ST. LOUIS — Robbie Avila showed up for his senior year at Oak Forest High School with a new look.
Since sometime around sixth grade, he had worn prescription Rec Specs goggles every day because his parents had grown tired of buying new glasses. In earlier years, some frames would only last days, casualties of wrestling matches with his brother. Robbie had even smartened up enough to call out, “Wait, my glasses.” He’d set them to the side, and somehow one of the Avila boys would end up pinned on top of them anyway.
On the basketball court, the Rec Specs were his super weapon. He looked a certain way, and … “People always doubted him,” his father, Juan, said. “No matter where we went, he would hear it. And he would silently pick them apart.”
In eighth grade, Avila had convinced his parents he was responsible enough to wear his glasses again. Now, just a year away from college, he decided he could handle contacts. The transition was annoying. He struggled to get the contacts to fit in his eye and stay there. They didn’t feel right. Finally, his older brother spoke up.
Who was he trying to be?
“You’re Robbie with the goggles,” he told him. “If you don’t have your goggles, you’re not Robbie.”
Three years later, Robbie with the goggles is one of the most recognizable faces in college basketball. He became a cult hero over the course of the 2023-24 season thanks to his eyewear, his tattoo sleeve and a skill set belying his pudgy frame that had TV analysts drawing comparisons to Nikola Jokic without anyone batting an eye. Oh, and then there were the nicknames. Cream Abdul-Jabbar. Larry Blurred. Larry Nerd. Milk Chamberlain. (Avila’s favorite is Rob Wave, a tribute to his favorite musician Rod Wave, but much to his chagrin, that one hasn’t stuck like the others.)
Robbie Avila went off for a huge game against Evansville. He finished with
35 Points
8 Rebounds
5 Assists
1 Steal
58% FGIndiana State also got the win pic.twitter.com/CmIZ9bY2Ye
— KJ (@KJ__Hoops) February 29, 2024
Adding to his Q score was the fact that he played for an upstart mid-major that was incredibly fun to watch, the best Indiana State team since Larry Bird was on campus. Indiana State had the most efficient half-court offense in the country, a beautiful blend of spacing, shooting and cutting, with Avila as the hub. “No one knows who Robbie Avila is if he was on a 12-20 team,” said Josh Schertz, the head coach of that team.
The Sycamores won the Missouri Valley Conference regular season title for the third time ever, but they were snubbed for an NCAA Tournament bid after an upset loss to Drake in the MVC tournament final. Schertz and Avila are hoping they can bring that same magic to Saint Louis, which brought in Schertz and some of his biggest Sycamores contributors after a 13-20 season. Schertz knows he has a chance because he convinced his most important player to follow him.
And Schertz could see the potential that opponents underestimated from the first day he laid eyes on it.
Three years ago Schertz pulled into the Oak Forest parking lot in a brown Ford Edge, hoping to land the player he felt could transform his program. Pulling in just ahead of Schertz was a luxury SUV. A tall man with a chiseled jawline climbed out.
“Who is that?” Schertz’s wife Natalia asked.
It was Northern Iowa’s Ben Jacobson, the Missouri Valley’s all-time winningest coach. Schertz was months into the job at Indiana State, which hadn’t won the league in two decades.
“Oh wow,” Natalia said. “He’s very handsome. You have no chance against him.”
Schertz had fallen hard for Avila that summer of 2021. He messaged assistant Zak Boisvert at halftime of the first game he watched, convinced he’d found “the one.” From then on, either Schertz or Boisvert would make the three-hour drive to the south suburbs of Chicago every week, making sure Avila knew how much they wanted him.
Schertz knew he was the underdog. Jacobson could show Avila film of Seth Tuttle, a former MVC Player of the Year, or Jordan Eglseder, who once carved up overall No. 1 seed Kansas to send UNI to the Sweet 16. Schertz was showing recruits film of his Division II team at Lincoln Memorial. And at 5-foot-8 with a bald head and the childhood nickname “POOH” tattooed on his right arm, he was not an imposing figure like Jacobson.
Schertz wanted the last word, so right before Oak Forest coach Matt Manzke came out to talk to the coaches, Schertz faked like he had to go to the restroom. He got to go second.
