Former UConn men's basketball coach Kevin Ollie to coach Overtime Elite, a league designed for top prep players
Former Connecticut men's basketball coach Kevin Ollie will be the head coach for Overtime Elite, a new professional basketball league for top high school players ranging from 16 to 18 years old, Ollie announced Monday.
Overtime Elite has a plan to offer a six-figure financial package that includes academic tutoring and a year-round training program. The league will target the nation's top talent – likely three-, four- and five- star recruits. Players would be able to profit from the revenue associated with name, image and likeness for customized jerseys, trading cards and NFTs (non-fungible tokens such as videos).
“I’m ready to get back to what I was born to do: empowering and encouraging and supporting young people, and helping them grow,” Ollie said in a statement. “There’s no better place for me to do that than OTE, an extraordinary league for extraordinary young men. I consider it my mission to help these elite athletes realize their dreams.”
If high school players join Overtime Elite, they'd lose their NCAA college eligibility. But they'd be positioned to advance toward the G-League and NBA draft.
Ollie will also serve as the director of player development and work alongside Brandon Williams, a former NBA front-office executive serving as Overtime Elite's executive VP and head of basketball operations.
The 48-year-old Ollie guided the Huskies to a national championship in 2014 and is a 13-year NBA veteran. He left UConn in 2018 amid an NCAA investigation and later filed a lawsuit against Connecticut for $10 million in back pay.
This will be Ollie's first job since his departure from UConn. He built a reputation for mentoring NBA stars prior to his time with the Huskies, with Kevin Durant in 2014 calling him a "game changer" who "changed the culture" of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
NBA teams in the mid-2010s had interest in hiring Ollie as a head coach and recently an NBA team had interest in bringing him in as an assistant coach.
Overtime Elite is expected to have a 40-person operations staff catered to young players, with coaches, sports science and performance personnel, trainers and counselors.
Follow college basketball reporter Scott Gleeson on Twitter @ScottMGleeson.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kevin Ollie to coach Overtime Elite, designed for top prep players
