What's up with Jeremy Russotti

Jeremy Russotti didn't envision such a life while a youngster. Sure, he was immersed in playing sports along with the usual thinking and talking about the very same but it would be a stretch to say he imagined becoming one of the nation's top basketball skill trainers as well as a sports product inventor.

However, it's true that at age 15 Russotti was the offensive coordinator for his younger brother's Pop Warner football team, which captured four straight league titles as well as his offense leading the league in scoring -- "I loved the X's and O's and the strategy involved" -- and that role was probably his initial out-of-the-box type position.

Another relationship that illustrates Russotti's different approach to matters: his partnership with Josh Akognon (Casa Grande High, Washington State University, Cal State Fullerton). Akognon didn't play organized basketball until his freshman year at Casa Grande High but ultimately earned a basketball scholarship to Washington State before deciding to transfer to Cal State Fullerton.

Here's Russotti on his protege: "Josh is special. He's a once in a generation type player who has this amazing work ethic and drive to succeed without needing to be coddled or to have his ego stroked. He basically took the path of the average player trying to make a high school team -- training for hours everyday in a gym. But the difference was that Josh had high level game to show and still trained like he was an average player."

But there was also this major difference. As Akognon tells it, "Jeremy was strict. He kept me in the gym, training like 90% of the available time. I rarely played in any spring and summer tournaments because he said that's where others were 'creating repetition of their flaws'"

By the way, the 5-foot-11 Akognon just finished the season as the leading scorer in the Baltic League (20.3 ppg), shooting 52% overall, 43% on three-point attempts and 90% from the foul line.

Good luck trying to find trainers who take this unusual approach.

Here's Russotti's philosophy: ""Basketball is like taking the same test over and over and not studying. You might get better at taking the test, but how much better do you think you would have done if you would have studied. Working on your game is studying. However, with that said, having an effective or credible trainer that gives you the proper curriculum to study is really important as well. "

Russotti has trained McDonald's All-Americans plus college, WNBA and NBA leading lights for some time. His phone rings especially often around this time of the year with agents and their prospects looking to both fine tune and upgrade skill sets.

As a trainer, he has witnessed erratic shooting strokes. A bio-mechanics major in college, Russotti set about to see what could be done to ensure not only improved form but also a consistent one.

"In shooting mechanics, a player's  wrists follows the flexion of their fingers," Russotti said. "Whichever direction the ring or index finger goes, the wrist will naturally follow."

Russotti previously used splints and tape in order to try to provide greater shooting form consistency but this proved hard to work with.

Hence Russoti's J-Glove.

"Someone suggested at one of my clinics that a shooting aid be invented and I thought it was a good idea," he explained. Working with his mother Debbie, "within a month, we had a prototype."

Not satisfied, Russotti continued tinkering. The second prototype came to be working with his father-in-law Dennis.

Now, it's used and endorsed by a multitude of coaches, colleges and professional teams including Memphis, Louisville, Stanford, St. Mary's, Miami, LSU, VCU, South Florida, Rice, Findlay Prep, Montrose Christian, the San Antonio Spurs, the Miami Heat and many more.

"It really sets up and finished your shot completely," according to Russotti. "Because of the finger splint design, it won't allow you to rest the ball on your palm at all, and of course it prevents pre-mature flexion of the fingers so that your wrist will flex on a frontal plane."

Bigger things on the horizon

Russotti is partnering with an East Coast marketing firm and also working out an agreement with Dick's Sporting Goods, a company with over 400 stores in 40 states. Plus, the J-Glove distribution is possibly going global into Japan, England, Canada, France and Australia.

His Green Room training is expanding. Even though it will be geared for the college, professional, WNBA, and NBA level, there will be a high school academy level forming possibly in June.

Russotti will continue with his Showcase events in September and October.  Says Russotti, "This is where I really started my career and it is the one time I can really go out and give back to my local community some of the knowledge basketball has given to me."  

Maybe most important of all, he is teaming up with Nike strength and conditioning trainer Alan Stein, who has worked with Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry and many more, in a new on-line training company called HoopGainsTraining.com. It will be designed for fourth-graders to the professional level with 150 videos available for downloading. Each age group will be able to access 15 specific pre-season, in-season and post-season workouts. Hoop Gains Training will be released this summer.

Yes, all this from someone living in a small town in northern California.