KJ Live - Lorenzo Romar

three hundred fifty five. Today, he won a national championship, is an assistant coach at u C l A and is currently the head coach of Pepperdine Waves Men's basketball. Please welcome in the great Lorenzo Romar to the show. Coach Romar, what's happened my man? How you doing, Kristan? I'm great, coach, got this little show. Thank you for taking some time to come on. Man. You know life is good, coach house, life been for you. It's been fine, man. Yeah,

I have no complaints. Man. Yeah. Good. So whoever drew that picture you in the background, they did a great job. I appreciate it. Man. That shout out to the team over at the I Heart Radio. They looked that up a little some some coach. That's make me feel like I'm big time uh coach. I wanted to get right to it. I'm glad I got you on the show. I want to talk about just a little bit about this year's team, your outlook for the twenty three season.

I mean, you've got some guys Maxwell Lewis, Michael Mitchell, um um, some other guys in there that are really poised to have big years. What's your outlook expectations and do you even level set for seasons like you're entering and this year. You know, I think we have some really good pieces. But we have pieces. You have to learn how to win. We have to, uh learn how to pull out games. Often times last year we were in games for third minutes and then we would falter

down the stretch. And again being young, that that can happen. But we need to take the next step and if we can. I feel good about our team. Like I said, I think we have some good pieces. What does the offseason preparation look like for you with your guys in the summertime and kind of you know, folks, you know, as you head until the fall, what did that look like? And and did guys get better? Yeah, that's one of

the things you get back. Remember when UH play for coach Harrotck, you know, you would always talk about, UH, you build your individual game in the summer, you build your team in the fall in the winter, and it's it's very important that you go out in the summer man and you you grind it. You grind it and you do everything that you can to get better. And that's where passion comes in. Those that that have a passion for the game, those are the ones that you

see developing the summers. The ones that don't, they don't they come back maybe just a little bit better because because they're a little older. But the ones that make the big jumps have passion for the game. And I feel like we have some of those guys that have that passion. In June and July were able to get out there four hours a week on the floor with our guys and work out. And this year we took a foreign tour to Costa Rica, so we were able

to practice ten times before we took that tour. So being on the floors, young guys are incoming freshman getting acclimated to our system, the other guys reviewing it, kind of getting the head start on the season. And then some weight training and conditioning, as well as taking classes in the summer. But between all those things, uh, we feel we were able to make some progress during the summer. No. Absolutely, It seems like in the summertime there's just never enough time,

especially when you got a new group to acclimate. You got ten practices. You wish it was more like thirty. But you may do. We may do what you got. Coach Um, I had a question for you because our relationship obviously goes back to U C l A. But I met you before then leave. We were in Cincinnati or something at the AID. Yeah, Scottsdale, Scottsdale. It wasn't

it was insane. It was in Cincinnati, Cincinnati. Yeah, So so we we go way back, coach, And one of my most vivid memories of my college experience with you as my assistant coach was our one on one games the coach coach the knockout, you know, for for my listeners. Coach Romar played in the NBA high level, played at you dub major league point guard with a lot of herpie jerky hesitation, change your page, changing direction, you know, crazy high arching threes and then he'll run away and

fall off into the stands. I mean, he used to do it all. Coach Romar, I had a question for you, and you still do You still get down in ones with the guys or you leave that stuff to the guys like Jeral Browner or some of your younger assistants. Man, I hate to say it. I can't give it to him anymore, to him anymore. What I'm what I'm really good at right now is calling somebody out, challenging somebody.

