The Herd with Colin Cowherd - All Ball - Iona Asst. Tom Abatemarco on Recruiting Dell Curry, Spud Webb, Valvano, '83 Title Run Stories

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

In this episode, Doug talks with Iona Assistant Tom Abatemarco about his path into a five decade career in coaching with Jim Valvano at Iona College, working under the legendary Lou Carnesecca, Maryland's Lefty Driesell, recruiting Dell Curry to Virginia Tech, re-joining Valavano at NC State, his '83 title run memories, recruiting Spud Webb, and Spencer Dinwiddie.Make sure you download, rate and subscribe here to get the latest All Ball Podcasts! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Full details on carnival.com, ships, registry, Bahamas, Panama. Hey, welcome in and what up. I'm Doug Gottlieb. And this is all ball. All basketball, all the time. So today's guest is Tom Abedamarko. Some people call him the alphabet man. Coach of Marco has been seemingly everywhere, right?

Doing it since the mid-70s, mid-early 70s. Crazy. Of course, it's part of Jim Valvano's national championship run. He's been a head coach. He's been assistant coach in college, assistant coach in the WNBA. And in the G-League, he's been a scout. He's been everywhere. And he's still doing it now with Rick Petino at Iona.

We'll get to that in a second. I do think it's always interesting that we, in many ways we do this. in all walks of life and in sports. We talk about the super teams, and we only talk about the ones that worked. Didn't work in Houston, despite the fact that they tried, right? Bringing in Chris Paul. First, they brought in Dwight Howard, then Chris Paul, then Russell Westbrook. It never amounted to a championship.

Of course, the last version of the Nets coming off of the Celtics in that trade, never amounted to much but one playoff appearance. We've seen plenty of super teams before. Heck, the Houston Rockets when they had Charles Barkley come down. That didn't work either because they were just too old. They were over the hill. So we watched the Clippers struggle so far against the Mavericks. The two things that I think we don't talk enough about are one, how great is Luca?

He's amazing. And two, not all super teams work. We just make the assumption that they do. Is the series over? No. Last year is a perfect guide. Up three games to one. The series wasn't over.

The same is true here. But while it's not over, the fat lady is in fact warming up. All right, let's get to Tom of Better Mar. He's the assistant coach at Iona, but his career path is fantastic. Here's my discussion with the longtime coach. Okay. You go where to go to college? Where to go to college?

You, yeah. Dallin College. I was a walk on. That's in Oakdale. They closed it down. How about that one? There's nobody else I know who's, it closed down recently, though. There's somebody else I know who went there.

Really? I mean, it went to the, we went to the NNN. A. I championships every year. Who is the coach? Dick Berg, great guy. What made you go there? Well, I wanted to play basketball.

I wasn't very good. So I went there and then I walked on. I played on a freshman team and I made the varsity. I had fun. I got in every once a while, threw up a three. They went in one out of five and I had a lot of fun. It was a great experience for me.

There weren't threes back then. So, I mean, like you may look a lot. younger than you actually I went in and threw up a three is I counted as ultimate bullshit. There was no three pointers there. I counted it as a three. That's how well.

Okay, but you were also, you were in the, because I know this because you were in the ACC as an assistant when they had the first three point line. Yeah. But it was actually, it was actually really short, right? And that's why Mark Price led the league in school. I'm going to tell you,

I'm going to tell you a great story. One of many. We're playing West Virginia in the, I forget what arena it was, but it was one of the big arenas in this area, right? We're playing them. And the line is in close. And Valvano had this little deal.

You never say it's over. So Wittenberg was going wild, hitting all kinds of threes, and he hit one to put us up like five, like ten seconds left. So I said, it's over. I don't know why I said it. Valvano just nudged me and turked me and whatever. He said, don't ever say that. We get in the tunnel and he got me against the wall.

He's choking me. Don't you ever say the game's. over and his dad had to come down and pull me off and that is a true story. Wow. Wow. Okay. So you get done, you go to down in college. You get done. Yeah. Okay. How did you get into coaching? What was the... Well, what happened was I was just a teacher. So I taught, right? So I taught special ed kids. And I liked doing it. And I did it for three years. And I helped the guy, Dick Berg, with the, with the JV team. I was a volunteer there. And then Sammy Stern hired me as his assistant coach at New York Tech, which was a division two team.

And Sammy was a terrific coach, well known in the area, and we had good teams. And that's how I started out really as coaching. But what I did is I worked at West Hempstead schools, and I went over to New York Tech, which was 20 minutes away, went to practice every day, helped them recruit and had a lot of fun. I was in coaching, and I loved it. Okay. So let's start with the teaching special ed kids. How old were these kids? They were elementary school kids.

And it was tough and it was a lot of fun. But when I looked at my life, I did not want to be an elementary school principal or in education. I wanted to coach. So that's what I wanted to do. Now you're going to ask me, how did I get with Coach V. I don't know where I'm at now, which is a really interesting story. Okay. Well, you got to give me a second.

So you're at New York Tech. This is mid-sevies, right? Mid-70s. All right. So you do one year. At tech, how did you then get to where you're at? Okay, it's very simple. Valvano gets the I own a job, okay?

And I'm excited because I think I owner is big, big, big time. And obviously, I owns a mid-level job, and Jimmy gets a job, and I call them up, and I can't get to them. I'm calling them, call him, tell them I want to be his assistant. I never heard of return call or whatever. I'm at an All-Star game, okay, where some high school guys are playing. I'm with Sammy Stern or watching the kids we sign. So Valvano is there, and I can't get to him, but he went over to Sammy and asked how

Sammy signed a place he got at that particular school. And really, a lot with Sammy, he was the head coach, he had connections, but he pointed to me. So Valvano came over to me and said, you're Tom a better tomorrow. I said, I've been calling you. I said, I never got your calls. He said, hey, come see me Monday in my office. I said, okay, sure, I'll come up. I said, I teach school.

So he said, come up about 4 o'clock. I said, well, I'll barely make it, but I'll get there. So I get there at 4 o'clock. We go in, sit in his office. He said, look, I got one full-time assistant, and I have a part-time guy. And he said, but both guys can recruit because usually you can have two full-time guys.

He said, I got a great offer for you. You can keep teaching elementary school. You could come over afterwards to practice or go recruit. He said, you know, I'm really interested in you if you were able to recruit guys like that. And I said, yeah, I'd be real interested. said, or, he said, or if you really love basketball and you really want to get in coaching, you just give up the teaching job. He said, how much you're making teaching? I said, I'm making

10,000. In those days, it was decent. He said, well, I have 2,000 for you. Now, you just, what you do is you just give up the job and you volunteer? What does your wife make? I said, well, my wife makes probably about five. He said, yeah, that's fine. You can live on seven. What do you think? I said, I love to do it. I did it. Drove home that night, told my wife Dawn. Hey, guess what? I got the job. She said, great. How much you make it?

So making $2,000. We lived the top of her aunt's house. Okay, so we really didn't pay big rent. And that's how I got in with Valvanna. First player, your son. Glenn Vickers. He really was a terrific guard recruited by Florida. A lot of Ivy League schools.

Really, really a good player. And he came because of Jimmy, like old kids come for the head coach. He was a big name Long Island. Island player. And he brought with him, who was a second player, a kid named Kevin Hamilton, great back court, two really good guards, and they started things rolling for us. When you said he came to play for Valbano, what was what was what Valvano like? This is mid-70s. You know, this is before Ruland, right? Oh, yeah. And this is obviously well before NC State, and he became kind of a national personality. What was he like with kids then? Just when they, when we

coming on. Well, kids loved them because, you know, he had a swagger about him. He talked their language. He was upbeat. He was outgoing. He had a great, great, great aura about him. And he just convinced kids that he was going to build I owner into a power, which he eventually did. And these two guards started things. They were best friends with Jeff Ruling. And then, you know, eventually that led to us getting Jeff Rulun. And then, you know, that was a big, big factor. I mean, obviously, he was the number one player in the country.

How did you get Jeff Rowling? You know, I don't know if I got Jeff ruling or more circumstances got Jeff Rulham. He loved Vickers in Hamilton. We were in the EACAC. There was no big East. So we had as much to sell as St. John's, as far as where we were going, we just never were there. And he really wanted to be a guy that put a program on the map. He visited Indiana.

He visited Notre Dame. He visited North Carolina. He visited Wake Forest. And he chose Iona. And he chose Iona because he was. wanted to stay close to home. For whatever reason, he didn't have a good chemistry with the other local coaches, and he chose I own him.

And it was a, it was a big deal. And, you know, obviously, Jimmy sold him a dream to win the 9 o'clock game in Madison's Square Garden, which they did about two or three times. They'd be Kansas, they'd be Louisville. So why'd you leave? Why'd you go to Davidson? I left because I, because I wanted more money and I wanted more, I don't know, I just felt Davidson at the time was bigger.

