BASKETBALL

From Bambi to Pistol Pete to Purdue star: Matt Haarms' improbable basketball journey

Until age 11, the Boilermakers' promising freshman had never played basketball. Now, it's his passion.

Nathan Baird
Journal & Courier
Matt Haarms of Purdue celebrates after Vincent Edwards draws a Louisville foul with only second remaining in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge Tuesday, November 28, 2017, at Mackey Arena. Purdue defeated Louisville 66-57.
  • Haarms averages 5.8 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.9 blocks.
  • The native of The Netherlands was ranked only 354th in the 24/7 Sports composite 2017 rankings.
  • Saturday's game: No. 3 Purdue at Iowa, noon, ESPN

Editor's Note: This story was originally published earlier this season, so some references may be out of date.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Across college basketball, Purdue coach Matt Painter and his staff get credit for discovering shot-blocking, fist-pumping windmill of energy Matt Haarms.

In the basketball community in Haarms’ hometown of Amsterdam, they know better. The credit belongs to Wim Nieuwenhuizen, and if you think American college coaches are persistent in pursuit of prospects, they have nothing on Wim.

Nieuwenhuizen, a longtime youth basketball coach in The Netherlands, first noticed the tall classmate of his son, Dajo. When he realized the student was also left-handed, the veteran coach saw a frontcourt talent ripe for cultivating.

So Nieuwenhuizen approached Haarms’ parents — and you better believe he noticed their heights as well — and asked if their 5-year-old wanted to play basketball.

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He didn’t stop until Matt Haarms said yes — six years later.

“He asked I think 100 times — ’Bring Matt, bring Matt,’ ” said Martine van Hoorn, Haarms' mother.

The 24/7 Sports composite of the national rankings for the 2017 recruiting class lists Haarms 354th. When Purdue landed the skinny prep school center from Sunrise Christian in Bel Aire, Kansas, he represented a project with uncertain upside. A power forward in need of a quicker first step, or more likely, a center in need of a sandwich.

Today, with the 7-3 Haarms’ defensive presence galvanizing the Boilermakers’ ascent to the No. 3 spot in the national polls, the commitment seems like a coup.

Only seven players nationally have blocked more shots than Haarms, and they’ve all played considerably more minutes. He’ll likely break Purdue’s freshman record for blocked shots — set 41 years ago by eventual consensus All-American Joe Barry Carroll. He’ll contend for All-Freshman and All-Defensive Team honors in the Big Ten Conference.

BLOCKS:Purdue centers Haas and Haarms provide 'sense of security' on defense

And even if none of that were true, his exuberant outbursts — in which he punctuates defensive stops or emphatic dunks by pogo sticking through the lane and whipping a clenched fist through the air — made him an immediate favorite of the Boilermakers’ Paint Crew student section.

The coaches back in The Netherlands — the ones who coaxed this talent out of a quiet boy who loved books and dinosaurs and video games — always believed in Haarms’ basketball potential.

To a man, however, they admit they didn’t expect this.

“If he can keep up with this,” Nieuwenhuizen said, “I don’t know where it can end.”

Dinosaurs and judo

Eventually, this will be a story about how basketball became the foremost passion in Matt Haarms’ life.

But it begins almost two decades ago at Rotterdam’s natural history museum, where Haarms’ mother is a little spooked that her 2-year-old son can name every dinosaur in the place.

Haarms soon began devouring books about dinosaurs, the Ice Age, nature — anything educational. Many of his friends eventually drifted towards soccer or some other athletic club.

“I just hated sports,” Haarms said.

Haarms' parents, however, had a rule: One activity per week outside the house. While both parents came from athletic backgrounds, their motivation extended beyond physical fitness. They believed their only child would benefit from competition with other kids.

Haarms began with soccer, where coaches noted his length and reach and made him a goalkeeper. An aversion to diving on the ground truncated that career.

Haarms tried some of his friends’ activities. He spent about a year in the Dutch version of the Boy Scouts, learning to tie maritime knots and sailing.

Swimming. Ice skating. At age 10 he took up judo for a year but gave it up after obtaining his yellow belt.

Yet Haarms never picked up a basketball. Even though she had played the sport through high school, van Hoorn said she never pushed her son to accept Nieuwenhuisen’s overtures. The parents believed Haarms should choose his own interests.

The breakthrough came around age 11. Haarms’ school participated in a Christmas basketball tournament with others from around Amsterdam. He remembers becoming unexpectedly enthused about making the team, and very upset when he didn’t.