His final pitch to Avila: You don’t look like a player; I don’t look like a coach, but I do think we could connect and really do something special if you trust me.
Avila told the coaches he’d make a decision in the next 24 to 48 hours. Days went by without word. He didn’t return calls or texts. Usually he’d talk these things through with his parents, but he didn’t say anything to them, either. Two weeks later, on the way to coach a youth football game, he told his dad that he was going to Northern Iowa. Juan congratulated him on his decision and told him he needed to call both coaches that afternoon when they got home. Robbie went into the garage and reemerged 45 minutes later without making the call. It didn’t feel right.
Another two weeks went by.
He kept coming back to Schertz’s pitch. Fresh off his own image crisis — “You’re Robbie with the goggles” — the message resonated.
Finally, on Oct. 22, 2021, Schertz’s phone rang. He keeps the FaceTime at the bottom of his call log. He’ll never delete record of the day that changed the trajectory of his program — and both his and Avila’s lives.
Avila averaged 17.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game in his final season with the Sycamores. (MaCabe Brown / Courier & Press / USA Today Network)
The final clip of the final film session of summer practice at Saint Louis showed Avila falling to the floor during the previous day’s practice. Avila shouted that he was tripped by a teammate. Assistant Phil Gaetano rewound and played it again. “He lifted his heel up!” Avila protested. Later, he admitted he was tired and took a dive. He’s been known to untie his shoes to get a break. After everyone got a good laugh about his fall, another clip showed Schertz eating dirt rounding second during a softball game the Billikens played that summer. Avila was the loudest heckler in the room.
“Those two,” former Indiana State guard Julian Larry said, “they’re a little dynamic comedy duo.”
“Josh is one of his best friends,” Juan Avila said. “Honestly.”
When Schertz accepted the Saint Louis job after Indiana State’s run to the NIT championship game, he was pretty confident that Avila would follow him.
They had already discussed the possibility three weeks earlier when word first surfaced that Schertz was in talks with Saint Louis, hours after the Sycamores’ NCAA Tournament snub. The next day, Schertz pulled each of his starters one by one into his office because he didn’t want it to be a distraction during the NIT. He also asked the players for their opinion. If they all wanted to stay, he told them, he would stay. If they wanted to go with him, he would welcome them. And if they were going to look elsewhere after the season in either scenario, he understood that as well. That night, Avila texted Schertz: “Whatever you do, I’m rocking with you.”
Avila entered the portal with a “Do not contact” request next to his name, but college coaches reached out to his former high school coach anyway. A lot of the big-name schools who once ignored him were now in pursuit. “The amount of money he turned down to come here is pretty significant,” Schertz said. “It’s just a testament to who he is and our relationship.”
Now the duo will be tested to see whether their magic was a matter of ideal circumstances in Terre Haute or whether these kindred spirits can jump-start another program. Avila already has a new catchy nickname (“SLU Alcindor”), and his point guard Isaiah Swope followed him, but Schertz knows it’s not a given that his offense will hum in a deeper league. “That team fit together perfectly,” he said. “But even that team, if they’d come back, doesn’t mean it would have symmetrically fit together just as perfectly this year. Guys might have wanted more.”
The game will be easy for the other Billikens if they learn to space and cut hard, allowing Avila to generate what Schertz calls the most efficient shot in basketball: a non-dribble layup.
“We have the best passing big in college basketball,” Schertz told his team this summer. “If I’m you guys, I’m cutting with great pace.”
No one scored more efficiently off cuts last season than Indiana State, according to Synergy’s data. Other coaches ask Schertz how he gets his guys to cut so hard. Easy: They know they’re going to get the ball from their big man. “He helped elevate my cutting to another level,” former teammate Jayson Kent said of Avila.
Avila is a magician with these passes. He simply watches the cutting defender’s head. When that head turns, it doesn’t matter whether it looks like his teammate doesn’t have an advantage; he knows he can squeeze the ball in. Some players are capable of making that pass, but their turnover rate skyrockets when they start chasing highlights. What makes Avila special, as one coach who has studied him puts it, is that he hits singles and home runs.
