The Vision...
The vision starts with a staff, so the first thing I did upon being named head coach at Mesa Community College was to get a one together. This is the most important thing a head coach does. A coaching staff must be united. As mentioned, I found out right away that the Maricopa Juco’s view assistant coaches pretty much the same way as all the high schools do- not worthy of any legitimate pay. There are few exceptions in high school, which explains the constant transiency of coaching jobs. It is really hard to get a great staff and hold them together at these levels. Further exacerbating the problem at MCC was that the men’s basketball practice bloc was 1-4PM. If any assistant coach candidate had a full time job, that would make participation in practices very difficult. The women’s team had the 4-7 slot, so my only other real choice would have been after 7PM. That is not good for men with families, and if part of your philosophy is talking about family importance, you can’t do that to people. You have to live your philosophy or it is meaningless.
I have been lucky with holding a staff a few times, but it never lasts long. When I interviewed at Mountain Pointe many years ago, the Principal was Harold Slemmer. The interview I had there included only three people- the Principal, the Athletic Director, and the District AD. That is why I knew they meant business. He asked me what it would take to have the #1 program in the state, which incidentally was the only time in 40+ years of coaching that I was asked that particular question. Even MCC avoided that question, even though that is a very important one, and probably should be the first one out of the decision maker’s mouth. I told Harold that there were three things that would guarantee success- getting my staff on campus with jobs, having a class dedicated to the basketball players, and having rent free access to the gyms in the summer. Dr. Slemmer looked at me and said “we can do that”. Within three years, we had the number 1 ranked team in the Arizona Republic poll. Then, Dr. Slemmer left for the AIA and it was never the same.
The first person I called to join me at Mesa was Mike Grothaus. I had gotten to know Mike while I was at GCU. He was a new assistant there, having just finished his playing career as an Antelope. Or so we thought. It turned out that he had one semester of eligibility left, and halfway through the year as a result of some player losses, Scott asked him to suit up and play his last semester. Can you imagine that one? He started the year barking orders to players in his role as a coach, and the next thing you know he is heading into the locker room as a player. He admitted to me later how awkward that turned out to be. As a coach, Mike and I quickly became fast friends, as he had played for my good friend Tom Bennett at Gilbert High School, and I had coached against their team while at Mountain Pointe. Mike and I shared a lot of the same values as coaches and had a common background in who we learned from. We called it "the tree", and the roots were Coach Bennett and Coach Youree. When he became a player again, Mike would never talk to me about things that were discussed by players in the locker room, even though I tried to get information from him. I had the utmost respect for him for that, and was so fortunate to have him join my new staff. Scott Mossman was an excellent and tireless recruiter, and he had passed that knowledge onto Mike. Nothing is more important to college basketball than the ability to recruit, and Mike had it. And he was living at his parent’s house, and unmarried. We could scrape together some “adjunct” PE classes and perhaps some fitness center hours so he could actually make some money.
I also convinced a couple of my former assistants at Mountain Pointe to join in. Lane Waddell was our junior varsity coach for most of my ten years at MP, and was a fellow social studies teacher there, as well as a very good friend. What Lane brought to MCC was an understanding of our system, as well as an administrative sense and ability that every program needs. His teaching schedule at MP was such that he could make most of the practices- albeit late. I also asked Rex Morrison, a former freshman coach for us at MP to join. Rex and I had been friends and teaching colleagues for many years starting all the way back at Camelback High School. He was a great communicator with the public and salesman for the program, and like Lane, was well versed on our teaching techniques. And like Lane, Rex had a teaching schedule- then at Paradise Valley High School- that allowed him to make many of the practices. These guys were big believers in our philosophy and understood that loyalty was key. Thus, I completely trusted them when they had conversations with players, or anyone else for that matter, which as any head coach will tell you is very important.
Finally, we had a young man join us from Michigan named Josh Kutchinski. He had been a high school and junior college coach up there for several years, but decided to move to Arizona to try and catch on somewhere. By the time he got ahold of us, Mike, Lane, and Rex were already in place. I felt with Mike, our recruiting would be solid, which it was. With Lane, I felt that all of the various academic and administrative needs would be met, and Rex would handle community relations. Plus it would be fun to be around these guys again. So with Josh, we wanted him to coordinate fundraising. What no one in the Valley, including myself, knew was that the Maricopa Community College athletic programs are not funded very well. I will speak more to that later, but it became immediately apparent that as the only Division 1 program in Maricopa County, we were going to be up against some pretty powerful and well funded programs across the United States. For example, Indian Hills, Iowa reportedly had a recruiting budget of $250,000, while MCC's was $0. So, I asked Josh to take on that role initially, with whatever help I could give him. He had no other employment, and went to our MCC athletic director to try and get jobs in the game management area for all the sports on campus- gym and field set-ups, announcing, etc.
