By Harold C. Ford
Ervin Leavy Jr. was motivated to improve his basketball game after being bested again and again by his older brother at the playground behind Flint’s Gundry School on Flint’s north side.
“He would beat up on me every day until I finally beat him when I was about 13-years-old,” Leavy Jr. recollected in a December 2024 interview with East Village Magazine (EVM).
“That meant a lot to me,” said Leavy Jr. “That was the best feeling in the world.”
Leavy Jr. went on to turn those playground beatdowns into basketball success at Flint Central High School and Central Michigan University (CMU) where he teamed up with future NBA star Dan Majerle to become “Thunder and Lightning,” a moniker created by CMU’s student newspaper. Majerle was “Thunder” and Leavy Jr. was “Lightning.”
He then parlayed those decades of practice, education, and experience into a most rewarding career at the University of Michigan-Flint, all of which prompted EVM’s sit down with the local hoop star.
Basketball hoop at the former Gundry Elementary, now Cathedral of Faith Ministries campus.
(Photo by Harold C. Ford)
Cut from five teams before 11th grade
Despite his persistence and love for the game, Leavy Jr. was a late bloomer and was cut from five teams at Gundry Elementary, Bryant Junior High, and Central High School – all before 11th grade.
Leavy Jr. had transferred to Central in his sophomore year. “I went to Flint Central because all the guys who beat me out went to Northwestern,” he recalled. Nonetheless, a star-studded bunch of basketballers – Eric Turner, Marty Embry, Mark Harris, Keith Gray, Darryl Johnson, and others —ruled the hardcourt and that sent Leavy Jr. to the junior varsity team.
At the time, Flint Central basketball was in the midst of a trifecta, winning the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) Class A state championship three years in a row in 1981, 1982 and 1983. Central’s overall record during those three seasons was 79 wins and only five losses.
In the 1982-1983 season, Leavy Jr. made the varsity team and cracked the starting lineup. “I was a very good shooter and that’s what got me on the floor,” Leavy Jr. recalled.
Nonetheless, he wasn’t hall of fame coach Stan Gooch’s first option. “To show you how deep we were,” Leavy Jr. said, “I was probably the fourth option on that team and I [eventually] got drafted by the [Michael Jordan-led Chicago] Bulls.”
Along with the other starters – Johnson, Terence Green, Ken Bowie, and Ed Greer – Leavy Jr. and the team compiled a 25-win, 3-loss season and brought home the school’s third consecutive state championship. Leavy Jr. scored a game-high 21 points to help secure the win over Detroit Southwestern in the MHSAA tournament finale.
Remarkably, it was only Leavy Jr.’s second year of organized basketball. “I didn’t really understand basketball all that well,” he told EVM, mentioning “things like defense and spacing” were new to him.
1980s: a golden era of boys’ basketball in Flint
That a future college star and professional like Leavy Jr. was cut from five teams and didn’t crack the starting lineup until his senior year in high school seems remarkable until you consider the level of basketball excellence in the Flint area in the 1980s and 90s.
Of the two decades, the 90s tend to get more attention. It was the so-called “Flintstones” era of Flint-area basketball when players like Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson, Charlie Bell, Antonio Smith, and Anthony Mull dominated Michigan State University’s men’s basketball roster and led the team to a 2000 NCAA national championship, affixing Flint on the nation’s basketball map.
However, with deference to that 1990s generation of players, the 80s – during which Leavy Jr. and others honed their hardwood skills – was likely the most prolific era of Flint-area prep basketball.
In the 1980s, the Flint area sent teams to the quarterfinal level or higher 23 times in the MHSAA boys basketball state tournament. That run included seven state championships (A-B-C-D class level and the number of achievements in parentheses below):
- 7 state champions: Central (A,3); Beecher (B,2); Northwestern (A,2)
- 2 runners-up: Northwestern (A,1); Hamady (C,1)
- 5 semifinalists: Beecher (B,3); Northwestern (A,1); Northern (A,1)
- 9 quarterfinalists: Flint Academy (C,3); Hamady (C,2); Beecher (B,1); Powers (B,1); Fenton (B,1); Holy Rosary (D,1)
In that oft-acclaimed Flintstones 1990s era, Flint-area boys basketball teams achieved that level of MHSAA tournament success a respectable, but far fewer, 15 times. (Note: 1999 quarterfinalists were not available on the MHSAA website.)