And I went to Jimmy and he said, look, I can't pay you anymore. I think I was making five at the time. And he said, Davidson was going to pay me 15. So I said, I'm going. Well, I went there and obviously the head coach there had some health issues. And he ended up resigned at the end of the year. A friend of mine, John Cotian coached the team. And they didn't give John the job.

And after that, Louis called me. How are you? So did you ever coach? Who is the head coach who got sick? at where? Yeah, it was Dave Pritchett, and he had some health issues. So he resigned before the season started, and John Cochhan, who's one of my dearest friends, coached the team that year.

Yeah, but so what's that like, though, to leave New York, all you've really ever known, right, to then go down to Charlotte and you're coaching for a guy who wasn't, you were supposed to coach with a different guy. It was really, really hard, but John and I got real close. And had John gotten the job, I probably wouldn't have stayed because Louis called me. But I mean, I was intended to stay there with him. Don't forget, I'm a young kid right now.

I don't, you know, I'm not, I'm making a couple thousand bucks at Iona. I go to Davidson. I make a little more money. To me, Davidson's bigger time. And for whatever reason, that's why I left. And probably when you look back, it was a mistake. I probably should have stayed. So you, so Louis, Louis, Louis, Carnase.

Louis, Louis, Louis, Connose. Like, do you call your office? Did he call your home? This is before the days of the cell phone. Here's the deal with Louis. Louis had a famous guy named Red Saratuck, who was his kind of his guru in basketball. Red was an old Jewish guy like yourself,

and you're a young Jewish guy. And he was very famous in the New York area, terrific coach. And he was very close to Sammy Stern. And they told him that I would be a good guy to bring in, a young guy that could help him, you know, get players. Louis was getting a lot of transfers or maybe he helped him get some high school guys. So Louis called me. And, well, first.

Remember where you were? Were you back home in New York? Were you still in? No, no, no. I was in, where I was in North Carolina. I got a call probably, it was probably from Sam Stern. And he said, Red wants to talk to you. I call Red.

And I really didn't know Red. And Red said, hey, how would you like to work for Louis? He said, sure. He said, come on in. He's going to interview you. So I went there and I sat down and coached it. Tommy. He said, Tommy, I hear you could really recruit. He said, I'm really interested in you. I said, coach, interested. I said, I'd be on it to work for you. He said, okay, when can you start?

I said, I could start tomorrow, coach. He said, okay, let's see if we get the paperwork done. Louis was the best, you know, a little Italian guy. I'm Italian. I love him. Okay, so what was he like to coach him or coach for? Well, Louis was a great teacher, and we had John Cress with us. John Cress was a great X&O guy, okay? So mainly I came in and I was going to be the guy to help get players. But also on the staff, part-time, was a guy named Ronnie Rutledge, who became a famous assistant at Iona.

And Ronnie had another job, and he was our part-time guy, so he'd come in after work and work for us. So that was our staff. We had a terrific, terrific staff. John was terrific, and I love working for the job. Louis and you know we signed that year a kid named David Russell which was MVP at a holiday festival and Kevin Williams remember the guard to play for San Antonio sure here's ago him and a couple other guys and we we had a really good recruiting you the best story about Louis is is we're going

out to sign David David Russell and we're driving out to Long Island and and we get out there and we get them and and I tell Ronnie Ronnie you got to pull over. I got to drink some wine or something. Ryan was driving. Coach said, we can't do that in a car. I said, we got it, we got to. We just got a, the player we wanted. Louis wouldn't pull over, get the wine, but we were driving home,

and the song came on, there's no stopping us now. And we were so excited to get him because that's the kid, coach wanted. And then after him, we got Kevin Williams and put together a great class for him for the future. Now, this is, again, for people who are catching up. This is late 70s, this is before the Big East. right? Yeah.

So what was St. John's like? Where did you guys, do you guys play on campus? You guys played on campus? Sure. We had, the team we had was Reggie Carter, Bernard Rensher,

Ronnie player, John Gilroy, I think it was, and Wayne McCoy. We went to play, luckily to get an NCAA bid. I mean, I felt we weren't even watching the show.

I don't even know there was a show at that time. I get a call from coach. He said, Guess what? We're playing Temple in the NCAA tournament. We thought we were going to the NIT. So we got in. As a coach, what was he like in a game?

When you get the NCAA, what was Luke Carnacek like? Here was Luke Carnacek like. Great practice, coach, and preparator. And John Kress helped him, and he was terrific in getting ready for a game. During a game, made great adjustments. But Louis wanted you to play great man-to-man defense. okay and he was going to run sets to slow the game down. Well, Louis was great.

He told the guys he would run, right? But what Louis did was anytime we want to slow the game, I'd jump up, run to play. And he did that a lot because he liked to control tempo, and he was a great defensive coach. So Louis would tell the guys, hey, Bernard, I mean, Bernard and Carter, we're going to push the ball. And then he'd get up and say, we're running three.

We're running five to slow the game down. And he controlled tempo. He was a terrific, terrific tactician, and a great, great game coach. Why did you leave to go to Maryland? Action lights, cameras, ACC. My friend John coach you and gets a job at Maryland. Get a call from John, said, look, Tommy,

what are you making it at St. John's 15? I make it 15. He said, how about 30? And the ACC. I said, holy cow. And lefty Jaze. I said, holy cow. So I went in to see coach, and I said,

coach look can i go down there for this interview he said sure he said well i said you know i'm only making 15 they're going to give me 25 imagine an olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged it's the enhanced games some call it grotesque others say it's unleashing human potential either way the podcast superhuman documented it all embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year within probably 10 days i'd put on 10 pounds I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'll say it. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way,

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Join me, Keir Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free, Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. You give me 25 or 30, whatever it was the type of thing. He said, how? We can't afford that. I said, okay. I went and put on my best sport jacket and clothes, which wasn't very good because I didn't have a wardrobe, so I made no money. and I went down to see Lefty. And I was awed by Colefield House, you know, the ACC, the great players. And I went back and Louis called me and said, I got you the money. I said, I took the job.

He said, that's the biggest mistake you made in your life. I said, why? He said, I might be able to groom you for this job. He said, I want you here. It would be exciting. And, you know, Doug, I was a young kid at the time and action lights, cameras, the ACC, they were in the ECAC. There was no Big East. I said, I'm going.

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Brought to you by the ad council. Walk a mile in my shoes. So I went. Okay. So now you're in, you're at Maryland. Two years. Two years. What was that experience like?

What was Lefty like? To work for first. Well, first of all, lefty was so organized and so meticulous and such a great great uh organizer as a as a as a a coach he was better than everybody gave him credit to it to be he was relentless as a recruiter and he demanded a lot of his staff okay and i had a wonderful two years there we went to the uh we lost to i guess indiana in the first round we got beat by isaiah thomas and m down in dayton our second year we I think we went to, we won two games or went to the final eight or 16.

And then I had a decision to make. Coach Valvado wanted me to come to NC State. And he talked to Lefty about it. That didn't go over well. And also, coach, in those days, you never hired somebody winning league. Now, I was ready to go with Jimmy to State because Jimmy and I were close. Lefty wasn't happy with it. So Jimmy said to me, look, Marty Flea.

is leaving in the next year or two. I'm getting a bad job. He said, if you're not at Maryland, you'll come with me. So Lefty and I banged heads a little bit about me thinking about going to state, and I decided to go to Virginia Tech with Charlie Moyer. And, you know, sometimes fate happens. Charlie, which I didn't know at the time, was in job trouble, big time, Doug. And I went down there, and I told Charlie, I said, Charlie, look, this is a beautiful place. And they were talking at the time of Virginia Tech going in the ACC, really, at that time. And I told, Chai, look, Chai, I'll come here and stay with you.

But if Valvano ever calls me now, I've got to go. He said, fine. Well, I went down there. I helped him recruit Del Curry, a kid named Bobby Beecher, put together a good team. That helped save his job. And then Jimmy called.

Marty got the job of VMI. Del Curry. Where did you put you? Del Curry. Del Curry was an interesting situation. Great, great player. Great player. Different type of dude.

In terms of what? You know, Maryland wanted him, Carolina wanted them, Virginia wanted them, Virginia wanted them, and Virginia Tech was in the Metro Conference, which was a good conference, not the ACC. Louisville, Florida State, Cincinnati. Louisville, Florida State, and Memphis with Keith Lee. Good players. I mean, good team. And he came down to a couple of games as a junior, and I knew him from Maryland, and it worked out where he really liked Charlie, liked to start. style of play. And Virginia Tech, we used to pack the game, had a nice arena. It's a beautiful campus, and it was about an hour from his own. So he said, I'm coming. So we get it. Did you think he was a pro? We thought he was a great, great shooter. Didn't think he was going to be that good. I mean, no one did. And who knew he was going to have sons that were great

players, too? I mean, obviously, Steph is better than his dad. But Delle was a great, great shooter and could really play. He didn't have the explosiveness with the ball that his sons have. No, no, he was not. He was a catch and shoot. He became a great catch and great shoot. And like perfect form. Like absolutely perfect. Yep. It's interesting to me because, you know, my brother haven't worked for you. He's like, there's two parts to it. There's one that you can recruit, but there's two that you can evaluate, right? Because there's plenty of guys that can recruit, but they don't know what they're looking for.

