Dru Joyce III Details Relationship with Keith Dambrot

Photo via “More Than a Game” movie. Dru Joyce III and Keith Dambrot at Saint Vincent Saint Mary

Fast forward 23 years, and Joyce is less than one week away from his collegiate head coaching debut. On Nov. 4, he will replace Dambrot as head coach of the Duquesne Dukes, who, in Dambrot’s final season at the helm, qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 47 years, and won their first round game.

With Joyce’s head coaching debut coming up, I wanted to ask him about his relationship with Dambrot, starting with his feelings towards Dambrot’s departure from SVSM back in 2001.

“I was upset, that’s a true feeling that happened at the time,” Joyce said. “As a young kid, you don’t understand everything. I didn’t understand what his dreams and aspirations were, what he needed to fulfill for himself. I only knew that me and him were set to go through this journey for four years, and it didn’t happen that way. So, in that moment, I was upset. But as I had a chance to sit back and reflect and really understand, man, he wanted the opportunity to be in college basketball again, and that was his chance. So, I would say about five or six months. I didn’t hold a grudge, I was able to forgive, because he didn’t do anything to hurt me. At the end of the day, I was OK, I was fine, and the experience was still great, my dad took over the position, so I had the chance to play for him a couple more years. I could never replace those memories and that feeling of being able to play for my dad my junior and senior year of high school.”

Joyce, as he said, went on to play for his father, Dru Joyce II. Alongside the greatest scorer in NBA history LeBron James, the pair teamed up with their childhood friends and won one more state championship in their final two years of high-school ball. Joyce then walked on at Akron, under the Zips’ first-year head coach Dambrot. James went straight to the NBA, and you all know the rest of that story.

In six days, Joyce will lead his Duquesne Dukes out of the tunnel for the first time as head coach, just months after the pair won an Atlantic 10 championship and NCAA Tournament game together.

Throughout that final season that Dambrot held the head-coaching position, Joyce, his former player and last year’s associate head coach, was right by his side. After an early-season win over College of Charleston in Annapolis, Maryland, Dambrot brought Joyce with him to the postgame press conference. He pulled this move several more times throughout the year, showing his eventual successor how to handle the media.

“I do appreciate Coach Dambrot for letting me join him, for asking me to join him,” Joyce said on Tuesday. “He loved to have a friend next to him, or a sidekick. But, it was learning on the job. It was being able to sit there with him and watch how he answered questions and took time to make sure that he was respectful to the opponent, prepared in some ways for the next opponent, and also gave the media details and the attention that they needed. I don’t forget those opportunities, I don’t take them for granted. It was learning on the job in a different way… I couldn’t thank him enough for giving me those opportunities to sit there with him and watch him through his experience and also giving me the floor at times, too.”

Watch the full interview with Joyce from Tuesday here.