Sports Writing Dad Tells Story Of Notre Dame Signee Trey Wertz
Trey Wertz is fortunate. He was blessed with the ability to play basketball at a high level, succeed in the classroom and a supportive family.
The North Carolina native parlayed those blessings into a scholarship to play at Santa Clara and, as of this month, a scholarship at Notre Dame after entering the transfer portal.
But when he was starring at Providence Day School in Charlotte, the talented guard didn’t always receive as much recognition as he probably should have. Ironically, that is because his father was one of the people in charge of doling out such recognition.
As a sportswriter for the Charlotte Observer, Langston Wertz, wanted to avoid any appearance of favoritism in his work or that of his outlet.
“It was difficult because I didn’t really know how to handle it,” says Mr. Wertz, who writes about high school hoops among other beats for the Observer. “He was one of the better players, top five in our area. At that time, we covered 180 schools in 20 counties.
“If he were any other kid, I would have been writing about him about all of the time. But because he was mine, I had to constantly figure out how to navigate that.”
Mr. Wertz didn’t participate in deciding which games the paper should staff in person or in the selection in any of the paper’s all-star teams. Trey still received recognition four times.
“He was First Team twice,” Mr. Wertz says. “I think he was fine with it. He made a couple All-American teams his senior year. Trey got a lot of attention, not as much as he would have, but I think he got enough that he was OK with it.
“I pretty much stopped covering games during that time. He got very little publicity when he should have got a whole lot more and would have if he was any other kid other than mine.”
Providence Day was a powerhouse during Trey’s time on the roster. The program featured two-time SEC Player of the Year and first-round draft pick Grant Williams along with Devon Dotson, who led the Big 12 in scoring at Kansas this past year before entering his name in the upcoming NBA Draft, where has a chance to be a first-rounder.
The school participated in several national tournaments and won a state championship.
“They had a really, really good team,” Mr. Wertz says. “Trey won a state championship his sophomore year against Bam Adebayo. There were 12 Division-I players, three college All-Americans on the floor, two McDonald’s All-Americans and probably three pros on the floor. That game was crazy.”
Providence Day lost just one game against area competition over a six-year span.
And that didn’t sit well with some people.
“Everybody kind of hated them,” Mr. Wertz says. “Trey was one of the faces of the franchise. You have a team that’s always in the playoffs and is always being written about and one of the players is the son of the newspaper guy. It was tough from that perspective, but it was a fun ride because they had such a good time.”
Mr. Wertz would still write roundups from the office, larger stories that include a rundown of all the area’s high school action that night. It was impossible for him to completely ignore his son’s exploits in those pieces, but that was pretty much all he did.
Trey understood why his name didn’t appear in the paper as prominently as it would have had his dad’s name not been so predominantly associated with the paper, but that didn’t mean it was fair.
It wasn’t fair to Mr. Wertz either.
Even as he distanced his work from his son’s successes on the court, he could never distance his role as a parent from his son. And, unbelievably, there were some who couldn’t understand that.
Trey was coming off the bench during his freshman year at Providence Day and making an impact against a crosstown rival.
“I was cheering and just pulling for him,” remembers Mr. Wertz, who wasn’t at the game in a professional capacity. “He was playing well in the game and I was cheering. This was kind of his first big game in my estimation. It was close and he was making some big shots.”
And then, he noticed a woman on the other side of the gym snapping photos of him.
“I was like, ‘Why is she taking pictures of me when the game is downstairs?’” he recalls.
Mr. Wertz approached the woman after the game and politely asked her why she was taking photos of him.
“Her face kind of frowned up and she said, ‘You’re cheering. You’re pulling for Providence Day,’” Mr. Wertz remembers. “‘You’re biased and you’re supposed to be the newspaper guy.’
“I said, ‘Well, I’m just a parent and I’m cheering on my son.’”
Apparently, that wasn’t a good enough reason and she followed through with a promise to send the photographic evidence of a father cheering for his son to the father’s supervisor.
“That actually happened more than once,” Mr. Wertz says.
Mr. Wertz has kept his emotions to himself ever since.
“I’m pretty much like a zombie when I watch Trey play now,” he says.
Mr. Wertz was relieved to see his son join the ranks of college basketball players, so he could just be a dad, instead of a reporter on his beat.
“It was nice to be able to go watch him and not having somebody say something about me,” he said.
