Villanova’s Omari Spellman went from a 290-pound ‘fat kid’ to a national champion

SAN ANTONIO — John Shackleton is used to early mornings as Villanova’s strength and conditioning coach. He’s not used to players beating him to the gym when he arrives at 5:30 a.m.

Omari Spellman was getting up jumpers by himself when Shackleton showed up to work that day in the summer 2016. Working out before the sun rises is supposed to be a badge of honor in the basketball world, but the man they call Shack knew it was trouble when Spellman said he was there because he couldn’t sleep.

“You can’t be coming in to train on an hour or two of sleep,” Shackleton said. “It’s just not going to work. I found out he likes to stay up snacking, playing video games. I said we have to do something about this.”

Spellman was Villanova’s biggest recruit in years when he committed out of the class of 2016, both literally and figuratively. He was a five-star prospect ranked No. 17 overall in the RSCI, two spots better than where Jalen Brunson was ranked a year earlier.

He was also 290 pounds with 24 percent body fat.

“He was an obese basketball player,” Shackleton said.

It wasn’t just that Spellman was overweight. His living habits simply weren’t conducive to being a high-major athlete. His diet was terrible. He liked to stay up all night. He couldn’t do a pull-up and struggled to do one set of 10 pushups.

Head coach Jay Wright and Shackleton knew they had to be up front with their star recruit. They told him he had to own his body weight. And they told him he needed to be better, both for Villanova and for himself.

“They said you can’t be successful at any level past high school at 300 pounds,” Spellman said. “They told me, ‘Beyond basketball, how do you want to be able to interact with your children, and your children’s children?’ That really hit home for me, because I don’t want to be unhealthy for the rest of my life.”

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The version of Omari Spellman who just helped key Villanova’s national championship run looks nothing like the player who entered the program two years ago. You could see it when he drained three-pointer after three-pointer against Kansas in a blowout win in the Final Four. You could see it as he exploded for an effortless dunk against Michigan in the title game.

Spellman reworked his body and his game to transform into a game-changer for the Wildcats. He went from an overweight post-scorer to a legitimate stretch five who’s strong and explosive around the basket.

“I see him from when he came in to what he is now as two different people,” teammate Phil Booth said. “He’s jumping the highest I’ve ever seen him. Moving better. Faster. Everything about his game is elevated.”

Most of America never got to see the nearly 300-pound version of Spellman, who thrived on raw talent as a recruit. Spellman was forced to take an academic redshirt as a true freshman, setting the stage for a grueling year where he had to remake his body with no reward of seeing the court.

“It was all new to me. And it was hard,” Spellman said in the glow of a championship locker room. “I had ups and downs, but I stayed with it. I was surprised at how good my body began to feel.”

The first thing Villanova had to do was change Spellman’s diet. He loved sugar and fried foods. He snacked constantly. The hardest thing for him to kick?

“Gummy Bears,” Spellman said. “I would eat them by the bag. Big-ass bags. It was very unhealthy.”

Shackleton went grocery shopping with Spellman. Those gummy bears turned into apples and peanut butter and pistachios. The fried foods turned into grilled chicken.

The dietary change combined with all the cardio he was doing at practice paid off immediately. Spellman was down to 255 pounds, but he was still 17 percent body fat. Now they had to get him stronger.

“We couldn’t even hang him from a bar,” Shackleton said on Spellman’s inability to do a pull-up. “We had to start slow and build him up.”

That began with modified pull-ups with Spellman’s feet on the ground. The pushup goals were equally manageable. It wasn’t about how many he could do, it was about doing them with tempo and control.

For pushups, Villanova players have to hold in the up position for three seconds and touch their chest to the ground for one second. Pull-ups have to be done with your arms fully straight as Shackleton counts for three seconds as they’re extended. Then you have to hold for one second as your chin clears the bar.

Spellman didn’t just improve. He improved rapidly.

“I guarantee you most big men in the country cannot do pull-ups like him,” Shackleton said. “He just reps them out now.”

“We set benchmarks this year going into the season,” Shackleton said. “His final goal going into March was 245 pounds and 10 percent body fat. And he hit that back in January. Once he got there we held him accountable he had to sustain it otherwise he wouldn’t start a game.”

Spellman sustained it. He was still able to overpower opponents even with the drop in weight, and now he was dominating longer into games. Where he was once laying the ball in around the basket, now he was dunking. And somewhere along the way, he turned into a knockdown shooter, too.

Spellman said he could always shoot, he just never practiced much. That changed at Villanova, a program that demands its players can do everything on the floor — especially shoot. He made 65 threes this year at a 43.3 percent clip. It left opponents with an impossible choice: try to cover Spellman with traditional big men who had idea how to defend the perimeter, or go small and dare Spellman to own the paint.

He was on fire in Villanova’s NCAA tournament run, hitting four threes against West Virginia, two against Texas Tech and three against Kansas to reach the title game.

“The thing is when I texted Hugs (West Virginia coach Bob Huggins) I said, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘You better hope Spellman doesn’t shoot the ball well,’” Self said. “I personally knew it would be hard if he got off to a good start.”

None of this could have happened without Spellman’s physical transformation and all the hard work that went into it. It didn’t just change a player, it changed a whole program. Villanova does not win its second national title in three years without Spellman morphing into a matchup nightmare at center. He never becomes that type of player if he doesn’t change his body.

“It’s unbelievably humbling to go from the fat kid who got off on talent to where I still have that same talent, but now I’ve mixed in hard work ethic and discipline,” Spellman said in Villanova’s championship locker room. “It’s a blessing to be part of this program.”