By the way, by the way, I do want to say this. about your brother. He worked with me at a very tough place, SAC State, for a couple of years. And I helped him get a job at San Diego State. Your brother was terrific on the court coach for me and a terrific, terrific recruiter. And he went on to do that in his future time and was still very close. But he is a good basketball guy. I appreciate that. Oh, it's a truth. I wouldn't say it. So the ability to process and evaluate to walk into a gym, And like, I'm going to, we're going to come back to Virginia Tech in a second, but Spencer didn't when he's a perfect example of it, right? He's a guy from Los Angeles.

It was a good player. But the big boys in the UCLA's in the Arizona's didn't offer them. Well, they recruited him, but they backed away. Recrued him, but backed up. But again, but it was something that, you know, you go to bat and you say, you see it. How does it? What does it come? like what's your process of evaluation?

How do you see kids and think? It's not brain surgery and it's not that hard. Like I scouted in the NBA with the Kings for a while, okay? And I'd go to games and I see a lot of guys up there and they're writing things down, putting in their phone. And I'm sitting there. I'm not writing anything and watching a game. I said, how the heck are you going to be on your phone and write stuff down?

You're missing things. Just watch the game, evaluate them. And then after the game, write a couple of notes down or write the report the next day. It's just you can you can tell if a guy can play. I mean, you can tell by his, his athleticism. Does he make shots? Can he defend? I mean, it's not, it's not that hard.

I guess certain guys have a knack for it. And of course, I've missed. I've made a lot of mistakes. But I also have been lucky enough to have some home runs. Your most interesting home visit, you can remember. I close your eyes. I'm going to pick, I'm going to pick this guy. because Fran Fashello always brings this up, okay?

So we're recruiting this big kid. His name is Martin Nestle. And we used to do this with a lot of guys. And he was supposed to be a hell of a play. Went to Duke. He didn't turn out. Poor Martin didn't turn. But we used to do with Jimmy.

And we did it with Del Curry at Virginia Tech. And I did it with a lot of guys. We'd go in the house and we'd sit down. And you got to understand. Dean was coming in after us. And Mike was coming in. And a lot of guys were coming in. We needed something different.

So we'd go in. And I'd have my shirt on, my suit, like, you know, dressed up because that's how we went on home business as day. And before, as we're going on and talking, I would just kind of stand up and take my shirt off. And there might be, you can't do this anymore because you can't have a kid's name on it. There might be NC State wants X player or Virginia Tech wants Dale Curry. Well, the place would crack up. And now that gave Jimmy the stage or whatever. It broke the ice.

And now the guy that was the head coach could go over. And I didn't mind doing it. And it was fine. But when we did it with Martin Nesley, it was really funny because Fran found out and called me in the house. He was trying to make fun of it and stuff. And Fran talks about that to this day, how I would take off my shirt and it would be the Superman shirt underneath. How does a New Yorker, how do you relate to kids from all over the country? And like you've gotten kids from, we signed kids from everywhere for all these different programs.

How do you, how do you, and even still to this day, how do you stay with the ability to relate to a younger generation and a different general, and a different kind of originality? Well, you know what, Doug, I don't know. I have, I just can talk. I don't go with the, a lot of people are using the phones to text too much and emails and stuff. I'd rather get the guys on the phone and call. And, and my calls are really quick and short and to the point. and I always know what I'm going to say. And I don't drive the kids nuts. I might call them a lot of times, but it always short falls and their relation type things. It might be a quick text.

I don't know. I still get along with kids really well, and I don't have any problems. I don't know. It's just, it's like, why are you so good on TV and radio? Why? You just haven't? What?

Yeah, but I would say, I think that, one, covering college basketball, specifically keeps you kind of in the, it keeps you, every time you go to a practice, you see what kids are wearing, how they're talking, what they're listening to, like, if you really pay attention, you talk to coaches, you kind of, and then having kids of my own now, like you understand what the younger generation is watching, how they're, it's, I think that those things have kept you, kept me young, if you will, having kids of my own, and I think continue to cover the college game and covering all the sports.

Like, you know, you know what the next trends are. And my easiest example to that one is I was probably about 10 years ago. I remember that I broke out some, I was going to play basketball. And I broke out some tights underneath. And my wife at that time, she was, she was like, what are you wearing? And I was like, you know, I'm wearing Nike Pro Cops. and she's like, like, what do you think you're like an NBA player? I was like, no, trust me, everybody wears them and everybody's going to wear them, right?

And now it's become a trend. But I only picked up on that from being in college gyms, watching a practice before a game, when that's what all the kids wore, you know? And so just the ability to relate by staying kind of in the business. But I do wonder in terms of like everything about you, even coaching with V, was all still kind of a New York tie, and then you get to these other places like Virginia, like Maryland, like Davidson, and you're not recruiting simply New York kids. You're not the, I'm only getting New York kids. I just wonder what that was like for you to relate to kids from

such different parts of the country. You know, I never had problems relating with guys. I really didn't. I always had my whole New York stick, and I just was myself. And I don't know, I don't know why. I mean, I'm sure there's some guys I turned off and, because I was aggressive or, or, or, my personality, but it always had worked. Did, did coach, let's get this. So how does, how did the Valvano things like, what, do you remember when he called you to come to NC State from Virginia Tech? Remember where you were?

Do you remember the circumstances? When, when, tech, oh, yeah, I remember. He called me and I was at home. I picked up the phone and he said, you know, Marty's leaving and I want you here. I said, yeah, I want to come. I said, well, let's get it done. I remember we had to play Georgia in the NIT at Georgia. And I told Coach Moyer before the game, after the game, I want to go.

He said, you can't leave. I said, I've got to go. I told you I was going to go. And he wouldn't accept it until the day it happened. And Del Curry didn't take it particularly good. And I did it. But, you know, in those days, I was young. I was brash.

I mean, you know. How old were you at this point, time? I was in my 30s. I don't remember exactly. I was in my 30s. Okay. So you show up in Raleigh. Yep. And even though you were still close, you had worked for him in a couple years. Had he changed at all? Had he evolved some? Had he had his coaching change and his style change and anything of the things he was doing changed? He want, you know, Jimmy wanted to do a lot of things. He didn't.

He didn't only want a coach, okay? He was a great game coach, and he was a good practice coach, although he delegated a lot in practice, but he liked to do different things. He liked to be on TV, he liked to entrepreneur. That was his Jimmy. That was Jimmy's personality. Had he changed? Yeah, he wanted to win a national championship. That was always his dream. And he wanted to, to maybe someday coach in the NBA. I think that was a dream of his. And what happened was he He had the dream and he created the dream with a veteran team. When I got there, we had Wittenberg and Lowe. They were together.

We had Bailey. We had Choselle. We had good players. They had lost to Chattanooga the year before. And it was a veteran team. And not that the players were great players. They were very good players and had great chemistry. And Wittenberg and Lowe were like two coaches on the floor.

And he let him play and he let him go and they trusted him. He trusted them. And what we put together was a great. run. What jumps out to you that doesn't get discussed enough about that first team? Jimmy, Jimmy knew how to use, use his guards. He knew it was a guards game in those days, too. And, you know, a big guy, Stero Bailey was a terrific talent and very good.

And Cozell McQueen was a shot blocker and Lorenzo was a rebounder. He just put it all together. But he put the ball in Wittenberg in Lowe's hands. And even though Wittenberg couldn't dribble, he was a great shooter. and Sydney supposedly wasn't a great shooter, but he made shots. And he just put it together and let him play. And at times, Jimmy would control the game. At other times, he'd let those guys go.

But with the two veteran guards that they played together at the MAPA, he really built everything around them, Doug. And that's basically what happened. And we went on a run. We went on a run. He kept them believing. He kept them loose. When the shot, when Wittenberg's,

shot goes up. What were you thinking? Take me through what it was actually like. Here's basically what happened. People don't know. We go to the huddle and we're drawing up a play for what we're going to do against man to man. Everybody knocked Guy Lewis, right? He came out in a half-court trap, which was a great, great strategy. They had, they had us trapped in the corner. They had somebody trapped that, I guess it was. He almost threw it away. He throws it across court, and as almost steals it, they win the national championship. Instead, Wittenberg catches it. He should have thrown it to Terry Gannon who's wide open,

but he's not going to do that. With threw it up. Lorenzo was there, dunked it. Airball, we win the championship. But Guy Lewis didn't get enough credit for what he did. He made a great, great move by coming out in that half-pork trap. We didn't suspect it. Right, because everybody draws up the man play,

and then he goes to the zone. And Betty almost another. think about it. Crazy. No one ever talking about that. The Lorenzo catches it and dunks it. We all know Jimmy running around looking for somebody to hug. What were you doing?

