Love the moxie in the ending of this little anecdote, from Kerry Eggers of the Portland Tribune:
After he left [the University of Portland], Spoelstra spent two years as a player/assistant coach on a pro team in Germany. Then he used his father's connections to help him bag a job in Miami the summer of 1995.
The Heat had just let go interim head coach Alvin Gentry, who had taken over for fired Kevin Loughery midway through the 1994-95 season. No head coach was in place, but Dave Wohl, the vice president of basketball operations, was looking for a video coordinator. Chris Wallace, then Miami's director of player personnel, had worked as a scout with the Blazers when Jon Spoelstra was there.
"The team was in flux, and it wasn't clear whether (video coordinator) would be a full-time job or just a summer gig," Erik says. "It was an entry-level job, really, getting (Wohl) lunches, preparing video and helping with the draft."
When Riley was hired in late August, he didn't bring a video coordinator with him from the New York Knicks.
"With training camp maybe three or four weeks away, he walked into my office and asked, 'Can you do this job?' " Spoelstra says. "I had no idea what the job was, so I said, 'Absolutely. You got your man.' "