Nieuwenhuizen, however, had enrolled his team — the Harlemlakers — in the event to raise awareness for the club. He invited Haarms to join them, and at long last the persistence paid off.

“I was absolutely horrible,” Haarms said, “but I had a lot of fun and I joined the team.”

Current Purdue freshman Matt Haarms, back row, second from right, with his Harlemlakers U16 team in 2012.

Haarms recalls his fish-out-of-water introduction to the sport. Most of his peers had played since age 6 or younger. Haarms couldn’t catch the ball cleanly, and when he did he certainly couldn’t dribble it. Without knowing the proper way to grip a shot, he clumsily threw the ball at the basket.

“He was like Bambi in the Disney movie,” said Brord Brugman, a Harlemlakers associate who would later play a significant role in furthering Haarms’ career. “He was skinny, but you saw he had some coordination.”

While Haarms speaks with self-deprecation about his basketball infancy, his coaches saw something else. Basketball players for decades have used the “Mikan Drill” — make a layup under the basket with one hand, rebound the ball and make a layup with the opposite hand, repeat indefinitely — to develop stamina and skills around the rim.

Another Harlemlakers coach, Eric Kropf, said that elementary exercise quickly exposed Haarms’ potential. He and other coaches saw the motor skills and dexterity necessary to eventually develop basketball savvy.

“It’s a gentle flow, what you got with Matt — like a ballet dancer versus an American football player,” Kropf said.

Pistol Pete

As the video begins a basketball emerges from the shadows, then a wide, square backboard and hoop. A man unzips his warm-up jacket and begins dribbling the ball as a narrator speaks over '80s synth music straight out of “Fletch.”

“The legend,” the voice says, “is back.”

The legend is former LSU great and NBA All-Star Pete Maravich. A generation of basketball coaches gave VHS copies of “Pistol Pete’s Homework Basketball” to their students. Around 2009 Brugman gave the DVDs to Haarms — at the time still a novice in need of a crash course in the tools of the game.

“ 'When you shoot, you’ve got to have a little man in your head, and when he shoots, every time the ball goes in,’ ” Haarms said, recounting one of Maravich’s lessons.

Cheesy, for sure, but Haarms watched every minute. Basketball for 12-year-old Haarms became what dinosaurs had been a decade before — an obsessive hobby.

The Orlando Magic went to the NBA Finals in 2009, and Haarms adopted them as his favorite team. He loved Dwight Howard — the big man in the middle setting ball screens and crushing dunks. Later he switched his allegiance to the Houston Rockets and their own international big man, Yao Ming.

Haarms played NBA 2K9 with his father. He begged for a delay on chores or other obligations to watch the NBA’s Top 10 plays each night. He watched March Madness during VCU’s memorable run, which is where he also saw Purdue for the first time.

Unlike all those aborted flirtations with other sports, Haarms enjoyed playing basketball. He practiced two days a week with the Harlemlakers, then three, then five. Eventually, the kid who didn’t want to put his books down for even one extra-curricular activity was playing basketball every day.

"Before that I was like, 'No, I want to stay inside,' " Haarms said. "Now I was like, 'Let's go, let's go. Basketball practice starts in an hour. I want to get there early."

Haarms didn’t put the books down, either. His Purdue teammates call him the “Human Computer” for his ability to quickly produce facts and figures. The political science major scored a 30 on his ACT. For a bio on the Boilermaker team website, he listed W.F. Hermans’ World War II novel “The Darkroom of Damocles” as his favorite book.

Coaches say that intelligence carried onto the court. Haarms picked up drills and strategy quickly. By his second year with Harlemlakers’ under-16 team, a star had begun to emerge. Where Haarms had previously topped out at a handful of points per game, he now scored 20 or more with regularity.

“Whenever we were playing five-on-five, if you were not on Matt’s team, you wouldn’t win.” Nieuwenhuizen said.

Current Purdue freshman Matt Haarms, back row, second from right, with his Harlemlakers U16 team in 2012.

"Guard feet"

Basketball remains a secondary, even minor, sport in The Netherlands. That’s a source of frustration for Dutch basketball enthusiasts such as Gideon van der Hijden, considering the built-in advantage of the population.

In 1996, the science journal eLife updated its ongoing 82-year study of worldwide growth trends. Dutch men, with an average height of 6 feet (183 centimeters), ranked No. 1. (By contrast, men in basketball-mad America stand around 5-9 on average and ranked 37th).

Dutch women, with an average height over 5-6, ranked second only to Latvia.