The lineup around him makes sense on paper. Schertz convinced sharpshooter Gibson Jimerson to stay at SLU. Kalu Anya is the type of defensive-minded big that Schertz knew was essential to play alongside Avila in the frontcourt. Then, most important to the offense working correctly, Avila needed a pick-and-roll partner. And that’s why Swope’s commitment was so important.
Schertz always uses his players on recruiting visits, putting the recruit in a room with players only and telling the family they can ask anything. The recruits can request certain players or leave it up to the coaches, and when they choose the latter, Avila is always part of the panel. On his Indiana State visit a year ago, Swope asked Avila why he didn’t leave for more money after his freshman year. Avila spoke about the system, the culture and how he felt like he was valued and utilized the right way.
“You hear a lot throughout the world, especially with NIL stuff, a lot of people are money driven and everybody just up and leaves,” Swope said. “I’m not wired that way. What he said was what I was looking for, just somewhere where it’s about the love of the game and getting better each and every day.”
The two interact like brothers in practice, usually bonding but occasionally feuding when matched against each other. When paired together, they rarely lose.
Avila puts it on himself to try to catch everyone else up. “He’s a rare guy that brings the vision of what we want to be as a program to the court and the locker room every single day,” Schertz said. “He’s not degrading guys, demeaning guys. He’s encouraging, but also holding guys accountable. And he’s going to certainly attack anything that gets in the way of winning, but he’s not going to do it in a way that leaves the person feeling less than.”
There’s always a little self-deprecating humor mixed in as well.
When the SLU players gathered at half court for the final scrimmage of the summer, Avila backed out of the center circle and looked at Kalu. “Forty inch vert with a 7-3 wingspan,” he said to his new teammate. “I’ve got a minus wingspan.”
“You just want to be around him and hang out with him,” Kent said. “He’s very inclusive, from grad guys all the way down to freshmen.”
This is why there was never any jealousy last season, his former teammates said, when his star shined brighter than anyone else’s. Same ol’ Robbie. The only time the attention got a rise out of him was over Christmas break when he blurted out at dinner one night, “Holy f—! Excuse my language, guys. Mark Cuban just followed me.”
GO DEEPER
He was a tennis prodigy and high school dropout. Now he’s one of the hottest coaches in the country
Avila was about to be interviewed on camera before a practice Saint Louis opened to the media this summer when he realized he was wearing his glasses. He raced past Natalia on his way to the locker room. She asked what he was doing.
“I gotta go put on the goggles,” he said. “That’s what they’re here for. They’re coming to see the goggles. Not me.”
Robbie with the goggles has fully embraced his brand. He has an NIL deal with Bommarito Automotive, who supplied him with a Cadillac CT5V. Last year he put his celebrity (and NIL money) to good use, buying Nike Zoom Freak 2 sneakers for the Oak Forest basketball players and coaches. He saw media opportunities as a way to “exemplify my teammates and put them up too.”
Meanwhile, he has become a hero for younger bespectacled athletes. He has received letters from parents and kids letting him know he has made goggles cool. “I want to use my platform to be a spotlight for kids who wear goggles,” he said. “Some kids get made fun of. I got teased when I was younger. I want kids to know it’s OK to be you. You don’t have to change.”
Avila is embracing one change, however. He’s on a mission to get to the NCAA Tournament this season after barely missing out last year. He knew he could get even better as a junior by slimming down. He has changed his eating habits, but he said it doesn’t help Swope texts him every other day to hit Baskin Robbins. “My body’s not like yours!” he tells Swope.
Ideally, he wants to shed “pudgy” from the look that helped make him famous. The harder loss could be switching to a new set of goggles ahead of the new season.
Even though the wear and tear made last season’s gameday specs almost unusable at times — and he had backups he wore in practice — he refused to wear a different pair in games. Natalia kept black tape and Krazy Glue in her bag and had to perform surgery several times. Avila lives by a favorite adage of his father: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
That’s why Robbie with the goggles is now a Billiken. He’s not finished doing special things with the coach who knows image isn’t everything.
(Top illustration: Meech Robinson for The Athletic; Photos: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images; David Allio / Icon Sportswire)