Ohio State men's basketball: Craft's lessons started at home
Point guard is always schooling someone in grammar or on-ball defense, applying the attention to detail he developed while growing up in Findlay
By Rob Oller
The Columbus Dispatch Friday March 30, 2012
Neal C. Lauron | Dispatch
One could do no better than eavesdrop on conversations in the home of John and Wendy Craft to better understand their son’s obsession with defense.
It is there, just outside the Findlay city limits, where Aaron Craft drives his family crazy by constantly defending the English language.
“It’s one of his pet peeves,” Wendy said. “We’ll ask him, ‘Did you play good?’ And he’ll correct us: ‘It’s ‘well.’ ”
About 100 miles south of Findlay, two Ohio State players sit on each side of Craft, the sophomore point guard who has helped navigate the Buckeyes to the Final Four in New Orleans, where on Saturday they play Kansas in a semifinal.
Senior William Buford sits to Craft’s left and Jared Sullinger to his right during a midweek news conference.
The question is straightforward enough: Does Craft, who appears to be without fault, have any vices?
Buford smiles. Sullinger smiles.
Craft talks: “I absolutely do. I’m going to let these guys take that. Go ahead, guys. Be kind, please.”
Buford: “He thinks he knows everything.”
Sullinger: “He’s always correcting our English and our grammar.”
Craft, always quick with a clever comeback, explains that he simply wants to prepare his two teammates “for a situation where they might be with someone important, and they don’t want to make the same mistake there.”
Then he adds, “And it just bothers me when they use bad English.”
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