APs, Gaunas and Nixes and other guys? Is it fair to them?’ Because I have started (Delvon) almost every game. As his dad said to me sometimes, maybe physically he didn’t deserve to. He always did every other way. And so even though he says he’s being selfish, thinking of himself, I think he’s thinking of us.”
“He’s still gonna be a part of us. I told him he’s got to come to the aircraft carrier because if it wasn’t for guys like him, I probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to be in a game like that. You have to have players of the caliber we have to play in those games. So it’s been an interesting day. And when he talked to the team at 2:30, I know some of them looked at it in a tough way too, but I hope you remember him by what he gave us, because he probably gave more than 99 percent of the guys that ever played here in any sport. And that is, he gave his health. And he did. He lied to us continuously on how he was.
"His sophomore year, he played with that torn meniscus from the start of the year until the end of the year. Not telling us because he thought he’d have to have surgery again. So in some ways, it’s just a little early but this is one that should be celebrated rather than handled differently. But this should be celebrated. It won’t be by the (players) standing behind you, it won’t be by me right now. But when I get to stand up in the aircraft carrier, watch him kiss the “S” at the end of the year, I think it’ll be a lot easier, mean a lot more.”
“It’s nothing wrong, our doctors and trainers did an unbelievable job. But it’s just never-ending. You know, I happened to be there the day he got hurt. He went down in the first quarter and I remember at halftime saying to his dad, ‘He doesn’t seem to have the same zip.’ Nobody knew he was hurt. And I find out later, his locker room was downstairs, and they carried him down the steps and they carried him up the steps. The second half, all he did was throw the ball to Pritchard, the kid (who went to) Indiana, because he couldn’t do anything. So just about all but the year before I recruited him, that’s the way it’s been.”
ROE
“This was a hard decision for me. It took a lot of thinking. And for me it really came down to, I got to the point where I didn’t want to just want get through, get through, get through. Get through games, get through months, weeks, seasons. I wanted to play and have fun. I felt that having to always be in a situation where, going to games where there’s four minutes left in the game and I’m looking at the clock like, ‘When is this game gonna be over with?’ For my day off, so I can get a day off and then maybe my knee won’t swell up again so I can go back and play again.
"And I didn’t think that was fair. I didn’t think that was fair for my teammates. I didn’t that was fair for me, coaches, coaching staff. To constantly keep telling people I was gonna be OK. ‘I’m OK, I’ll get through.’ But at the end of the day I thought this was the best decision for me. … I have no regrets. I’m not sitting here and making excuses for anything. I have no regrets. I played in two Final Fours, played in a national championship game. Started. Two Big Ten championships. The memories I have in this program are gonna last a lifetime. My teammates, I love them to death, they know that. (long pause). It’s hard for me. This is the only thing I ever did, my whole life, basketball. Basketball is all I knew.
"My seniors, I love them. (long pause). They know what I’ve been through for them. It got to the point where I had to think about myself. Every day I came, since the first day I came here it’s never been about me. It’s always been about this program and this team. From the day I walked into this building, I played through pain, I’ve hid things from coach just so I could play to help this team out. Went to Final Fours. It just really came to a point where it got too hard. I don’t think I could have gone through another year mentally with this type of pain and the medical procedures to continue to play.”
“I’d like to thank the fans more than anything. They were always my biggest supporters. They knew how much this program meant to me.”
On the most recent episode: “Something just wasn’t feeling right. I could tell it wasn’t the ankle. Just I didn’t have that speed that I usually have on defense, on jumping. It wasn’t the ankle, I just couldn’t jump. And then last Saturday it swelled up pretty big and I got some fluid taken out. And usually these types of things, with me at least, happen at the end of the season. Where I can say, ‘OK, I’m gonna get through it, I’m gonna get through it, I’ve got time, summer’s almost here, I can get through it.’ This year I felt like if this was gonna happen for a whole year, six straight months of this, constantly getting fluid taken out or getting shots and stuff like that to play, I just didn’t think that mentally I could take that.”
On telling his teammates: “That was the hardest part. I think the hardest part was telling the team, moreso Austin, Day-Day and Nix. Those are the three that I’ve been here the longest with. … And for me to tell them that I wasn’t gonna grind just one more year with them was (hard). … I know I’m crying now but at the same time, these past three years have been great. If you told me when I got to Michigan State that I was gonna go to two Final Fours and win two Big Ten championships, I would have been the happiest person in the world. I’m still disappointed in how it ended, but at the same time I wouldn’t take it back for nothing in the world.”
“At the end of the day, and I know this more than anybody, one day that ball will stop bouncing. And you will need something to fall back on and something to make a living somehow.”
“It was worth it. It was worth it, every needle, every dose of medicine that I’ve taken. That’s why you play the game. A chance to be on a Final Four team, a chance to win championships. That’s why everybody who’s in that back (of the room) come here. To play in those championship-type games and those atmospheres.”
“The intensity it takes to be a Division I athlete, to focus you have to have to play at this level, I just felt that mentally I just couldn’t go through another year to stick with that type of focus. To have that focus and be the player they want me to be, the player I want to be, and most importantly, the player that my teammates need me to be.”
