Acie Earl’s Iowa career ended with a second-round loss in the 1993 NCAA tournament.
The big man’s focus then shifted to getting himself ready for the NBA.
“All the teams who think they’re gonna pick at that different selection point, bring you in for private workouts and interviews,” Earl said.
Auditioning for NBA franchises was the first order of business and Hawkeyes coach Tom Davis and the Iowa staff were more than happy to help Earl prepare for the process.
“We just encouraged him to keep working, keep pushing,” Davis said. “The staff kept working with him even though his eligibility was up.”
The basketball side was routine. But finding an agent? Well that conjured up memories from just a few years back.
“It’s almost like being recruited again,” Earl said. “Everybody is telling you what you wanna hear, because they want to sign you.”
Earl and his dad, Acie Sr., came up with a process to narrow down and select a representative. Then it was time for the whole family to hit the road from Moline to Detroit for draft night.
“It was just constant excitement, constant chatter, constant speculation as to what team it would be,” Acie Earl Sr. said
The lottery picks came and went, but Earl’s name was never called. A little fatherly intuition took over backstage.
“I kept sliding and kept sliding,” Earl said. “And my dad goes, Boston.”
“Boston is coming up next, they’ve got to go a big guy,” Earl Sr. said. “They’ve got to get a big guy and I knew exactly who that was going to be.”
And sure enough…
“You see everybody turn to your table, so you know it’s you, but you’re sitting there saying it can’t be,” Earl Sr. said. “And then of course with each step, the reality sets in.”
“I thought that I’d be one of the guys coming in hoping the Celtic ghosts would knock my shot off the rim, but now, I got those guys working for me now,” Earl said.
Earl would play two seasons in Boston and four overall in the NBA before embarking on a seven-year career overseas — a long way from the courts and hoops of the Quad Cities.
“You never know for sure what the end result is going to be. If it’s going to end up in a NBA career or you’re gonna play overseas,” Davis said. “I think he exceeded all of our expectations.”
“I was just trying to play basketball every day and trying to get enough gas money to drive around and play at Lincoln Park and Stephens Park…if you had told me any of this was gonna happen, I’d say no way,” Earl said.
Earl continues to be involved with basketball in multiple ways. He coaches and trains youth basketball players around eastern Iowa and has also written multiple books on the game.
At the time of his selection in 1993, Earl was the seventh Hawkeye picked in the first round.
He remains one of the most accomplished basketball players to ever play here in the Quad Cities area.
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