There it was- a great staff. The only thing missing over the subsequent years was any interest from MCC about who we had on staff and how to pay them. The amount they were willing to give for assistant coaches in 2008 was $4100. That was not $4100 each- that was $4100 to split among them in any way the head coach wanted. A joke and a sign of the esteem that coaches were held in across the district. That would never change during my tenure at MCC. These were great men and dedicated, knowledgeable coaches. The chance of keeping them together for any length of time was remote, at best. This first group would last one year. It boggles my mind to think of what we could have done at Mesa if we could have held this group together.
There were six players who could have returned from the prior year’s team, which at that time was about right for a junior college team. In principle, you would lose about half of your team from one year to the next. After assembling the staff, the next step was to meet with the returning players. We did that and three of them decided right away that this new program was not for them. That’s OK and not unexpected when new people take over. So, we had a staff and three players. There weren’t any small colleges of note in the area that had basketball programs, other than newly named Arizona Christian University, formerly Southwestern Bible College, where Paul Westphal cut his coaching chops. In that era, guys who wanted to play there had to have a keen interest in becoming church pastors, which narrowed their player field considerably. There weren’t many prep schools around then either to offer post grad teams where players could play and not lose any college eligibility. And, as mentioned previously, neither Arizona State or Grand Canyon hit the Arizona players that hard. We would go on in my tenure to help 35 players get Division 1 NCAA scholarships, but ASU, UofA, GCU, and NAU never recruited a single one of them.
Mike Grothaus had a list of players that he had been in contact with at GCU, and since GCU really wasn’t that interested in most of them, he was able to start talking to them about coming to MCC. Although late in the recruiting process, we were able to put together a pretty solid group of guys to go along with the three returners. What we gleaned right away was that there was a sizable amount of Arizona guys who were good, skilled players that were overlooked by national recruiters. These kids generally had a chip on their shoulder and were out to prove their worth. As a coach, those are the best kind of players to have. Mike, being a player from that Tom Bennett-Royce Youree tree, also knew how important good character was to that equation.
Next: Setting the tone...
The vision starts with a staff, so the first thing I did upon being named head coach at Mesa Community College was to get a one together. This is the most important thing a head coach does. A coaching staff must be united. As mentioned, I found out right away that the Maricopa Juco’s view assistant coaches pretty much the same way as all the high schools do- not worthy of any legitimate pay. There are few exceptions in high school, which explains the constant transiency of coaching jobs. It is really hard to get a great staff and hold them together at these levels. Further exacerbating the problem at MCC was that the men’s basketball practice bloc was 1-4PM. If any assistant coach candidate had a full time job, that would make participation in practices very difficult. The women’s team had the 4-7 slot, so my only other real choice would have been after 7PM. That is not good for men with families, and if part of your philosophy is talking about family importance, you can’t do that to people. You have to live your philosophy or it is meaningless.
I have been lucky with holding a staff a few times, but it never lasts long. When I interviewed at Mountain Pointe many years ago, the Principal was Harold Slemmer. The interview I had there included only three people- the Principal, the Athletic Director, and the District AD. That is why I knew they meant business. He asked me what it would take to have the #1 program in the state, which incidentally was the only time in 40+ years of coaching that I was asked that particular question. Even MCC avoided that question, even though that is a very important one, and probably should be the first one out of the decision maker’s mouth. I told Harold that there were three things that would guarantee success- getting my staff on campus with jobs, having a class dedicated to the basketball players, and having rent free access to the gyms in the summer. Dr. Slemmer looked at me and said “we can do that”. Within three years, we had the number 1 ranked team in the Arizona Republic poll. Then, Dr. Slemmer left for the AIA and it was never the same.
The first person I called to join me at Mesa was Mike Grothaus. I had gotten to know Mike while I was at GCU. He was a new assistant there, having just finished his playing career as an Antelope. Or so we thought. It turned out that he had one semester of eligibility left, and halfway through the year as a result of some player losses, Scott asked him to suit up and play his last semester. Can you imagine that one? He started the year barking orders to players in his role as a coach, and the next thing you know he is heading into the locker room as a player. He admitted to me later how awkward that turned out to be. As a coach, Mike and I quickly became fast friends, as he had played for my good friend Tom Bennett at Gilbert High School, and I had coached against their team while at Mountain Pointe. Mike and I shared a lot of the same values as coaches and had a common background in who we learned from. We called it "the tree", and the roots were Coach Bennett and Coach Youree. When he became a player again, Mike would never talk to me about things that were discussed by players in the locker room, even though I tried to get information from him. I had the utmost respect for him for that, and was so fortunate to have him join my new staff. Scott Mossman was an excellent and tireless recruiter, and he had passed that knowledge onto Mike. Nothing is more important to college basketball than the ability to recruit, and Mike had it. And he was living at his parent’s house, and unmarried. We could scrape together some “adjunct” PE classes and perhaps some fitness center hours so he could actually make some money.
