WAYNE, N.J. — As an All-State guard coming out of Newark East Side High School in 2007, Corey Chandler figured that by the spring of 2011 he would be finishing up an accomplished tenure at Rutgers and planning for a pro basketball career.
Instead, Chandler found himself working in Newark for a company called Clean Tech, putting in eight-hour shifts washing feces, urine and other bodily fluids off of Depends diapers, sheets and towels that came in from nursing homes.
“They come from old folks’ homes, so you could imagine what they had on them,” the 6-foot-2 Chandler told SNY.tv during an exclusive interview Wednesday.
The three month-stint that Chandler spent working at Clean Tech in order to support his 2-year-old son, Ya’Sir Cobb, was hardly the lifestyle he had imagined for himself when he signed on as then-Rutgers’ head coach Fred Hill’s first prized recruit during his junior year of high school.
“I imagined playing all four years in the Big East…and I hoped I could play in the NBA,” Chandler said. “I was looking forward to that.”
Chandler’s dream didn’t quite work out as planned, but after ill-fated stops at Rutgers, Binghamton and Texas Southern he has now re-emerged at Division 3 William Paterson University where he is enjoying a second act under head coach Jose Rebimbas.
After putting up 24 points, five assists and five steals in the Pioneers’ 71-53 victory over Hunter College Wednesday, Chandler is averaging a team-best 20.5 points and 5.3 assists for unbeaten William Paterson (8-0), ranked No. 22 nationally.
“He came in here with 55 credits and a 2.5 GPA from Rutgers so we thought that he would have an opportunity to get a college degree from William Paterson and if he worked hard, he could put himself in a position that he could possibly make money playing basketball,” said Rebimbas, a member of Seton Hall’s 1989 national runner-up team and one of the top D-3 coaches in the nation.
Chandler, 22, is not Rebimbas’ only reclamation project at William Paterson.
Lance Brown, a former Fordham and Quinnipiac player who starred at Paterson Catholic, is averaging 19.1 points and a team-high 10.1 rebounds.
Both players have two years of eligibility remaining at the D-3 level.
It would have been hard for either Chandler or his coach to imagine this scenario four years ago when Chandler came out of East Side and seemed destined for big things in the Big East.
“At no point in time did we ever think in our wildest dreams that we’d have an opportunity to coach Corey Chandler,” said Rebimbas, who has known Chandler since his high school days.
After committing to Hill, he posted 11.9 points and 4.0 rebounds during the 2007-08 campaign as a freshman at Rutgers.
But things began to go South during his sophomore season when Mike Rosario, a McDonald’s All-American out of St. Anthony, arrived at Rutgers.
Chandler didn’t quite understand how to share the spotlight with Rosario, who became Hill’s go-to player as a freshman.
He averaged 7.0 points and 1.9 assists while starting 11 of 32 games during the 2008-09 season. By the end of the year his high school coaches announced that he would transfer, but Chandler later changed his month and opted to stay.
Ultimately, he was dismissed from Rutgers in August 2009.
“I don’t want to get into that,” Chandler said. “It’s my past and I have come a long way to deflect that, and keep that out my thoughts and just move on. And I don’t want to bring it back up.”
He then decided to transfer to Binghamton, which, under then-coach Kevin Broadus, had a reputation for taking controversial and troubled transfers.
Yet a month later, in September 2009, Chandler was one of three players kicked off the team at Binghamton.
Chandler declined to get into specifics about his tenure at Binghamton, but said, “Putting yourself around the wrong crowd of people, it leads to bad things. I learned from that experience that just if you go somewhere, it just gotta be strictly about basketball and school.
“Nothing else. No females, no parties, no nothing like that. So that’s what I did learn.”
He landed at Texas Southern in the fall of 2010, but that didn’t work out, either.
“I was planning on playing basketball there but things didn’t go well down there,” Chandler said. “Not as far as academically, just other things.”
Chandler returned to Newark and, through Newark East Side assistant coach Anthony Tavares, reached out to Rebimbas about joining the William Paterson program last January.
Instead, Rebimbas and Chandler met for four hours and the coach advised him to stop and take a serious look at what he wanted next in life.
“Take a semester off, go find a job, go figure out if you want to work for a living or if you want to get a college degree,” Rebimbas told Chandler.
Through his brother-in-law, Chandler ultimately landed at Clean Tech in May, spending three months wearing an apron and cleaning bins of smelly, soiled clothing.
“There was so much [feces] and stuff,” he said. “You could smell urine, you know. Oh, man.
“It was a good experience because it made me learn. It showed me I would do anything for my family, but on my behalf it wasn’t something I love. And I love basketball, and that’s what I want to do. When you do something you love, it’s not a job.”
At William Paterson, Chandler has excelled despite still shaking off the rust of two years of inactivity.
In late November, he was selected the Stevens Tip-Off Tournament MVP after averaging 22.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.7 assists and 2.7 steals per game.
On Dec. 3, he poured in 32 points in a victory over Skidmore.
After the Stevens tournament, Hill, now an assistant at Northwestern, called Rebimbas to pass on his good wishes.
“He called to wish Corey congratulations and told him to stay focused,” Rebimbas said.
Rebimbas has played Chandler, a natural wing, at the point guard spot with the idea of preparing him for a future pro career at that spot.
The coach says the player is still rusty and that both he and Brown are used to the TV timeouts that come at the Division 1 level.
“He could get better,” Rebimbas said.
Yet when Chandler’s on the bench, Rebimbas says he’s been a terrific role model so far.
“He’s our best cheerleader on the bench,” Rebimbas said. “He’s up cheering non-stop. He’s realizing, ‘This is my job to be some type of role model.'”
Chandler is also a father now. He is not married to his son’s mother, and says they split the childcare responsibilities.
That new role has motivated Chandler to mature and evolve as a man.
“It’s not just for my son, it’s for my nieces and nephews,” he said. “It’s for all them. They look up to me.”
Ya’sir comes to the games to watch his father player.
“He loves when he comes see me play,” Chandler said. “That’s very important to me so anything for him.”
With two years of D-3 eligibility left, Chandler, who’s majoring in sociology, says, “My main focus is getting my degree.”
Still, Chandler continues to dream of playing professional ball.
Rebimbas, who coached former NBA and overseas pro Horace Jenkins, said he’s reached out to several NBA general managers and scouts to watch him play.
“We’re going to try to get people up here, just to watch him play and then it’s his job to obviously get better and show some consistency in his life,” Rebimbas said. “And hopefully after a two-year process, he’ll be a given an opportunity if not to play in the NBA to play overseas.”
Chandler knows guys from Newark who aren’t as fortunate as he is, players with pro potential who are back home, back on the streets.
And he knows that he could’ve been one of those guys, but he thanks the people “who was in my corner that told me to stay grounded and just keep focused.”
“There’s good talent in the city of Newark and some people lose it to either dropping out of school or the streets,” he said. “But I didn’t let the streets get ahold of my life, so I stayed grounded and continued to want to be in school instead of giving in.’
