ou first notice the arms that
would make Popeye envious.
Unlike many former professional
athletes, DanMajerle has maintained
his chiseled physique, shaped by a
regimen of several hundred daily
pushups plus weightlifting. The rest
of Majerle’s body, ravaged by 14 surgeries, makes
it hard to get out of bed in the morning, but his
arms are still all-stars.
“I’m a fitness freak that way,” he said. “It’s
always what I’ve been about, trying to stay as
active as possible. I always ate well, too. If I get too
fat, I feel bad.”
And the pain? “I wear it as a badge of honor
because I’ve been through so much. It’s just part of
the price you have to pay.”
Those arms and that attitude are emblematic
of the intensity that made “Thunder Dan” one of
the fiercest players in the history of the National
Basketball Association and is a big part of his
coaching style in his third season at Grand
Canyon University.
But former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry
Colangelo had another word in mind when he
made the pride of Central Michigan University
his controversial first-round pick in the 1988 NBA
draft. It defines why Colangelo recommended the
hiring of Majerle at GCU in 2013.
“Character,” Colangelo said. “DanMajerle
has great character. I think there’s great integrity
in him as a person. He’s very committed to
whatever he’s involved in— family, his job, he
loves coaching, and he has a sincere interest in the
players as people, not just as players alone. He’s
the real deal. He’s a guy that you want your son to
be associated with if he’s a basketball player.”
Majerle joined GCU after a stint as an NBA
broadcaster and five seasons as an assistant coach
for the Suns. Neither Colangelo nor Majerle
himself expected coaching to be his calling when
his playing days were over, but one thing led to
another.
Coaching, Majerle discovered, “fills a little bit
of a gap.”
“I don’t miss playing. I miss competition,”
he said. “When you get to be 50 (a milestone he
reached in September), you try to move around
and realize that you can’t play. So that’s gone.
When you play at the NBA level, it’s hard to find
something like that again.
1 8 • GCU TODAY
Coaching has flexed the muscles of Majerle’s
basketball knowledge
B Y R I C K V A C E K