The extended families of Peter Haarms and Martine van Hoorn follow those trends. He stands around 6-7, while she’s right at 6 feet. Their only child measured around 55 cm (almost 22 inches) at birth — on the long end of the normal range. Doctors monitored Haarms for years to make sure he developed without complications or pain.

“We knew Matt was going to be extremely tall,” van Hoorn said.

Haarms isn’t the tallest boy in his first team photos with Harlemlakers. Even when the growth spurt really kicked in, doctors predicted Haarms would top out around 6-10. Haarms, who liked the idea of growing taller than his father, embraced the basketball benefits and shrugged off the annoyances.

Then 6-10 came and went. Seven feet became the new boundary. Then 7-1. By the time Haarms took his official visit to Purdue in the fall of 2016, he turned heads on campus for doing the unthinkable — outgrowing 7-2 Boilermaker center Isaac Haas.

As a teenager, Haas struggled to accept his outlier height and how people treated him. Haarms considers himself lucky to have found basketball before reaching his extremes.

“People in the states have such a positive response to it,” Haarms said. “If I wasn’t playing basketball right now, I probably wouldn’t be very happy with my height.”

According to fellow Purdue big man Jacquil Taylor, however, Haarms has the best of both worlds. Haas famously wears size 22 shoes. Those feet form the base of his muscular 290-pound frame.

Haarms laces up relatively modest size 15s.

Matt Haarms of Purdue reacts after blocking a shot by Evan Taylor of Nebraska Saturday, January 6, 2018, at Mackey Arena.

“Guard feet,” Taylor calls them.

“He’s taller than Isaac, but he has smaller feet than me, which is not something you see every day,” said the 6-10 Taylor. “I think that’s what makes him special as a basketball player, because he’s a 7-3 dude who can shoot, rebound, pass, dribble and runs like a guard.”

Taylor’s hypothesis may check out. However, Purdue coach Matt Painter said Haarms would still be a good basketball player if he were a foot shorter. Genetics can’t take full credit for that.

Throughout his development, Haarms’ coaches insisted he work on aspects of his game outside of a big man’s comfort zone. Kropf says it’s why Haarms has “such a good toolbox” for a player his height.

“It would be a waste to play Matt as a center,” Kropf said. “We always had players that were tall enough to play center that did not have the skills Matt does.”

The audition

When Haarms played for Harlemlakers' under-18 squad, Kropf organized a scrimmage against the club's under-24 group. That team featured a star center, Daan Joustra, whose offensive force under the basket had impressed a young Haarms.

Joustra boasted a solid 6-7 build, not to mention years of additional experience and savvy. Multiple coaches, however, say the young twig won the matchup that day.

"Every time I'd block his shot, you'd see it in his eyes, like, 'I don't want to do this anymore,' " Haarms said.

This is the point at which Haarms obtained perhaps the most valuable asset of his basketball identity — confidence. His skills developed faster than his belief in them. 

His coaches, however, saw a brighter future. Unbeknownst to Haarms, they knew that meant leaving The Netherlands, where he wouldn't have access to the full-time training that could maximize his potential.

So Brugman asked Haarms to accompany a high school team he coached in Amsterdam on a trip to Spain. Haarms accepted, expecting only a fun trip and the opportunity to play new competition.

Actually, it was an audition. Brugman had briefly coached with Joventut Badalona, one of the oldest and most successful club teams in Spain. NBA star Ricky Rubio headlines the club's list of alums.

Brugman knew Joventut Badalona might be interested in a player with Haarms' combination of length and skill. Even after Haarms was told the club had set up a private workout, he didn't comprehend he was being evaluated for an invitation.

When he impressed in the workout and that invitation came, Haarms didn't hesitate.

"We didn't think it was a reality," said van Hoorn, who knew Brugman's plan but was skeptical the club team would share his enthusiasm. "Then they called and said, 'Yeah, we want to keep him here.' That was a big shock.

"He came back, and three months later he was living in Spain. Then we realized this sport I considered a hobby was something that had become much bigger than expected."

Culturally, the transition was difficult. Haarms, age 16, lived alone in Badalona. He didn't speak Spanish, and the home-grown members of the team typically expected newcomers to learn their language.

Terrence Bieshaar, another Dutch native who played one season with Haarms in Badalona, said the basketball transition also started out rough. Haarms lacked strength and could be pushed around on the court.

