Vander Blue finds father figure in Buzz Williams at Marquette

• Blue was raised by his mother but says he%27s found a father figure in Marquette coach Buzz Williams
• The junior scored 29 in the win over Butler%2C then played the entire 40 minutes vs. Miami
• %22All that made me the man I am today%2C%22 Blue says about everything he%27s overcome

WASHINGTON – Vander Blue loves his mother, Rita. He says he plays to make her proud, and he's crossing his fingers Marquette will make the Final Four and he can figure out a way to fly her to Atlanta to see him play.

Rita spent her life raising her youngest son to grow into a good man, but she couldn't do it all by herself. Her son desperately needed a male role model in his life, someone – anyone – who could provide what his father couldn't.

"(I was) trying to learn how to be a man myself without really having a father there to teach me what to expect," Blue says. "It's hard, man, growing up without a dad and seeing all your friends having two parents at home. That son-father relationship, I feel like, is something you can't get anywhere without your father being there."

So, like many young male athletes these days, Blue turned to his coach to fill that void. Buzz Williams greeted him with open arms – and lots of patience.

"It's a process," Williams said. "The process doesn't include words. The process includes actions. The process includes love that will never be betrayed.

"So many of these kids have never had a male figure in their life at all, much less a male figure in their life that holds them to a standard daily that they never had before in their life. … You have to bridge the gap of trust."

Says first-year Marquette assistant Isaac Chew: "Buzz has done a really good job of never giving up on him, on staying in his corner the whole time."

That was necessary during Blue's first two years at Marquette, after Blue arrived from the "rough" parts of Madison, neighborhoods many of Blue's friends couldn't escape from.

There were the times his mother couldn't afford to pay the bills; Blue had to stay with his grandparents or friends, he recalls. His father built an extensive criminal record, often involving guns or drugs. (Blue declined to talk about the extent of his current relationship with his father.) Blue remains convinced he'd never have made it to college if he didn't play ball.

"All that made me the man I am today," Blue says. "I talk to (my mom) about it every day. We never forget where we came from."

Even his first two seasons at Marquette were difficult, two years spent struggling with off-court mistakes and failing to meet sky-high expectations that come along with being a four-star recruit. His freshman year, Blue was charged with battery related to incident outside a campus area restaurant, which was later reduced to a fine for disorderly conduct. As a sophomore, he was suspended for half a game after being cited for being underage at a nightclub.

Blue also feels he underperformed on the court: 5.1 points per game and just 19 minutes as a freshman, up to 8.4 and 25.7 as a sophomore. Stuck in the queue behind other talented players, Blue at first felt frustrated before realizing he truly wasn't among the best players on his own team.

He began working hard, and Williams rode him harder. Probably harder than anyone else on the team, Blue says.

Now, the junior guard leads the Golden Eagles with 14.8 points a game and has Marquette one game away from the Final Four. He got Marquette off to a good start in the tournament with the winning shot in the second round against Davidson and 29 points in the third round against Butler.

"Vander and Buzz's relationship is unbelievable," Chew says. "They trust each other. They understand each other. They fight like family. They heal like family as well. I've admired how the relationship is structured. At times, they're going to have ups and downs. But it never goes into the next day."

Williams agrees.

"There are aspects of our relationship that are father/son-like," Williams concedes. "Over the course of recruiting and his tenure at Marquette, (Rita) and I have become very close. Because of my relationship with his mom, he realized a couple of years ago he had no escape. She trusted me, and my responsibility was to help her son.

"It's fun that Vander's having success on the floor, but the reason he's having success on the floor is because of his growth and his maturity as a person off the floor. Your game always mirrors your life. His maturity has been on the upward tick for the last year."

Blue calls Williams his mentor and father figure. "I know he'll ride with me, do anything," he says, and he means anything. Excluding practices and games, Blue says the two never talk about basketball.

"We talk about what I'm going to do in my life," Blue says. "What type of father I want to be. How people see me, how I perceive myself. He always tells me, 'Oh, you look pitiful. You need to go change.' He says stuff like that all the time."

He feigns annoyance, but can't help breaking out into a smile. "It's more than basketball."

Williams treats all his players that way. Others hail from single-parent households, something Williams is acutely aware of. That's why he works on building trust and incorporating life lessons into workouts, boot camps, everything.

"The hardest thing to get players to do now is trust you," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said last month. "So many single-parent homes. So many father-less players that we're recruiting. The last person they're going to trust is a man. (You have to work on) the relationship with your players and convincing them that you have their best interest in mind, not your program's."

It took a while to reach that point in their relationship for Blue to feel that way about Williams. But once they got there, they became family.

"He's a great guy, a great human being, someone I'm just glad I got to know," Blue says. "I wouldn't want to play for anyone else."

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