So, in the 1980s, seven of the state’s 20 MHSAA state champions in Class A and Class B were Flint-based teams. That’s an impressive championship rate of 35 percent from Genesee County that represented less than five percent of Michigan’s total population in the 1980 census.
A “detour”
Following high school, Leavy Jr. said, “I had to take a detour because I wasn’t the best student. I didn’t really apply myself.”
Leavy Jr. recalled that he “didn’t have the grades” in high school so he ended up going to Mott Community College (MCC) for two years following graduation. “That’s when I got it together academically,” he said.
Leavy Jr. helped lead MCC to the now-named Michigan Community College Athletic Association (MCCAA) championship game in 1984 before winning the league title in 1985.
Ervin Leavy Jr. takes a jump shot for Central Michigan University.
(Photo courtesy Ervin Leavy Jr.)
At the end of his time at MCC, Leavy Jr. was recruited by several universities including Michigan State, Iowa, and Connecticut. He planned to transfer to the University of Detroit following a favorite coach, Charlie Coles, but then Coles suddenly made a move to Central Michigan University.
In the transition Coles told Leavy Jr., “I want you to come play for me,”and Leavy Jr. said the choice “was a no-brainer.” He was off to CMU.
There, Leavy Jr. teamed with Majerle, a future NBA all-star. to become “Thunder and Lightning” – fan favorites at CMU from 1985 to 1987.
Leavy Jr. ended his two years at CMU with the fourth highest scoring average in the MCCAA (17.6 points per game), 28th on the list of most career points (1,003), and captain of the 1986-1987 Mid-American Conference championship team that finished with 22 wins and 8 losses.
In 1987, Leavy Jr. was CMU’s second leading scorer behind Majerle and achieved First Team All-Mid-American Conference honors.
Drafted by the Bulls
Leavy Jr. was genuinely surprised when he was drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1987. “I thought it was a joke,” Leavy Jr. told MLive/Flint Journal in 2014. “I couldn’t believe it because I didn’t expect it.” He was chosen with the 10th pick in the 7th round.
The Bulls were a team loaded with professional talent at the time: Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Artis Gilmore, Charles Oakley, and John Paxson among other notables. Leavy Jr. was drafted the same year as Pippen and Grant.
Leavy Jr. said he often guarded Jordan in Bulls’ practice sessions.
“I remember the first day he showed up with the bodyguards and his own shoes and trainers,” he told MLive.
Though Leavy Jr. was cut from the Bulls before the start of the 1987 season, he did enjoy a brief career as a semi professional basketball player which was interrupted by injury and ultimately ended with an overseas team in Singapore. “It was just too far,” he told EVM, “I didn’t know anybody.”
From there, Leavy Jr. spent nine years as a carrier for the U.S. Postal Service and a few years with Flint-based New Paths, Inc.
In 1990, Leavy Jr. finished his four-year degree work at CMU guided by his father’s advice: “Son, you can’t eat a basketball.”
University of Michigan-Flint
In 2002, Leavy Jr. was offered a position at the University of Michigan-Flint. After various stints as Assistant Student Development Coordinator and Adjunct Lecturer he is now in his comfort zone as Assistant Director of Facilities Operation and Risk Management at the UM-Flint Recreation Center.
Leavy Jr.’s duties include: oversight of student supervisors; weight room staff; coordination of events that usually include requisite contracts and insurance; maintenance of first aid equipment; and disciplinary matters. He oversees some two dozen staffers, down from 40 during the pre-COVID years.
Ervin Leavy Jr. during his career at the University of Michigan-Flint. (Photo courtesy Ervin Leavy Jr.)
“I’ve got a big plate,” Leavy Jr. said, but with that plate comes great benefits.
“I think working for the university is the most rewarding thing that could have happened in my life as far as a career,” he said.
Leavy Jr. told EVM that working with young people, watching them grow and graduate, is one of the biggest rewards.
“When I started off, I didn’t realize how influential I was in the lives of young people,” he said.
Fringe benefits most assuredly include health insurance and a chance to play the game he loves with the students he deeply cares about. At age 59, Leavy Jr. is a constant presence in the intramural basketball program at the UM-Flint rec center as a member of a team.
“I’ve been the oldest guy in this league for 20 years,” he said with a smile.
This article also appears in East Village Magazine’s March 2025 issue.
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