XAVIER NATION MAGAZINE FEATURE: Military Precision

Stanley Burrell had a pretty good idea of what he was getting into when he decided to attend Hargrave Military Academy for one year after graduating from Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis. Naji Marshall also had a pretty good idea why he chose to go to the tiny boarding school in Chatham, Virginia, after high school in suburban Washington, D.C.

They had bigger goals in mind, and Hargrave was the place to help them achieve those targets. Even if it meant getting up at 6 a.m. every day and living the life of a military cadet.

"You might think that it's dummied down, that 'military' is just in the name," says Marshall, Xavier's 6-foot-7 sophomore forward, "but that's not the case. I went through the whole nine yards."

Burrell was at Hargrave 13 years before Marshall, but his experience was the same, as it was for David West before him. Former Musketeers Dez Wells and Jordan Crawford are also Hargrave alumni.

Xavier and Hargrave have enjoyed a successful relationship through the years. It's not hard to understand why.

MIRROR SCHOOLS

Lee Martin is the director of the Hargrave Military Academy basketball program and head coach of the postgraduate team. He's also an alumnus of the school, with the perspective of being a cadet, a player, and a coach.

"I think we recruit the same type of guy," Martin says. "I think that Hargrave and Xavier have always taken the guy that's cut from a different cloth. He's willing to make basketball a big priority in what he does. The structure, routine, and discipline of Hargrave, being a military school, while that's not Xavier, I think the way their program is run you have to have discipline, you have to have structure. You have to obviously be a talented basketball player on top of that, but the schools mirror each other very well."

Hargrave opened its doors in 1909. In addition to its varsity athletic teams, the academy offers a postgraduate basketball program. A new team is recruited every year from among the top players in the country. Players choose to attend Hargrave for a variety of reasons, but the bottom line is they want to become better at their craft on the court and more prepared for college life off the hardwood.
That's how Martin landed at Hargrave. He wanted to play college basketball but didn't have a lot of offers coming out of high school in Mount Airy, North Carolina. One college coach suggested he research the prep school route. Martin made his decision after visiting Hargrave and touring the campus and basketball facilities with then-assistant coach A.W. Hamilton.
Hamilton is now the head coach at Eastern Kentucky University, while former Hargrave head coach Kevin Keatts is the head coach at North Carolina State.

"We passed the area where we have pictures of all our players currently playing in college displayed in the lobby of our gym," Martin says. "That was one of the stops on the tour. [Hamilton] said, 'Lee, all these players played at Hargrave and now they're at their schools and having all these successes.' "

Martin wanted his picture to hang in that lobby, and after he earned a scholarship to Catawba College, it did, for four years. Marshall's picture now hangs in that same lobby.

SAGE ADVICE

Hargrave has won three national prep championships and twice been the national runner-up in the last two decades. More than 20 alumni have gone on to play in the NBA in that time, while hundreds of players have earned college scholarships.

West retired from the NBA in August following a 15-year career in which he earned a pair of All-Star appearances and helped the Golden State Warriors win consecutive NBA Finals championships the last two seasons. Before he became the most-decorated player in Xavier basketball history, including being named the National Player of the Year in 2003, he spent a year at Hargrave, where he was teammates with fellow future NBA player Josh Howard. A total of nine players on that squad received college scholarships.

"Their intention is to set you on course to be ready to play in college from day one," West says. "Just what you go through with the system that's in place, it's one of the best prep systems in terms of culture, attitude, the approach that you have to have to be successful at the college level. If you do something wrong and break the rules, you're going to be punished for it. There's a certain level of discipline I developed there that I needed, particularly getting ready to go to college."

It was West who encouraged Burrell to give Hargrave a hard look. Burrell was on a visit to Xavier when West discussed the advantages of Hargrave with him, explaining that a year at a postgraduate prep school is essentially a redshirt season for a player without having to use a year of college eligibility.

"David was telling me how beneficial it was to go there from an academic standpoint and also a physical standpoint," Burrell says. "He said it would be really good for me to go there and be ready for Xavier right away, and he was right. I was able to go to Xavier and play right away. Academically it was good for me to get me on track, and it was also good for me to gain weight and strength too."

Burrell started 125 of the 132 games he played for the Musketeers from 2004 to 2008. He came to Victory Parkway with a scorer's mentality, but by the time he graduated it was his defensive prowess that helped Xavier reach the Elite Eight in 2008 and elevated him to the 2016 Xavier Hall of Fame class.

'ALWAYS WHERE YOU WANT TO BE FROM'

Hargrave isn't for everyone. Some won't make it past the word Military in the school's name.

"We were going to bed early, getting up early, our bed had to be perfectly done when it was made up, and we wore our uniforms," Burrell says. "We did all the stuff that the other guys in the military did. If you got in trouble, you had to walk around in a square holding a concrete-filled rifle above your head as punishment. We were part of it all, the military part as well. We weren't there just playing basketball. It wasn't easy-peasy for us. We had to go through all the discipline stuff as well."

While the experience might not have been the easy route, it was the best one for these Musketeers.

"My family could have come and got me at any time, but I knew I was there for a greater purpose," Marshall says. "After two weeks, I still thought I was in a dream. It was an adjustment, but I'm glad I went there."

Martin watched the development Marshall, his former player, made as a freshman at Xavier. He started 18 games, including the final 11, and was named to the BIG EAST All-Freshman team. Martin knows that Marshall's experience at Hargrave laid the foundation for that success.

"David West said this and he probably said it best," Martin says. "Hargrave is not where you necessarily want to be sometimes, but it's always where you want to be from."

Naji Marshall

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