Well, I was in a group of guys. One was Terry Gannon, and I don't remember who else was there, and we were hugging ourselves on the other side. And Jimmy was running around. He finally found, I guess, the AD and hugged some other guys and found Wittenberg and Lowe. And, you know, it was an under. unbelievable situation. I never forget. I looked up in the sands and way up top I saw Digger Phelps and Digger was up there and he was smiling because he was friends with Jimmy

and I remember my mom and dad came on the court which was big and you know that was a that was a tremendous moment. It was once in a lifetime and it was in not a big domed arena. It was in Albuquerque, which is a great place to play 19,000, but it was a different setting. A matter of fact, you're going to love this that night after the championship. We were staying in a Ramada in where the rooms were, you know, outside. So people were coming by and out doors. I mean, it was not the setting that you see now. I mean, it was unbelievable.

Okay, now, Spudweb was the next year, right? So I tell me the Spudweb recruiting story. Well, what happened? But what happened actually the year of the championship? See, we, there was a guy named Ernie Lauch, famous guy from Riverside Church in New York, New York. As a matter of fact, he used to really help Louis get a lot of players. He was Riverside Church, okay? So Ernie had a couple of guards.

One was Pearl Washington. The other was Kenny Hudson. We wanted Pearl Washington, couldn't get him. So we went in to visit with Ernie, and Ernie said, I don't think you're going to get Pearl, but you might be able to get, you can get Kenny. And I don't think Pearl played for Ernie, but Ernie was telling us we can get Kenney. And Kenny was not as highly recruited. Not a great shooter, but a good player.

So we committed Kenny. But Kenny's mom would not sign the national letter for whatever reason. So we go through the championship, the tournament, and Eddie Sutton swoops in and gets Hutchinson at Arkansas. We don't have a point guard. I saw something in Sports Illustrated about this kid, Spud Web. So I went back in my desk and it was there. I called the guy at North Texas State and who was the coach.

And I forget his name now. I think it was Coach Green, but I'm getting old, so I forget it. And he said, yeah, Spud's a good player. He said he signed with North Texas State so he cannot sign another national letter. He said, Missouri coached him a little bit, but I think he's going to go. I think he's going to go to North Texas. He signed out of high school at North Texas or whatever. So he said, but I'm not sure.

I said, would he be interested? I don't know. So I called Sput up and Spud said, I really want to stay close to home. You know, I'm not sure. I said, this is. Where was he from? Dallas. That's where he still lives. He works for the Legends. He's a GM for the Legends, the G-League team of Dallas

Marin. Call him up. Sprud Bailey would talk, but Coach helped us get him on a visit. So he was flying from Midland to Dallas to us. And we never met him. We never saw him. So we're late because Jimmy's doing something. And Jimmy had this little red sports car, pretty cool. And he had a little jumper seat in the back. And it was a two-seated deal. and we race off to the airport. And Jimmy just used to park out front because they'd watch his car, they leave it out there.

So we left it out there, small airport. We run in, we're late for the flight. Can't find them. Looking around on a knapsack, an Army knapsack with an Army hat on, is this kid. And Jimmy looks over and says, I said, I think that's him.

He said, that's Spudweb, you're fired. I'm telling you, you're fired. And he was serious. We go over and said, Spud. He nodded his head. How are you doing?

It's Coach Valvano, Coach V, and I'm Tommy, you better market. Yeah, nodded his head. Talked a little bit. Put him in the car, put his knapsack or a little bag in there. And I'm in the back seat in the jumper seat, and I'm on Jimmy's side. And Jimmy's trying to talk to him. He ain't talking. Jimmy's grabbing my leg and hitting my leg.

We drive over. We get him to school, visit with him. We get them with the players. And Jimmy said, are you kidding me? That kid can't pull. You kidding me? We saw a little bit of highlight tape on him. So we bring him up and watching film with him.

He's watching tape of Othel Wilson and some of the other ACC guards. He said, I'm better than him. That's all he was said. Had a great visit. And Jimmy said, look, the kid wants to come, but I don't know. He said, I'm sending him back. I want you to fly down and take a little bit of him. See what you think.

I went down there. I was amazed what I saw. Could not dribble with his left hand, dunked the ball, shot threes. He was amazing. I took a highlight that back to Jimmy. We ended up getting him. So in the future, on ABC or NBC or whatever game we're on, they'd always talk about where Valvanel said he'd fire me.

And he met it at the time. He was upset because Spud was tiny. But he was a terrific player. One of the Dunk Contents in the NBA played for what, 10, 12 years, played for a bunch of teams. And it was terrific. Well, it won the Dunk Contents' his hometown, too. It was at Reunion Arena.

That's right. Yeah. Um, Lorenzo Charles. What was that experience like for? You know what? Lorenzo obviously passed. God rest of the soul. He got in a car accident. I think he fell asleep at the wheel. He was driving the tractor trailer and it went off the road and he died. Some people said it was a heart attack. They don't know for sure. But Lorenzo was a great, great kid. Great smile, low key. Ray Martin signed him before I got there and he was a bro. Brooklyn kid. Just a terrific, terrific talent. He had to motivate Lowe. We call him,

we call him, he had to motivate him. And when he got motivated, he was really a good player. And the two guards, Wittenberg and Lowe did a great job of motivating him. And he was a very good player for us. He could shoot threes. He rebounded. Just a great role player at the four spot. after you won the championship, there was some down years, right? Like the next year was it down years? Yeah, it wasn't down here. But what was it like for Jimmy? What was he like to, was he always, you know,

he always had this positive outlook publicly, privately, what was he like? You know, what happened was we, don't forget we had Spud then. And we brought Spud in. And here's an interesting story. So Spud, the first game he plays is against five, Samajama in the whole fame game. He throws in 30. We beat him. We go to Alaska

shootout. We beat Oklahoma to win the championship. We're ranked. We're ranked. We're like, oh, I get 13 and 3, and it fell apart. And late in a year, it was interesting. We had benched, or it was the second year we benched by it.

But anyway, yeah, it was a, it was really a tough year, and we lost to Florida State in the first round of the NIT. And We lost like seven in a row. And we still waited on the selection Sunday because we thought we were national champs. And we were ranked earlier. Maybe we would get a bid.

We don't get a bit. And Jimmy was really devastated about it. And the team came out flat and lost in the first round at home. And it wasn't a great, great year. How did you get to Lamar job? How did you what? How did you get to Lamar job. Oh, Lamar job.

Interesting story. There was a guy named H.D. Pate. He was a big, big, big alum down there. And for some reason, I called down there about the job and my name came out. And the guy called Valvano. He loved Valvano. And he talked to him. And he said, that's what we want to be a coach.

You know, he's a Italian guy like you. Just I think he'd be the guy. So I know Billy Tubbs at the time was trying to get another guy to job, whatever. I went down and there were three. We had an interview, three guys. Del Harris was one, the famous coach that was an NBA coach. He just lost his job at Houston. The other guy was Ronnie Arrow.

Remember Ronnie Arrow? The coach, Jack, good guy. And the other coach was a famous high school coach down there. I don't recall his name, but he was right down there. So what they did is they brought all three of us in, Doug, put us in the same room. And then we had to go make a presentation to the committee, which was about 15 people. Now, before the job, I knew I was in great shape. I went in, you know, Del went in.

He came back to the room. Ronnie went in. I went in. I did my presentation. The other guy went in. And then I don't remember how they did it. But they don't told us on the spot. We had the job.

So I ended up getting the job. And after my press conference, which was right then, a guy named Steve Rockford. Name's Rock. He works at Texas A&M now. Yeah. I know Steve is. Yeah.

Rock's great. Great recruiter now. Comes over to me outside. I just leave my press conference, get my car. He said, Coach, I got a seven footer. His name's Tree. He's down to Tyler Jr.

College, about three hours away. You understand. I just get the job. I'm out of my press conference. This little guy comes running over, he wants to bring me to see a seven footer. I said, let's go. Put me in the car. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged.

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Open your free, I Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. We drove three hours. The coach had the kid workout. And, you know, we brought them back with us. I don't know where we brought it back then or whatever, but we brought him back and we ended up signing the kid. And, you know, that was my first, my first signy and my first deal. He ended up not being a very good player, but we ended up taking him because he was seven footer. It's amazing. Right. Right. Right. And now. So you're in Beaumont, Texas. Yeah, Beaumont, Texas. What was that experience like? Well, Beaumont and I and I didn't hit it off grade. To say, you know, my first year, I think we won 15 or 14 games. I forgot we were third in the league.

Second year, we went 20 and 11. Probably, I had the whole team coming back except my big kid, James Gully. Probably should have stayed because I think I would have got a Southwest conference job, stayed five years there and did a job. And I got antsy and I didn't love the whole situation for myself. But we had some great wins there. We beat Oregon at a PAC 12. We beat Northwestern of the Big Ten.