Of course it's got to be my ball right one possession hey, and and usually goes in that one possession, and it's like, you know what I'm I'm through, man, I don't hate y'all. Forget y'all. Many y'are not do an I'm that guy. Now, what do you still go to the jab? Triple threat jab game jumper? I mean, what what's your go to move? Just this last thing on this? You got to scout You got to scout down. Hey, That's all I got. I'm not gonna go buy anybody. I just gotta jab you to get off me. I

love it. I love it goes in after that. That's all I got. Oh man, that's hilarious. Coach, think about I'm not. Hey, I'm not like you. You You you were a bucket. Well yeah, with the bucket, the footwork extraordinary. I learned for some good from some good ones. You know, Pops had me around, you know, a lot of pros early and you know you're soaking You're soaking up like a sponge man. You did that, Yeah, no question. But

back to are you s l a days coach? I mean, my find Another one of my fondest memories was obviously winning the championship. Um. We were all heartbroken. Um And I've never really publicly talked about this, but after the championship, you you obviously had a chance to advance your career and go to Pepperdine as for your first stentis head coach. I always wanted to know kind of publicly as close as we were to you, as much as we loved you, and and it's well documented how much we all love

coach Romar. How hard was it to leave that u c l A group or was it hard and easy at the same time because you were achieving sort of a first kind of goal as becoming a head coach in college? It was extremely hard, extremely hard. And then even when I went on to become a head coach.

I had to leave a couple of times. And it was extremely hard when when we were together at U C l A. You know, as far as recruiting and spending all the time together and the phone calls and time away from from the court, you know, time laughed together, cry together, all that stuff, you know, and uh, you feel a bond, You're feel an attachment and to where it's almost like a movie where you don't want to leave because you want to see how it ends and to be there with you guys to see how it

was gonna end. You know, it was hard to to uh to leave that. And but again it was for a situation where I was able to become a head coach and and and move from there. But it was it was difficult. There was some one on one conversations and but uh, everybody was just fine. Yeah, everybody was

just fine. I can't say we would have turned out the same way had you stayed, but who knows now, Uh, you know, hindsight is always, Uh, coach, what made you believe that a six four and three quarter two hundred and seventy five pounds center out of Crenshaw High School could play I was to seventy five, could play at u C l A and contribute in the Pac ten. How did you could, guys convince Poach Herrick to take a flyer on me because he didn't like my game

at first? Coach, I know this, so you don't don't try to play it off. I know what's up, coach, Coach rolling? Interesting interesting story. Uh, Chris, you were you were one of those that had passion. You love to play, you love to work out, and you know, we we knew it was in the jeans as well. You know with your the DNA that was in year. It was in there, and you know, people act like you were this late bloomer. You were the were two times city

player of the year. Yeah, I believe that if you can recollect yeah right right, yeah, yeah, you were the player of the year. You could play. The question is what position does he play? He's undersize what you know, who does he guard? And it was kind of figure that out for the other four guys. Just have him on the court in that matter position he plays. And uh, I'll tell you we kept talking to coach about you. About coach. We're telling you we'll put our reputation we'll

put our jobs on the line. But Chris, Chris can play. Chris can play for us? You think, so, yeah, but what position? Uh, Coach, let's go watch and play. So we drive out to cal Poly Pomona to watch you play, and coach Eric hadn't seen you play yet. So it's him and I and we're talking. I'm saying that, just coach, just remember now, this is his game and don't expect this. He's not just gonna be flying through the air dunking

on everybody. That's not his game. He's just going to be able to score it whenever he wants to score it. And we said, he said, all right, all right, I'm listening, I'm gonna watch. And we get there. I think we're two minutes late for your game. We walk in, we sit down, and we weren't there for two minutes. When you out of rebound, you busted out of the pack and drove the land, drove coast to coast, and someone got in your way and drew a charge and you

hurt your ankle on the same place. Do you remember that your ankle? And you were done and he said, roma r, let's go, let's go. We got up and left, and then you continued to just dominate the circuit that summer. So finally we were all in coaches houses condo and him and the staff, myself, coach laughing, Coach Godfrey. We were all over there and we're just telling him, coach, just it doesn't matter what you take. We gotta we gotta take. He said. We said, look, you know what,