I also convinced a couple of my former assistants at Mountain Pointe to join in. Lane Waddell was our junior varsity coach for most of my ten years at MP, and was a fellow social studies teacher there, as well as a very good friend. What Lane brought to MCC was an understanding of our system, as well as an administrative sense and ability that every program needs. His teaching schedule at MP was such that he could make most of the practices- albeit late. I also asked Rex Morrison, a former freshman coach for us at MP to join. Rex and I had been friends and teaching colleagues for many years starting all the way back at Camelback High School. He was a great communicator with the public and salesman for the program, and like Lane, was well versed on our teaching techniques. And like Lane, Rex had a teaching schedule- then at Paradise Valley High School- that allowed him to make many of the practices. These guys were big believers in our philosophy and understood that loyalty was key. Thus, I completely trusted them when they had conversations with players, or anyone else for that matter, which as any head coach will tell you is very important.
Finally, we had a young man join us from Michigan named Josh Kutchinski. He had been a high school and junior college coach up there for several years, but decided to move to Arizona to try and catch on somewhere. By the time he got ahold of us, Mike, Lane, and Rex were already in place. I felt with Mike, our recruiting would be solid, which it was. With Lane, I felt that all of the various academic and administrative needs would be met, and Rex would handle community relations. Plus it would be fun to be around these guys again. So with Josh, we wanted him to coordinate fundraising. What no one in the Valley, including myself, knew was that the Maricopa Community College athletic programs are not funded very well. I will speak more to that later, but it became immediately apparent that as the only Division 1 program in Maricopa County, we were going to be up against some pretty powerful and well funded programs across the United States. For example, Indian Hills, Iowa reportedly had a recruiting budget of $250,000, while MCC's was $0. So, I asked Josh to take on that role initially, with whatever help I could give him. He had no other employment, and went to our MCC athletic director to try and get jobs in the game management area for all the sports on campus- gym and field set-ups, announcing, etc.
There it was- a great staff. The only thing missing over the subsequent years was any interest from MCC about who we had on staff and how to pay them. The amount they were willing to give for assistant coaches in 2008 was $4100. That was not $4100 each- that was $4100 to split among them in any way the head coach wanted. A joke and a sign of the esteem that coaches were held in across the district. That would never change during my tenure at MCC. These were great men and dedicated, knowledgeable coaches. The chance of keeping them together for any length of time was remote, at best. This first group would last one year. It boggles my mind to think of what we could have done at Mesa if we could have held this group together.
There were six players who could have returned from the prior year’s team, which at that time was about right for a junior college team. In principle, you would lose about half of your team from one year to the next. After assembling the staff, the next step was to meet with the returning players. We did that and three of them decided right away that this new program was not for them. That’s OK and not unexpected when new people take over. So, we had a staff and three players. There weren’t any small colleges of note in the area that had basketball programs, other than newly named Arizona Christian University, formerly Southwestern Bible College, where Paul Westphal cut his coaching chops. In that era, guys who wanted to play there had to have a keen interest in becoming church pastors, which narrowed their player field considerably. There weren’t many prep schools around then either to offer post grad teams where players could play and not lose any college eligibility. And, as mentioned previously, neither Arizona State or Grand Canyon hit the Arizona players that hard. We would go on in my tenure to help 35 players get Division 1 NCAA scholarships, but ASU, UofA, GCU, and NAU never recruited a single one of them.
Mike Grothaus had a list of players that he had been in contact with at GCU, and since GCU really wasn’t that interested in most of them, he was able to start talking to them about coming to MCC. Although late in the recruiting process, we were able to put together a pretty solid group of guys to go along with the three returners. What we gleaned right away was that there was a sizable amount of Arizona guys who were good, skilled players that were overlooked by national recruiters. These kids generally had a chip on their shoulder and were out to prove their worth. As a coach, those are the best kind of players to have. Mike, being a player from that Tom Bennett-Royce Youree tree, also knew how important good character was to that equation.
Next: Setting the tone...