We went to Kentucky and lost, you know, we're in the game until the end and lost by 15 to coach Sutton. I'd never forget before that game. I had just, we had upset TCU. By the way, my second game as a head coach. Our first game was against St. Mary, Buddy Meyer. He upset us. He was a famous coach from St. Mary's in the high school. Beat us.

And Rock and I went forward. Same areas in Texas. Same areas in Texas. After that game that morning, I used to walk because I had a hit for places. I couldn't run anymore. So Rock walked with me. We're walking for about an hour. I said, Rock, I made this mistake, man.

Shouldn't have taken his head job. I should have stayed with V. Next game we had was TCU. Jamie Dixon was a point guard. TCU comes. And they had a good team. And I'm walking with Rock. And I said, you know, Rock, I think what we're going to do is we're going to forfeit this game.

And he started laughing because we just got, you know, upset at home and Lamar doesn't lose to an Ayes school. And I had a big kid, gully who's pretty good. I said, I think what we're going to do is we're going to trying on two Jamie Dixon and the other guard. I forget who he was. And we're going to switch defenses like Jimmy did. And I'm going to call Jimmy today, talk a little bit about it. And we'll see what happens. And Killingsworth was a coach.

They were two and one in the NIT and they were ranked. So they come in at Beaumont. We had about 7,000, 8,000 people there because we drew well. and through the trying on through to two, the one three and chaser. When Dixon was out of the game, I won three in chase. When the other guard came back in, we tried on two. We changed through a little two three zone, little two, two one zone pressed back to the zone or the chaser. And we upset them, beat him by 12, which was a great win.

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So you're in your 30s is your first head coaching job. You're making how much? I think I made about, I think it was about 80 or 90. I'm not sure now. I forget it. It wasn't a lot of money. I mean, it was a lot. Did you, would you just rent an apartment?

Would you rent a house? I bought a house. I bought a house. But now every place you went, like when you got to buy a house and sell. Not every place, but I've been, yeah, we bought houses because you can sell them quick then and I didn't know what I was going to stay ago but I bought a house in moment yeah did you buy houses at all these places not everyone no but I bought a house in Paul I bought the chance house in Beaumont big house nice house yeah the chance her's house

yeah because he was moving to another house so I bought his house no houses in Texas were cheap those days it was cheap think of what is what is what is cheap boy I don't remember but I didn't I mean I didn't pay a lot a lot of money he was a three bedroom house it was nice he's big, but I didn't pay a lot of money for it. It wasn't like I had to break the bank like you have to now and when you buy house. Okay. How did you, how'd you then go from there to Drake? How to go from there to where? I'm sorry. Lamar to Drake, right? Oh, well, Lamar to Drake, yeah. Well, I'm sitting in my office one day and I get a call from somebody saying, would you be interested in the Drake job? It's a Missouri Valley. We had, now you got to understand. We

lose James Gully. He's a hell of a player, but we have. have everybody else back and I signed a kid named Adrian Carwell, a transfer for SMU. Now, he played in the NBA. Gully didn't get drafted, but he got cut, had some trials in NBA. And I had Cardwell. Carwell wouldn't have been as good a score as Gulley, but we would have been good again. And, you know, thinking about it, it was Missouri Valley. You know, you had Wichita State.

You know, you had the great teams. They were on TV all the time. And I thought about it. And, you know, I said, should I do this or should I not do this? And I called Larry Brown up, who at the time I was good friends. And Larry said, don't do it. I said, well, he said a guy named Morris John won, but he won with JC kids. And it's hard, hard to get kids in school.

You really shouldn't take that job. I thought I was invincible at the time. You know, I just won 20 games. I should have went to the NIT that year. But they took Arkansas State instead in our league. Our league was the American conference, and it was their old sunbelt. It had Arkansas State, Louisiana Tech, New Orleans, had some good teams. But Arkansas State beat us two out of three.

They beat us in Hawaii, and then we split with them, so they took them instead. And we finished five for what it was second or third or whatever. And I didn't get to the NIT. And I said, this league doesn't even have an automatic bid. You know, the Missouri Valley is a little bigger time. And at the time, it was a better conference than it was now. I grabbed the job. I took it. Okay. So what now, what was that like? Now you're in the middle of Iowa,

Des Moines, Iowa, in the late 80s. Okay. You get there, what's your team like? I inherit a team that's not very good. Okay? And we still, I guess what we did is we went 12 and 17, which is not great, obviously. And we, you know, we had a couple of good wins. I think my first year we beat Wichita State in the, no, it was my second year. We didn't be, we beat Bradley my first year because Eddie Fogel was the coach at Wichita State in a tournament,

which was a big win for us because we hadn't won a tournament game. And it was on Wichita State's court. And, you know, it was promising. Our best player had blown out his knee in the championship game. we played Tony Barone's team, Creighton, not the championship game, the second round game, and we lost and went home. And, I mean, we were optimistic about the second year. And to be perfectly honest with you, Doug, what happened?

I had some guys meddling in my program, the old coach and a lawyer in town. And we were, I guess we're about 11 and 11. And we had like a little player uprising and a little deal. So I stepped away at the time. We had upset Minnesota that year who went to the final, final eight. It was in the next year. We played Iowa State to a double overtime game. We beat Wichita State at home at their place, which was big.

And the future I thought was bright. But then I had this little guts come on, somebody playing with my players and making an accusation. So obviously, I stepped away, and then at the end of the year, I resigned. And I went to Colorado. And I would have stayed there, and I think we could have won. I really do. I think we were, I think that at the end of the year, we finished with 15, 16 wins, which would have been a big step. And then we would have been fine.

I would have stayed there. But obviously I had no choice. And I left and I went to Colorado with Joe Harrington. And I had no choice. They basically, they bought me out. And it was a deal. That's what happened. What's that like to go through where everything in your career is going this way?

And now all of a sudden, not even two years in, you lose the head. coaching job. What's that like to go through? Well, leaving Lamar, ruin my head coaching, ruin me as a head coach. If I stayed there, I think I could have been successful because things were going in the right direction. We were drawing. We drew for the McNeese game at Lamar, 10,000 people set a record. We were drawing. We drew 7,000 my second year was better than Texas. Tommy Pendens was drawing. And I made a big mistake. I left. And it was my immaturity. And yeah, I went there and I was really, really down. I was down and I said, what am I going to do?

And a matter of fact, I was at the final four, didn't have a job. And my old friend Rick Barnes said to me, how'd you like to go with Joe Harrington? I said, oh, I'd love to. You know, I knew Joe very, very well. Joe, I took Joe's place at Maryland and Joe hired me at Colorado. You get there and now you're in Boulder. Great town, but at the time, like not really a basketball school in the big eight. Nope.

Who were the first guys you went out and got? Well, the first guy we got that was a big factor. You remember Kenny Burmice through the past, right? Used to be the assistant at Arizona. Was that incarnate word, very good friend of mine, terrific guy. And Kevin O'Neill, you know Kevin O'Neill, of course. He was at Marquette. They both backed away on a kid.

His name is Donnie Boyce. He was at the ABCD camp. I loved him. And they backed away because they thought he didn't play hard, which was a mistake. Donnie was just really smooth. But we signed Donnie at Colorado, and he turned out to be a terrific player. And we made two NITs.

We should have made the NCAA our first year. We just missed it. And then we made a couple of NITs. Donnie went on to play for Atlanta Hawks, but he blew his knee. And that killed his career. So it was going in the right direction. I left there to go to Rutgers because I can go back home. Bob Wenzel and I were friends.

And I thought it was a good move because I thought it would be hard to win it at Colorado. But I love my years of Colorado, my first state in Colorado. And we had a lot of fun, but it was a hard job because you were in the league. You knew that. I was also in the league in the big east when the first ever big East game between Notre Dame and Rectors, we played you guys at the rack. And I think we had a 14-point lead in the second half and lost. And Jeff Billet was your freshman point card. Yes, he won. Yeah. Christian brothers, right? Yep, he's now coaching. He's coaching, and I'm Blankinwood High School in New Jersey. And Jeff, you know, Jeff and I have communicated, but I haven't, I hadn't seen him since I've been here. Obviously, because of COVID. Yeah, he, so he, apparently he wanted to go, they used him to get me to sign Notre Dame. So I visited Notre Dame. I loved it. And I was supposed to visit Michigan State with tractor trailer, tractor trailer, rest and peace. He, he, he committed to Michigan.

the week before I was going to visit. And Notre Dame kind of, I visited UCLA and Notre Dame kind of was like, hey, listen, it's your scholarship. But Jeff Billet wants to go there, come here, and he's visiting in three weeks. Once he visits here, it's whoever takes a scholarship first. So I took it. Anyway, he played against him. And what I remember about the rack was the worst visitors locker room I'd ever seen. It was like a tunnel.

It was so tight. and there was like a one bench you could sit on and then old school metal lockers. I just remember going like, this is the big east. This is terrible. But a place did get loud and we found a way to kind of dump a game. And so the next day, so in the second half, I shot an airball free throw line. And I had always been a good free throw shooter, my entire upbringing. You know, I just held the ball at the end of a game.