Yet he still holds back the urge to cheer.
“I guess I can’t really turn it off anymore,” he said. “I still just kind of sit there.”
By the middle of his senior season at Providence Day, Trey had several Power 5 offers and was told that number would likely double by the spring. But he didn’t want to wait that long.
The Wertz family formed a strong bond with Justin Gainey, who was an assistant at Santa Clara at the time.
While Power 5 schools were offering the chance to shoot spot-up corner threes, Santa Clara head coach Herb Sendek was selling the opportunity to have the ball in his hands in a playmaking role not dissimilar from James Harden’s with the Houston Rockets.
By the time he visited Santa Clara, Trey wanted to commit on the spot and signed in November.
But Gaines was gone, off to Arizona, before Trey ever suited up for the Broncos and after averaging 12 points, 4.3 assists and 3.2 rebounds per game in two years at Santa Clara, Trey was ready for a new start and entered the transfer portal last month.
Trey didn’t know for sure what kind of attention he’d garner the second go-round, but his dad was convinced it’d be immense. It was, as Trey’s phone wouldn’t stop buzzing during the first 48 hours after he made himself available via the portal.
“He started getting some of the schools he wanted to get the first time,” Mr. Wertz says. “I was actually happy to see that.
“Those were the types of things I thought he should have gotten the first time, but it was tough playing on a high school team with Devon Dotson and Grant Williams. It’s hard to see past them to see the other guys.”
While his main goal was helping his son find a place to be happy, Mr. Wertz admits to having a slight bias, which he didn’t mind displaying in a joking manner.
Trey ultimately narrowed his list to Notre Dame, Butler, Arizona, where Gainey had been on staff before leaving for Marquette, and North Carolina, his father’s alma mater.
“I’m a North Carolina graduate and he grew up a North Carolina fan,” Mr. Wertz said. “We watched them all of the time. That’s the team he grew up loving.”
Mr. Wertz spent a couple weeks wearing even more Carolina gear than usual around the house.
“I wouldn’t say anything, just wear it,” he laughs. “Just dropping hints.”
But, at the end of the day, it was an analytical decision, not an emotional one.
Trey organized a spreadsheet with eight categories and ranked each of his finalists one through four.
“He really took a long time doing it,” his father says. “He shared it with my wife and myself.
“Notre Dame was at the top, one or two in each category. It was kind of obvious the university he should be at at that point. How can you go wrong with Notre Dame? If people ask you 50 years from now, ‘Where did you go to school?’ And you say Notre Dame, they’ll say, ‘Oh, OK.’”
Mr. Wertz isn’t ready to relinquish his Carolina Blue attire though.
“Come on,” he laughs. “No, no, no. I’m a Carolina guy.”
But he is adding some Blue and Gold to the wardrobe.
“I will love Notre Dame,” he says. “I bought some Notre Dame stuff the other day. I bought a blue jacket with gold inside and I got a green t-shirt. I have plenty of Notre Dame gear and I’ll take some of Trey’s too.
“I’ll definitely be pulling for Notre Dame. It’s going to be weird when they’re playing the Tar Heels, especially at the Dean Dome, going in there and wearing different colors and pulling for the other team. But I’m with the team that my son is on. I believe in Coach (Mike) Brey and Coach (Ryan) Humphrey and those guys. I’m a Golden Domer for life.”
There’s a firm confidence in Brey, his staff and the roster moving forward, especially with Cormac Ryan joining the squad and Prentiss Hubb having two seasons of eligibility, meaning he could still be in town even if Trey has to sit out the upcoming season per current NCAA transfer rules.
“When Trey gets there, he’ll be able to add to that,” says Mr. Wertz. “I think he’ll thrive in that type of offense. He can play on the ball and let Prentiss play off or he can play off the ball and shoot it. He’s very versatile.”
Trey shot 48.9 percent from the floor this past season and 40 percent from three, but his father thinks he can be even more effective.
“He’s one of the best shooters I’ve ever seen,” he says. “He can really shoot a basketball.”
If he gets the chance, Mr. Wertz would welcome the chance to write about Trey.
“It’s a little awkward to write about your son, but if the opportunity came, if they made a run to the Final Four or something, yeah, I’ll write about him,” he says.
But for now, he’ll continue to relish the freedom to say what he thinks.
“It’s cool to be able to talk about him and brag on him a little bit because I don’t think he got bragged on enough.”