Gradually, Bieshaar said, the promise became production. Haarms played harder and tougher. He could put the ball on the floor or shoot from outside assertively. He piled up points and blocks as Joventut Badalona took on some of the best age-group competition in Spain.

Bieshaar remembers a performance against the Spanish national team in which Haarms was "the decisive player." Blocks, steals, put-back dunks, a handful of 3-pointers — Haarms' summoned an all-around performance six years in the making.

"He could adapt really quick to different situations," said Bieshaar, who now plays professionally in Spain for Club Baloncesto Clavijo. "Especially for a big guy, he saw things other guys didn't see. He passed the ball really good. Out on the court, he was also really smart."

Haarms called that season-ending league tournament "probably the best six or seven games of my life." Joventut Badalona reached the championship game after Haarms made 5 of 7 from 3-point range in the semifinals against Real Madrid.

Joventut Badalona drew up a professional contract with his name on it. Haarms could put youth basketball behind him and make a living at the game he'd grown to love.

Yet where Haarms had snap-accepted his initial invitation to move to Spain, he balked at the professional opportunity. That contract carried a lot of responsibility for the then-18-year-old. Haarms also said he wasn't enthused about the living situation and other factors associated with a potential return to Spain.

After that championship run, another option had emerged. Sunrise Christian had already begun to earn a reputation for developing collegiate talent, including Oklahoma's Buddy Hield and Michigan State's Lourawls "Tum Tum" Nairn.

Coaches at the 700-student K-12 school outside Wichita, Kansas, offered Haarms the chance to play high school basketball.

"It was more like, OK, if you choose to stay here the serious part starts," said van Hoorn. "You're very young and you'll have a pro's life. Are you ready for that? Do you want that?

"Or maybe an adventure is possible on the other side of the world."

Matt Haarms lets out a scream after a Purdue score in the second half against SIU-Edwardsville Friday, November 10, 2017, at Mackey Arena. Purdue defeated SIU-Edwardsville 105-74.

"He's got the talent"

Former Purdue assistant coach Jack Owens first caught a glimpse of Haarms at a summer tournament. True to the nature of Haarms' story, Owens was courtside that day to watch one of Haarms' teammates. Purdue had offered power forward Isaiah Jasey, who eventually signed with Texas A&M.

But Owens didn't forget about Haarms. Months later, when Haarms' coach told him to expect a call from Purdue, the now 7-3 prospect reverted back to his first love: research.

"When you get recruited, it's kind of like a job interview," Haarms said. "I wanted to seem informed. I thought it was the least I could do because they took the time to become informed about what kind of player I was."

Matt Haarms with a dunk in the second half against Rutgers Wednesday, January 3, 2018, at Mackey Arena. Purdue defeated Rutgers 82-51.

Via the internet Haarms learned about then-current Boilermaker big men A.J. Hammons, Caleb Swanigan and Isaac Haas. He learned about JaJuan Johnson and Robbie Hummel and Carl Landry and Glenn Robinson.

Painter eventually visited Sunrise to watch Haarms work out. At their sit-down meeting, Painter had barely begun his spiel on Purdue's big-man development when Haarms interrupted him. His base of knowledge in the Boilermakers surpassed the sales pitch.

"He was impressed with us, but we walked away impressed with him," Painter said.

Haarms chose Purdue's offer over Colorado, Vanderbilt and Washington State. He's only the sixth international player to join the Boilermakers since the 1951-52 season.

Haarms took a redshirt last season when Purdue learned his extra year in Spain had forced the start of his NCAA eligibility clock. He also couldn't play with the Boilermakers during the World University Games last summer since he wasn't an American citizen. Painter admits he didn't fully grasp what Haarms could be for Purdue as preseason practices began.

He does now. Haarms averages 5.8 points and 3.9 rebounds while shooting nearly 60 percent from the field. Painter believes he's the Big Ten's best shot-blocker. Haarms' 57 are more than the Boilermakers' 20 opponents have compiled against them.

"He started late and he wasn't the best one, but he's so intelligent and so driven, he made up for it," said van der Hijden, who writes about Dutch basketball in addition to his coaching duties.

Haarms' former coaches in The Netherlands try to catch his games through online streams and the occasional television broadcast. They sometimes don't recognize the shy, stumbling boy whose joyous roars are drowned out by thousands of cheers each time he stuffs another shot.

"I would advise him to stay as long as possible with the Purdue program and try to develop his body and his mind and his skills to prepare him to play in the NBA," Kropf said. "He's got the talent to get there."

If he does, Haarms can thank the persistence of a handful of coaches back home.