And then I made the next one. And so the way McLeod would work, Coach McLeod would work, was we'd never call you out or talk to your person about your own game in front of the rest of the team. He would set up a meeting and you'd come in. So I got back to South Bend and there was the blinking red light on my phone. You know, a lot like a hotel. That's how the phones were on campus in Notre Dame. And there was a message from his secretary.

Hey, Coach McLeod wants to meet you tomorrow morning 10 o'clock in his office. you know, please come. I mean, this is how much he set at the meetings. Please come wearing your team sweats, you know. And so if you had your team sweats, that means you had to be clean shaven. You know, you're not like walking in. It wasn't like that. So we sat down.

And he's like, you know, coffee, water, tea, anything you want. Doogie, do you want to look at something. So I'm thinking we're going to look at the game. You know, what went wrong? And we watched my free throw over and over. and over and over and over again. Then he takes me out to the gym, and he had called Denny Price,

who was like his shot doctor, his assistant coach from the Oklahoma days. And keep mind, Coach McLeod did not play basketball. So he's like secondhanding. Tell me, I mean, he's having me shoot you and believe it. But I remember playing against us and watching those Rutgers teams. What was it like for you guys

to try and put together a Biggie's team at Rutgers when, you know, I mean, look, we had Notre Dame behind this and we were okay, but it was it was hard because the league was so good, right? Your second year, my first year, Iversons and all those guys are at Jahidey White and Joel Williams. They're at Georgetown. Yukon's like the best or second best team of the country. They got Ray Allen and all those Travis Knight, whatever. Syracuse was the fourth best team in the league.

They go to the finals, right? Bill Nova has Kittles and Ibers and Lawson and Chuck Cornege and all those guys, Al Williams. What was it like then to try and put together a Big East team at Rutgers? Well, remember, Timmy Thomas was coming up then. And, you know, we had Billet and Hodgson. They were good players. And really, we needed to get Timmy Thomas, okay? And the problem with that was there were a lot of people that wanted to get Timmy.

And I think Timmy wanted to play at Rutgers. He liked Rush. He came to a lot of our games. He wore a hood. You know, they put up science for him. There were like five or six guys that would have come with him had he come. It came down to the end where Bob Wenzell and I are in the Hyatt Hotel. I believe, and there was a particular guy that was there, and I'm not going to say who.

But Bob had to hire a certain guy to get Timmy. Okay? Now, if he hired him, in any position, Timmy probably would have killed. And then five or six other guys would have killed. So I'm with Bob in the workout room, and I thought I was going to get the Lamar job then, about then. Okay, I started getting, and I told Bob that. Did you go back to Lamar? No, no, I was going to get, I was going to get the, no, the SAC State job.

I thought I was going to get SACC state job. I'm sorry, I don't want to say to Lamar, but I thought I was going to get the SAC state job. And I told Bob, I said, Bob, you know, you hired Timmy. I mean, you hired X, they can get Timmy. It's a great deal. Bob said I'm not going to hire somebody to get a player. That was the end of Bob, really, because. I get how many times, how often during all these days?

Because you think, I think of 70s and 80s recruiting, New York, the Atlantic Coast, everybody has this image of it of dirty recruiting. What's it like in terms of how many times percentage of guys that are asking for something above and beyond that of a scholarship, right? during this era, 70s and 80s and 90s? I think it was more, it was more middle guys that were looking for stuff, you know, middle people. I think that cheating in college basketball has always been there. It's just been different levels in different ways. You know, obviously, right now we're going through a time with a lot of things happened

and a lot of programs are going through the scrutiny. I just think, I think sometimes it's overrated how many teams are doing things or not doing things. You know, I think players, not so much players looking for things other than maybe the people that are involved with players, whether it be parents or other people involved. Does it if you, the, I have a majority of it. I have a, those are the ones I actually have the issue with, right? because it's not the player actually benefiting with some like middle dude. Are they that influential, though? Like if you take care of those people, do you actually always get the player?

I think in certain instances it happens. In certain instances, I don't even know if the kid knows. You know, I just don't know. I don't know. I mean, when we were at NC State, okay, we did not sign big-name players. We signed Nate McMillan. He wouldn't, you know, the biggest name kid we signed was Walter Lambie. He didn't turn out to be really good player.

The guys, he was a McDonald's All-American and made the all-south team. The guys we signed were all under the radars, Budweb, you know, Shackleford, Chuckie Brown. They were all guys who were out of camp and stuff. We didn't get the big-name guys at stake. We got guys that were under the radar that developed. Some of the programs, Carolina normally got the big-name guys because it was Carolina. They did. And Duke came on with Coach K.

And then he started getting the big-name guys. But at state, we never got really big-name recruits. You know, Chris Washburn was one. He was a big-name recruit, and obviously he had some problems, but he was a great talent. What was that like to manage, Washburn? What was it what? Like to manage. It was hard.

I mean, Chris was an immature kid, and he was a great talent. And I'll never forget that the game we played against Louisville on national TV. He had 19 points, 19 rebounds. was unbelievable blocks and stuff, just a real talent. You know, Chris was at the time, an immature kid, and things didn't work out for him. He's doing well now. I think he owns a restaurant down in Hickory. Obviously, his pro career didn't work out well.

And, you know, he went hardship. He left, and he had some personal issues, and I think he's cleaned him up now. Around this time, Jimmy gets sick, right? Well, I wasn't there when Jimmy got sick. No, I know. I know. When he got sick, what was that? Because it's not just that he got sick. It's that you had this amazing personality. Like he's just incredible, as everybody's seen the esp speeches, but there's been other speeches. And he did a talk show. I mean, the guy was amazingly talented. But to see your friend go through his fight with cancer, what, what, well, where were you during the time and what was it like for you? At the time, I was, at the time that he had, he got cancer, I believe, I believe I was at Colorado. I was a Colorado. And I remember, I called him. I was an assistant to Colorado. And he said, I just found out I got bone cancer. I have one year to live. And he started crying. And he cried for a while and he was in his office. And, you know, he was beside himself. And we talked to

for a little while and then obviously I went to visit him sometimes and he fought it and to this to this day he probably believed he could beat it no he thought he could beat it he really did but when they caught the cancer it was too late he just had he was having pains in his groin and he went in and they found cancer it's interesting I mean obviously you knew him as well as anybody because from two stints with him. If you had to, you mentioned he's a great game coach. You mentioned all the other things he wanted to do. Was he ever off? Like in terms of when I say off, I mean, when the camera was on, he had this unbelievable presence. But was there when he was he ever able to just shut it off and be kind of calm and quiet and not always be the center.

Because I remember Final Fours when he was alive, which my dad would take me up to the Nike suite, and he was holding court there. Yep. Is that always his thing? Like, was he always on? Yeah, he was always on, but he would get down. He would get down.

He'd get down. And where he would get down is in front of his closest friends. It was a guy named George Tarotini, who was a soccer coach at State, who he spent a lot of time with whose past of a heart attack. There was a Sam Esposito. who was a baseball coach at the time, that we'd go in his office every morning at 8 o'clock.

And we just, even earlier, and we'd have coffee and tell jokes. And a lot of funny things would happen. And I'll tell you great story about Sam. Sam's a baseball coach. And he's trying to, he's trying to recruit this kid who's the number one player, I guess, in North Carolina. And we'd have fun together.

You know, Jimmy and I would always joke. and sometimes we'd wrestle. Okay, Jimmy'd come and want to wrestle me in the hall. Funny, rude, true story. So one day, you know, Sam's dressed in his jacket and tie. He's got this recruit coming up, and Sam was the shortstop for this white socks. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged.

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Soles assistant. And Sam's a great, great guy. We'd have a lot of laughs. So Jimmy comes in and says, I'm going to pin you. That's what we'd say, come and want to wrestle me. And he's getting me to the ground trying to pin me. And Sam's joking he's a referee. So he's going, one on the floor, two on the floor,

three your pin. Sam turns around and looks up and there's the kid. The kid and his mom and dad. Guess what? He didn't get that kid. That's a true story. And, I mean, we'd have a lot of fun like that. You know, what Jimmy and I would do with Sam is Sam was the compliance director and the baseball coach.

Ray Tanner, who's now the athletic director at South Carolina, was his assistant and became the baseball coach. So Sam would fall asleep with his feet on his desk, and he'd leave his door a little cracked open. So Jimmy would say, ring his phone. Jimmy would run over to watch Sam as he rang his phone, jump. Because he was sleeping and they jumped. So we do crazy little things like that, and we had fun. And he was a, you know, Jimmy was a different guy. He was a jokester.

He was a dynamic personality, but he liked to have fun. And he had his down times, obviously, and certain people would see it. Not everybody. You go take the SAC state show. Yep. And what was that like? Well, here's what happened. Obviously, I'd lost my job at Drake.

and I didn't think I would get a job again. The AD at SACC's state was a lady named Judith Davidson, wonderful lady, who I got to know because I interviewed at a job at Central Connecticut when I was trying to get back in. And she took the SAC State job. And SAC State was just gone Division I under Donnie Newman, who's since passed, and really struggled. So I think it was the second year we were going to be Division I.

