Iowa Barnstormers start small, stand tall in AAU basketball circuit

IOWA CITY - Before websites cornered the market on recruiting, Jamie Johnson evaluated talent for national basketball magazines.

Johnson, 36, wrote updates and stories for publications ran by Bob Gibbons and Van Coleman. Johnson noticed Iowa had plenty of Division I basketball prospects but many of them didn't have the platform to showcase their abilities. The Parkersburg-based Martin Brothers Select AAU squad developed and produced some of the nation's best players, but there were other all-state players who didn't make that squad.

"I saw kids in Wisconsin or Tennessee who weren't as good as the guys in Iowa getting scholarship offers from Division I schools, but the guys in Iowa weren't getting that same recognition and opportunity," Johnson said. "I thought, ‘Why not try something to give those guys a better opportunity to be seen and give those kids who were maybe tired of sitting on the bench somewhere else an opportunity to showcase their talents?' So I did."

Johnson started the AAU Iowa Barnstormers in 2004. It's based in Eastern Iowa and recently has produced several Division I players and recruits, including Cedar Rapids Washington's Wes Washpun (Tennessee) and Josh Oglesby (Iowa), and Cedar Rapids Jefferson's Jarrod Uthoff (Wisconsin). Fourteen players in the class of 2010 earned college opportunities in basketball or other sports, including six at the Division I level.

But the Barnstormers didn't start that way. Far from it, in fact.

"The first year I had to call and beg kids, and most kids told us no," Johnson said. "We weren't very good the first year, but people saw what we're putting on the floor and then they started coming to us. If you would have asked me when we started we were going to have 17-and-under down to sixth-grade teams, I would have told you were crazy. But here were are.

"It kind of recruits itself at this point."

Now the Barnstormers and their brother program, the Mavericks, boast nearly 220 male and 70 female basketball players in seven different age groups. Like many AAU squads, the teams compete all over the country in front of college basketball coaches. The Barnstormers have five coaches, all of whom teach on a voluntary basis.

The players develop more individual skills with the Barnstormers, and the workouts are different from most high school practices.

"Obviously you're playing with better kids, playing against better competition," Oglesby said. "But it was more the game of basketball, how to move without the ball, setting screens, motion offense. It was a lot more fun, I thought. High school was fun, too, but high school was way more of a team concept kind of thing."

Seth Tuttle, an incoming freshman at Northern Iowa, at first was in awe of playing with the Barnstormers. Tuttle, a 6-foot-8 forward from West Fork High School, filled out an on-site questionnaire as a freshman in high school and didn't expect to make the team. Instead, he found out the coaches already had a scouting report of him.

Tuttle said the Barnstormers made him a stronger defender because he was competing against Division I athletes in practice and in tournaments. He said the Barnstormers helped him grow as a player.

"There was a bunch of things," Tuttle said. "Definitely exposure, that's the first one. Being from Sheffield, Iowa, there's definitely not that many people who know me. The other thing is straight toughness. There's nothing like playing AAU basketball. It's not anything like high school, especially playing 2A in Iowa."

Playing AAU for the Barnstormers costs about $1,000. The team competes in tournaments in Las Vegas, Milwaukee and Chicago. Players who struggle to make payments participate in fundraising activities.

"Nobody gets a free one, even the ones who have absolutely no money," Johnson said. "We want them to put some effort in, some sense of pride, a sense of ownership. We want the kids to instill some hard work and not just get a pat on the back and a free one."

Josiah Coleman, a 6-foot-6 incoming senior at Cedar Rapids Kennedy, said the program has been invaluable to getting looks from college coaches and receiving feedback from his coaches. Wyoming just offered Coleman a scholarship.

"In the past when I've had some problems or was doing bad on the court, I'd get down," Coleman said. "I'd be disappointed but they'd say there's coaches or people who might be watching you and they see that. When I see coaches at a lot of games that I go to, it just makes me feel like I should work even harder."

Both Steve Alford and Fran McCaffery have sent their sons to play with the Barnstormers. That doesn't intimidate Johnson; it just means the coaches "trust them being in our program."

Although Johnson works in Iowa City at the VA Hospital, he doesn't tilt his players toward any school. Both Uthoff and Washpun had Iowa scholarship offers but chose other schools. Johnson said he doesn't want to influence the athletes toward any decision.

"The questions I always ask them are, ‘What is your level of comfort? What do you think about the academic interests that you have and what does that school offer in those areas? How do you feel about the coaching staff and the players? Last, but not least, when you envision yourself strapping on that back pack and walking to class, does it feel right?'" Johnson said. "If you answer all of those questions, and whatever place it is feels good, then that's probably where you should go."

Although Division I recruits often sell an AAU program, it's the relationships that maintain Johnson's passion for the Barnstormers. The program is a year-round endeavor built to help athletes earn scholarships.

"They think they're just playing basketball, but at the end of the day if they play at the collegiate level somewhere that means they're getting a college education, which means it's opening doors to the future," Johnson said. "That's really what this program is about."

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