Q&A with Spencer Nelson
Ahead of Jaycee Carroll’s jersey retirement, honoring Utah State Men’s Basketball’s all-time leading scorer who played from 2004 to 2008, the Utah Statesman called Spencer Nelson — an Aggie who played from 1999 to 2005 with a mission in between — to ask him about Carroll.
Statesman: What was your first impression of Jaycee? Did you think he would be as good as he was?
Photo by John Zsiray Spencer Nelson looks for an open man during Saturday’s game against Cal State Fullerton.
Nelson: The first time I met him was on a visit. He came and played with us, so he was still in high school. And yeah, I thought he was really, really good. I remember playing and then also walking up the tunnel and talking to coach Rahe — who is coach Randy Rahe, who was the head coach at Weber State for a while after Utah State — and just saying, ‘You should offer this dude a scholarship.’ And then he came home from his mission. I knew he had a chance to be very good — had no idea he was going to end up being the all-time leading scorer at Utah State, but I knew he had a chance to be good.
Q: What was your favorite on-court memory with Jaycee?
A: I remember the Big West Championship game against Pacific. That felt like we ran the same play 40 times in a row, where I got the ball at the elbow and then did a dribble handoff to Jaycee and kept handing him the ball. And good things would happen every time I did. So I remember that, and then I played with Jaycee in Spain. I played with him for a year, and I played against him for a couple years. And I have some really, really fun memories, just battling in practice with him, or playing in games with him or against him. I have a lot of them, but from a college standpoint, I think that’s probably the Big West Championship. He ended up being the MVP of the tournament, and I remember that game pretty well.
Q: Other players in Spain, what was their opinion of Jaycee?
A: Extremely competitive and phenomenal shooter is really, I think, kind of the profile. People knew that you couldn’t give him an inch because that’s all he needed to be able to get his shot off. Also, I think, everyone knew he was like the Energizer Bunny, where he never ran out of energy, and he’d just run back and forth and back and forth off of screens until he got open. So those were kind of the perceptions people had of him as a player — just a phenomenal shooter, and just constant energy.
Q: What was your favorite off-court memory with Jaycee?
A: I have so many that I don’t know if there’s a favorite, but I did love — great memory is when we played together on the same team. A lot of times the game would be on Sunday, and so whether it was at home and we’d go to church there, or on the road, when we could catch a cab or something, we’d go to church and then catch a cab to the game. Uber didn’t exist, obviously, so we were in taxis at that time. And then a lot of times after the games, especially on the road, you’d come back to have a team meal. But especially if you won, you weren’t required to go to it. So a lot of the guys would go out, but Jaycee and I — because it was Sunday — wouldn’t necessarily go out. We’d just come back to the hotel and have the team meal, but we would be the only ones there. And so we would just gorge ourselves on all things Spanish food, especially all the different meats and cheeses and stuff. So I have good memories of just sitting with him in a hotel conference room, eating a meal by ourselves and just having as much as we want.
Q: How do you feel about USU retiring Jaycee’s number?
A: Well deserved. I’m one of those people that thinks that shouldn’t happen very often, and fortunately at Utah State, it hasn’t. That’s not a common thing. It’s not something — in my mind — that should be done regularly. It takes extraordinary players and performances to be able to garner that kind of recognition, and Jaycee is well deserving of it for what he accomplished in his career at Utah State and even after Utah State. He is in the elite group, and he belongs in the company of people with their jerseys retired.