And Judith called me and we talked about taking a job. job and and she almost hired another coach it doesn't matter who. Dick Vital and and Digger Phelps helped me get the job over the hump. And I took the state job and it was very, very difficult job. They didn't have a lot of money at the time. They didn't really have an arena to play in a smaller gym. And to make it even better, it was in March and they had one player that was eligible on scholarship where I took the job. Late March. So it was an experience, but I was just happy to get a head job again and get a chance. And it's a beautiful campus and it's a great town living.

So I went there and I had to sign some guys and most of them were walk-ons and guys that were not very good. And, you know, it was a tough situation. That's when I brought your brother in. And we had a tough first year. But, you know, eventually we were going good and things were getting better. unfortunately I lost your brother which hurt me a lot because I didn't have very money very much money for assistance I think I gave him like 15, 20,000 he went to went for a lot more money at San Jose so losing him I lost that continuity of my staff and you know obviously

there was a woman's volleyball coach there that became AD that didn't like me very much and she made the change and and really my I think we were won like my third year 11 to 10 games And we had everybody back. We were to won 15 or 20 next year. I really believe that. And she pulled the plug on me. So therefore, I lost that job. And then I went to work for the Sacramento Kings.

You went to work for the Kings and then for the monarchs. Well, what happened was the two owners who were Joe and Gavin Maloof, who were two of my closest friends and helped support the program at SAC State. They gave me a job. gave me a job in events. So I worked in events, and eventually I moved into doing some radio. So I did the free game and the post game show. They called me coached.

And I did the events also. And what happened was a guy named John Wisden, who was Norm Ellenberg's assistant at New Mexico for years, came in as general manager of the minds. And the woman's coach there wasn't doing very well. and John and I got to know each other a little bit. And when John took the job as a head coach, he called me up and said, you want to come. I'll get the Maloos to hire you. And then you don't have to do events anymore.

So I did the Monarchs in the summer, and I did the radio in the winter. So I had two different showers. It was a great way to go, and I had a lot of fun. Coaching the WMBA woman was tremendous. They were good players. You know, we went to two championship games. We won one championship. We had a lot of fun.

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Each episode brings you compelling real-life adoption stories told by the families that live them with commentary from experts. Visit Adoptuskids.org slash podcast or subscribe to navigating adoption presented by Adopt U.S. Kids. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families and the Ad Council. You also during that time, okay, then you went back to college for one year. Went to Utah with Majors. And what happened there was coach called me and wanted to hire me and I wanted to go. A famous coach and I went. And the problem that happened there was we had Bogot.

We had a good team. But there was some issues with coaches help. And he bailed out like toward the end of the year. I think we were 12 and 4 at the time. And Kerry Rupp took over the team. And we went to the NCAA tournament. And we lost to Purdue. And then obviously, boom, they don't hire Kerry.

So I'm out of a job. So I just went back to work with the King's organization because I was close with the with the Malus and I was able to do that and I did that. I went back with the WMBA. And then you worked for the Bighornes as well. Then you went to the D.D. League. Yeah. What basically happened was I wanted to get in back.

I wanted to get in the men's side. And basically the Malou said if you want to get in scouting or doing something, you got to do something else with the men's side. Well, Jeff Petrie was a GM at the time. He had no spots open. So what I did is I gave up my radio for the winner and I went to work for with Jay Humphrey for the Reno Bighorns, which was a tremendous.

this experience. I had a lot of fun. We started the season off, I guess, about one and 12, and we ended up 27, 27, almost made the playoffs. And after one year, I went back to do in my radio because I did what I was supposed to do. And then I was able to get a scouting position now. Interesting, though, like, right? Like the strength of what you had built as an assistant had always been recruiting. And when you're in the D league, it's not about this to the recruiting. that it's about coaching and keeping guys motivated because anybody who's played minor league basketball knows that literally nobody wants to be there, right? Everybody wants to take the next step to something bigger,

but you have to get them at least for the 48 minutes of the game to play together, even if really their goals or their personal goals more than team goals. That's got to be hard to coach, but you're trying to win to keep your job. On their hand, the players, though they think they want to win, first and foremost is their own personal performance. Well, it was hard, Doug. But the thing about the D-League or the G-League now, it's gotten bigger, is that they wave guys right away and they bring new guys in. So guys know if they don't conform or they have a bad attitude, they're gone the next day.

So we had an assistant coach that handled just player personnel. And he also helped on the floor. And I did a lot of scouting. And all we did scouting was we scout one or two games. I mean, we traveled all the time. I actually had a lot of fun. And I enjoyed it for the one year. I made, I think for that little time, I made about 30,000 during that period, but also I had my

monoc salary, so I was okay. I gave up my radio salary to take that, and it was fun. It was a lot of fun because I lived in, my wife stayed in Sacramento, and I just commuted. I'd go home some weekends. Some weekends I couldn't get there because the snow hit the pass, and you couldn't get through. I just had a fun time. I knew I was going to do it for one year, and that's what I wanted to do, and the experience was unbelievable. Why did you get back in the college game? Because I always loved college basketball.

That's me. That's how I love college basketball. And Jeff Bustell gave me a chance to come back to Colorado and go to Colorado. I did it. And I went to Colorado with him. And it was very interesting. I was there for one month that he left. And he left to go. And Steve Baclaine, who was now at Georgia, was there also. And I never forget the call I got. It was from Steve. He said, look, Jeff's going to Wake Forest. He was taking us with him, isn't he? He said he can. He's got to keep the staff to staff. It's part of the deal. So I said, well, are you going to get the job? He said, if I get the job, I'll keep you. I don't know if I'm going to get the job. He said, if I don't get the

job, I'm going to Indiana. So everybody was set. Well, to make a long story short, they didn't hire Steve. He went to Indiana with Tom Green. And I was stuck there and Tad Borg came in. So Tad comes in and he meets with me. He said, you know, Tommy, what's going on? He said, I said, I'd like to stay. He said, yeah, I said, I'm in an awkward position. I said, I signed a contract.

And obviously, you know, I'd like to stay with you. He said, well, I don't know you. You have a good reputation. I don't know. I'm not sure I can keep you. And we'll see what happens. I said, I'm bringing two guys in. And they're my.

guys and I'm going to leave the position open. I said, fine. I said, look, coach, I'll help you. I'll stay here and help you do the best we can. I'll help you clean up recruiting whatever. And then the school came back to me and said, you could stay a year in a position. And, you know, you stay here. And then at the end of the year, you can go. You got you one year. We're going to take care of you because obviously, you know, Jeff had left. And I wasn't going to do that. I didn't tell them that time. I was going back to my job with the, uh, my job with the, uh, with the King's organization. I talked to Doc Sadler, maybe going to Nebraska.

And a funny thing, I just worked. And a kid named Andre Robeson, I was recruiting for Jeff, and he came up on an unofficial visit with his coach, and I helped coach get him. Obviously, he played in the NBA. He was a terrific player for OKC until he blew his knee out, a terrific defensive player.

And one day, Tad came in and he said, I want to keep you year to year. He said, you've done a good job and keep it. And I was happy to do that and stay there. And I stayed there with him and we had a great run. What was Spencer Dinwiddie like when you first saw? Here's the deal with Spencer Dinwiddie would happen with us. I felt that we needed to recruit L.A.

And that's what's made Colorado a better the job. The assistants that were there, John Frilo and Mike Rohn, New Texas really, well. So they really spent a lot of time in Texas. And Coach Boyle, he could go anyway. He didn't care. So I spent a lot of time not going to the big events, but in L.A. Just seeing the L.A. events. You know all those events. Do you know Chagonas? I mean, you got all the different guys. You got all the different events. I just went to all those smaller events. And I kind of like Spencer, but Boyle came in and loved them. And we recruited them hard. I spent the whole summer chasing him around and about two or three other guys.

And we ended up getting those on-radar LA guys. And of course, Tad was a big part of it. Tad was a terrific recruiter, did a good job. But I think we got some good players, Dinwiddie, and we got Josh Scott out of Colorado. We got a ski, a booker. And as a staff, we got some very good players.

And turn that thing completely around. Well, you know, I'll tell you a great story about it. Colorado. So I'm sitting in my living room the other night and I'm watching the Knicks play. And my wife and I said, and I haven't watched a lot of Nick games this year. And I really like Coach Tibbitton. But Nate McMillan, who I helped recruit at State, he's the coach of the Knicks. I mean, the Atlanta, the Atlantic. So I'm watching Nate and going against Coach Tibbs and I'm watching and all of a sudden this kid hits a shot. My wife said, that looks like Alex Burks. I said, Alex Berry's in Colorado.

