There are some gasps from the crowd when Magic Johnson’s familiar smile pops up on the Fertitta Center’s giant video board because he’s Magic, one of the most famous people in the world. But to Kelvin Sampson he’s Earvin or more often just EJ. “The cameos for Big Samps are something else,” former Sampson player turned talent agent Landon Goesling laughs.

This is how Kelvin Sampson became the 17th coach in Division I men’s college basketball history to win 800 games, by touching people’s lives, making an impact on them and staying connected. All the way back to when Sampson first met Magic as a wide-eyed graduate assistant who helped coach Michigan State’s JV team (a staple of college basketball at the time) and seized any chance he could to watch Magic work.

“I’d be up at practice with the JV team and I couldn’t wait to go downstairs with the varsity,” Sampson says. “Because I got to see Earvin practice. I got to see everything he did. We’d do this thing called Daily Dozen. Six shots to the right. Six shots to the left. He went an entire season and never missed a shot.

“That’s amazing isn’t it?” Sampson continues, turning to Emanuel Sharp and Milos Uzan, the current UH stars flanked on either side of him. “He never missed a shot. He just mastered that.”

Joe McClafferty would tell you that Kelvin Sampson has mastered getting players do more than they ever thought they could do. McClafferty played for a young Sampson at Montana Tech and swears that his coach completely changed the trajectory of his life. Part of how Sampson did it is by using Bench Jumps, a harmless sounding moniker that could make the Montana Tech players shudder like the worst horror movie villain’s catchphrase.

“He brought out this bench, wooden bench — old, old wooden bench,” McClafferty tells PaperCity. “We thought it had nails and everything in it. We had to jump back and forth over it. What it did is define who we were.”

If you could beat the bench, you could beat anybody.

Kelvin Sampson chuckles when I ask about the Bench Jumps. He took that idea from his dad John W. “Ned” Sampson, a high school coaching lifer who worked with what he had in little Pembroke, North Carolina.

“He coached at a country school,” Sampson tells PaperCity. “And he had a bench and he would make them jump it for one minute. And they had to get to 100 jumps.”

Sampson stopped using the Bench Jumps during his run at Washington State. “Back then, guys were getting shin splints and stuff,” he says. “So I had to stop doing that one. That would test you though. Test your toughness. Test how you could persevere. Not everybody could jump that bench.”

Winning his 800th game in one of the best on-campus arena environments in America, with three starters from last April’s run to the national championship game, with a Fantastic Four freshmen class that’s historic for UH basketball, Kelvin Sampson might seem to be a million miles and a lifetime removed from his head coaching beginnings in frigid, remote Butte, Montana. But Joe McClafferty sees the same standards being held up in Houston’s beyond nationally elite program that Sampson enforced at Montana Tech more than 40 years ago. He even sees a new version of those hellish Bench Jumps.

“Now he’s got the VersaClimbers,” Joe McClafferty says of the torturous workout machines UH basketball added before last season.

No one adapts and adjusts to the basketball time he is in quite like Kelvin Sampson, but on some things he does not change no matter what. He will still push and test his players’ mettle, one way or another.

“He brought out this bench, wooden bench — old, old wooden bench. We thought it had nails and everything in it. We had to jump back and forth over it. What it did is define who we were.” — former Montana Tech player Joe McClafferty

Cameos For Kelvin Sampson

McClafferty is in Houston’s arena on Monday night for Sampson’s 800th win, having made the trip from Montana with his wife Therese. Players from every one of Sampson’s coaching stops deliver their own congratulatory messages in that video played on the big board. Dale Reed, David Sanders, Eddie Hill and Joey Warmenhoven of Washington State. Aaron McGhee, Ernie Abercrombie, Austin Johnson, Jason Detrick, Kevin Bookout Jozsef Szendrei, Renzi Stone, Tim Heskett and athletic director Joe Castiglione of Oklahoma. DJ White and Lance Stemler of Indiana. DeJon Jarreau, Damyean Dotson, J’Wan Roberts, Jamal Shead, Galen Robinson Jr., Ryan Elvin, Jarace Walker, Quentin Grimes, Josh Carlton, LJ Cryer, Justin Gorham. Landon Goesling, Kyler Edwards, Mylik Wilson, Leron Barnes, Mikhail McLean. Wes VanBeck. Tyus Bowser and Marcus Sasser of Houston. Quannas White and Hollis Price of Oklahoma and Houston.

And of course, one Magic Johnson, who still regularly texts Sampson after UH’s biggest wins. Even Happy Gilmore 2 had less satisfying cameos.

“It’s really a testament to all the people he’s touched,” Goesling says.

Kelvin Sampson watches the video with his arm around Karen Sampson, the ultimate coach’s wife for 46 years and still going strong. “I wouldn’t look at him,” Karen Sampson tells PaperCity. “I couldn’t look at him. Because I was afraid he was tearing up. And if he teared up, I’d tear up.”

The corner of Sampson’s eyes get moist, but completely tearing up might mean missing something.

Sampson talks of being Grateful for the moment several times, of his awe of finding himself in a club that includes Dean Smith, who seemed like an almost otherworldly regal being to him growing up in North Carolina. His 800th W forever will be a 75-57 win over Lehigh in which his true freshman point guard Kingston Flemings opens the scoring with a corner three, his true freshman center Chris Cenac Jr. pulls off a second shot slam, a wing 3-pointer and a turnaround jumper back-to-back-to back and his senior culture warrior Ramon Walker Jr. dives into the stands to save a loose ball and somehow still gets back on the court in time to grab the offensive rebound.

Of course, Sampson also needs to glare at Flemings after the talented guard pulls up to launch a 3-pointer on a fast break.

“I told him if this was the NBA, he would be a free agent tomorrow,” Sampson quips. “Call your agent, tell him ‘Trade me. Because this guy says he ain’t going to play me no more.’ ”

The guy who describes himself as “just as old ball coach” laughs. “When I talk to them during the game like that they don’t know whether I’m joking or not,” Sampson says. “The veterans know I’m joking. The freshmen are like What?”

Negotiating For His Players’ Supper

Kelvin Sampson has come a long ways since those days when the door to Montana Tech’s rickety old bus blew off in below zero degree weather on an arduous road trip back from Edmonton, Canada (the players and coaches used athletic tape to semi-fasten the door back on, meaning no one could get off the bus until it arrived back on campus half a day later) and he needed to negotiate with restaurants to try and stretch his players’ paltry per diem.

“Coach would walk into a restaurant and try a negotiate a dinner for us for five bucks a piece,” McClafferty says. “And sometimes he couldn’t get the deal. And he’d come back in the bus and we’d have to go to another restaurant to try again.”

Some people think negotiating six and sometimes seven figure athletic compensation and NIL deals is tough in today’s new college basketball world. Kelvin Sampson used to have to deal for his players’ supper. That puts modern roster building into perspective.

“I only had about 10 dollars per day in per diem (for the players),” Sampson says. “So I had to divide it up between breakfast, lunch and dinner. They could get three, three and four (per meal) for 10 dollars. Sometimes I would beg these restaurants to see if our guys could get a little bit more. Maybe free salad bar. If we just get complimentary water.

“We just had no money. But that helped prepare me for later.”

“I wouldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at him. Because I was afraid he was tearing up. And if he teared up, I’d tear up.” — Karen Sampson, Kelvin Sampson’s wife of 46 years

Sampson is still excited to go to the gym every day all these years and decades later, to help and push his guys get better. One of the first things he asks about after his post 800th-win press conference ends is whether his former assistant coach and Oklahoma player Quannas White won his first game as head coach of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Sampson knows how White hoped to build momentum for the Rajin’ Cajuns’ home opener on Friday and is disappointed to hear he lost, but quickly notes how his protege has a whole new team and will get it going.

Once you’re a Kelvin Sampson guy, you’re always a Kelvin Sampson guy. Sampson talked to Michigan State coach Tom Izzo and Tennessee coach Rick Barnes on the day of his 800th win. He’s touched that his grandkids — 8-year-old Maisy Jade and 5-year-old Kylen Ned — deliver the last message in that scoreboard video that his daughter Lauren Sampson, UH’s basketball chief of staff, secretly worked to put together for months.

“Of course Maisy’s a veteran,” Sampson says. “She would have to coach up Kylen.”

Kelvin Sampson sees things like a coach. A grateful one. He sent out a post on Wednesday thanking the fans for the atmosphere they created for UH’s season opener and his 800th win. He’ll be just as fired up to get into the Fertitta Center for his team’s 2 pm Saturday game vs. Towson. No one will be talking about him going for No. 801, but he wants to see how his team grows, how his young players react. “They all have their moments,” Sampson says of the freshmen.

It’s an every day grind thing for this proud son of a high school. Even if it sometimes seems an awful lot like magic.