He said, yeah, I had no idea he was there. And he ended up having like 20 points. And we'll laugh in our brains out. So the end of the game, I don't know who to root for because I love Coach Tibado. And Nate's my guy. And now I got Birx there. We're just kind of watching the game. We'll laugh.

So at the end of the game, I text Nate, you know, great win. I text Birx. Berks I never heard back from him because Nate, Nate, of course, got me back. And I don't know Coach Tibod. I was excited for Nate, but I felt bad for the next. And it's a funny deal. right there in New York is our guy Alex Berks have played for us. And I hope Alex hears this, so maybe you'll give me a call,

return my call. Because he didn't. But Nate, of course, did. But it's a funny deal with when you've been in it as long as I had a different connections, you have, different people. How did you get back with Coach Patina? Take me through where you were, how it happened. Okay.

You know, I didn't know Coach that well. I knew him, but I didn't know him. I tried to get a job with him when he almost went to Vegas and he went to Indiana. Coach Dickie V. tried to help me. It just didn't work out. Interesting. I'm talking to a couple of his friends. It doesn't matter who because I'd rather not mention it.

And they said, you know, coach may come back in. I said, you know, if he does mention, I'd be interesting because I was not working. I didn't go with Joe Dooley to East Carolina. I thought I was going to go to another school. It doesn't matter where. job. So I was just kind of in Florida. I was staying. I had put all my stuff in storage because I thought I was going to this other job that fell through. So I was two years just living there. And my two dogs, my wife, and all the alligators, we had alligators crawling all over the place.

It was incredible in Florida. And I got a call and said, would you be interested in get back in it? Coach is looking for a veteran guy. Would you be interested? I said, yeah. I'm kidding. me, work with Petino? He said, he's going to get a job. I said, where? They wouldn't tell me. So I said, yeah, I'd be interested. Now, you understand. I started my career at I own office. So I get this call, and coach calls me from, from Greece. He's working in a yearly. By the way, the call back I made from post me a hundred bucks because I was dumb enough not to go on WhatsApp or whatever I call them back. But we talked two or three times. And we hit it off. And what he was looking for, I was, a veteran guy that could recruit, and he wanted a guy I would

experience. And he was going to hire some other younger guys, which you did, who were here, who were terrific. And it worked out really, really well. And, you know, the first three months we worked together, we did it all on Zoom calls and on conference calls. And that's how we had to sign players. But since I've been here, I can say this, he is by far the best coach I've worked with. coach and he by far has treated me the best at any coach I work with including coach that line he's become like a big brother in a year and I mean what what what is it about his coaching like I have my own I admire him greatly as a coach but for us having worked with so many guys and you say by far what is it about his coach and you're like wow he's a great player developer like every morning

He works, you got to understand this. Now, we'll do this during the season two. Now, we had a lot of breaks because we missed 60 days back. He comes in, and he's working in groups before. He does it himself with the assistants there, working with the guys, and he has a set routine. So the big man are working on face-to-basket stuff, on shooting threes. The guards are working on going off ball screens, and once again, shooting threes, and he perfects everything. We have a kid, very Jean-Louis, Jason Kitt, shot 20-something percent from three,

in junior college. He's a kid that I helped coach get, and I told coach he can't shoot. But coach loved him as an athlete. He shot on the way down and couldn't hit threes. Well, he shot 37% from three now. Now, he's not a great shooter,

but coach improved his game so much. We have a kid in Ellie Joseph, who's from Team Africa. Coach helped develop him. You can go on and on. He is unbelievable working with guys individually and getting him better. And his attention to detail is tremendous.

And he works them hard for 45 minutes in the morning. And then we go about two hours, an hour, 45 in the afternoon. And it's all team stuff going up and down. And he's tremendous at practice. He wears a mic and coaches on the run. And he'll correct things in the right way. And he's tough on the guys, but does it in the right way. He is just the guy.

He relates well to guys to the players. And they respect them so much. There's an aura about him. And Jimmy had that. But Petino's got a bigger arm. It's just something that he has. Now, I'll explain this to you now. We're playing Alabama in the NCAA tournament.

Every ATO he ran, he scored on. Boom. We were so prepared for the Alabama game. We were so overmatched. They had so much better players than us. Yet with seven minutes to go, we're down one. Okay. And if our big guy, Nelly, who didn't play well,

doesn't get in foul trouble, we had to pull him out. the guy that went in and gave up two threes, he kind of broke the game open. We might have had a shot down the stretch. But he's amazing. I mean, we miss so many days of practice yet. We win four games in five days and win the Mac tournament because of him.

Game preparation is unbelievable. Game coaching is unbelievable. What about you? How long are you going to do this for? That's all I can't. In other words, when I physically can't, I'll be fine. I work out about an hour and a half a day. I feel good.

Feel fine. I'm happy. My wife's happy with it. So we're good. You know, one day I'll wake up and say, that's it. Probably when Petino packs it in, I'll pack it in. This is my last job. Unless he fires me.

Well, unless he fires me, we should always have. But, I mean, I've told coach, I'm going to stay with him. And that's it. I'm not interested in any other situation. It's perfect here. Treats me great. I love working for him. Nicest campus that you've represented.

Probably Colorado. Colorado. I'll tell you what's beautiful, too, Virginia Tech. I haven't been there in a while, but that was beautiful. But I have to say Boulder. Boulder is, you know, Boulder is beautiful. My wife loved Boulder.

If you could change one thing, would it be not leaving Lamar? The first, would I'm not leaving Lamar? I'm going to make you laugh, okay? Back on that day that Louis said, don't leave, I wouldn't want a national championship with Jimmy. I might have not done it. I might have not done it now. I might have just stayed.

I mean, to this day, Louis still doesn't forgive me for that. I mean, we talk once in a while, but I might have done that. I don't know. I think my coaching career would have went a different way, but I might have done that. But you know what, Doug, when I look back, I had a ball. I worked at 16, 17 different schools. I worked for great guys. You know, you talk about Majerus.

He was tremendous. I worked for lefty. It was great. And, you know, working for Tad at Colorado was good. I just worked for some great guys. Valvana was terrific. Now I'm working for Coach Patino. And every day is a new experience with Coach.

Amazing. So it's been a great ride. It's been a lot of fun. If you were to give advice to a young coach who's trying to figure out, do I bounce, do I stay, how do I know what to do, when to do it, what would the advice be? Yeah, you know, here's my deal with the younger guys coming up. They want to get ahead too fast. They don't want to pay their dues.

You know, the heart of your work, the lucky you get. Lefty said that. I don't know that guys work as hard as maybe the Eddie Fogers, the George Felton's. You know, you go back in guys at Leonard Hamilton's. You know, the guys in my day, we did it differently, worked differently. I think a lot of the young guys coming up right now, it's a lot of eye going on. And I see it, and I don't mind saying it. And, you know, I'm a dinosaur to those guys.

And I really don't care. But I love what I'm doing. I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it because I love Coach Patino. I love I owner. I owner is a great place. We have probably the best president in the United States here at Iona, a guy named Dr. Carey, Seamus Carroll.

And that's the reason Coach Petino's here. This guy's dynamite. He's dynamite. And he's building with coach here and with Coach, with Seamus Carey as the president, this place is going to develop over the next six years into like a Loyola-Gonzaga flavor. Now, I'm not saying we're going to be Gonzaga. I'm not saying in that flavor where we're going to play, you know, we're going to play a couple games every year in the garden.

You know, next year we play two. We're going to play in the Barclay Center. We play Yale in the Barkley, C, I guess it's BYU and Seton, we're going to play in the Orlando shootout that has some good teams in it. And Coach is going to make that, that just like the Gonzaga-Liola type deal. I'm not saying we're going to be that. Don't get it wrong. That model to be good.

And he's going to win. I mean, he'll will. He is never not won. He's going to win. He's going to win. I can't say how much I appreciate it. all this time you've given me. And all the knowledge, this is amazing. And, and thanks again. And let's, let's catch up and just talk ball outside of this deal. Yeah, I appreciate it.

And when you talk to your brother, even though I talked to him, tell him, I said hi. He's a terrific guy. I will. Appreciate it. I'll see you. Thanks for the time. Thanks for the time. Bye, bye. What a life. What a career. What a story, huh? Like, just to be a fly on a wall on some of those situations, really pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing. I like the spud web story I thought was hysterical. There's just been so many things. The moving from place to place,

can you imagine? Like, every time you move, Kim English told us on our last pod that he had the same cell phone since seventh grade. But when you work for a different school, you get a new number. I mean, just think how many times you have to, you have to log on and figure out parking and all the other little minute things that you have to do.

When you're assistant coach especially, that stuff is just crazy. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. It was a fantastic journey. Reminder, the Doug Gottlieb show is daily, 3 to 6 Eastern, 123 Pacific. Iheart radio, Fox SportsRadio.com, series XM, 203, and 217. In the meantime, thanks so much. Tell a friend, write a review, download, subscribe, to All Ball.

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Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the eye heart. Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

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with your favorite therapist and host Keer Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability

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Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled of conversations with athletes,

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