let's call Ed Pepper rest in peace, blessing soul. Let's call Ed Pepper, who was at the time the winning his coach and the state of Washington history. He was a coach at Mercer Island and he was coached against you, and in a game you had thirty one of your many times that you had thirty, and just forched him. So we put him on speaker phone. We said, Coach Pepper, just tell us how good is Chris Johnson And what do you think you think he could play? U C l A. He says, I just know we had nobody

to guard him. He said his footwork was was impeccable. We couldn't stop him. And then he was a tough kid. He got the rebounds and he went on and on, and we said, all right, we're all staring at coach while he's telling us this, right because he's on speaker phone on and he hung up, and uh, coach eventually decided to take you. And eventually, at one time you were leading the entire conference and scoring right before you left. Yeah,

that's right, exactly, that's so brother. Well, I appreciate that, coach, and I appreciate you guys for going to bad for me. You know, I know it could be tough sometimes when you got a player that was like me. I wasn't fashionable back then. I would be fashionable now because they people I'm like a Bruce Brown or Draymond Green, where you know, six four or six five, and you know, we could get this going. But back then they wanted the stereotypes, not the stereotype, but the prototypes of of

of a forward or guard. So but I appreciate PJ. Tucker absolutely. I mean I didn't have that defensive prowess is PJ. But everything else I could do it and not just as good, if not better, But I really appreciate it. That and we capped that thing with with a championship and that was just an amazing experience. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app search f

s R to listen live. But coach, speaking of the state of Washington, you you brought up ed Pepple, You went up to you dub after I believe it was St. Louis. You're standing St. Louis right, because you follow you follow spoonball swoon ouncer. And I remember that you did the St. Louis thing for a little bit, very competitive there, and then you went to you dub, you dub. You coach seventeen players taken in the NBA Draft, including eleven first rounders.

One of my favorite players of all time and during your tenure is Brandon Roy. Coach, how special was Brandon Roy? And how special could he have been if it were not for the injuries? Grandon, let me just tell you this, he was extremely gifted. And you sit down and watch an NBA game or college game or any game and listen to him analyze the game, and you listen to his comments, and at some point you're gonna go, my goodness, I mean, he's just a brilliant high basketball like you.

He uh had trouble passing the s a t. He finally passed it, so he became eligible in January of his freshman year. He couldn't practice with us because of that, and he comes out and uh, we talked. I said, hey man, you passed your eligible to play, so let's go up and he was fired up. Let's go up to the gym and just trying to teach you best we can the offense. And he learned it in forty five minutes. Forty five minutes something that everybody else was

still trying to learn after several months. Forty five minutes and knew it. And we go out and play and it was just you couldn't speed him up. He could play around the rim with either hand, he could pass the ball, he could dribble the basketball. He just was He was just a phenomenal player. And you know, I remember his junior year, we did our research. He was thinking about coming out, by the way, he would have liked to going straight out of high school if he could.

He realized he wasn't quite ready and take his credit. He continued to work and after his junior year, we did our research and NBA's feedback was that he was going to be a second rounder. And he said, well, that's not what my goals are. He says, I'm coming back to school. I don't need to go to the pre draft camp. He said, I'll come back to school. He comes back and uh, he was just phenomenal and just put us on his back, and uh did some

extraordinary things as a senior. And we went to the sweet six team and it wasn't for the dumb coach not call making us file. They hit the three points to send the game, and over time, you can, yeah, I remember that game. Understand that. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, we just had a good chance to go to the final four. What's really funny, I'm looking at your face. Usually you would say something like, yeah, what happened with that?

Why did No? No, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna do that right now, but I'm thinking it. I'm thinking it, but I'm not gonna do that. But anyway, that's how good of a basketball player he was. He gone. He went on to become the sixth pick in the draft, first team All America, Rookie of the Year, and then an NBA All Start And I believe, I truly believe he would have been in the Basketball Hall of Fame and one has gone down is one of the greatest

guards to ever played. Again, I agree with that assessment. Coach. We're not for his knee injuries. That's what prevented him from doing Yeah. Absolutely, I mean a big guard high i Q could make all the shots. Even Kobe had the highest of praises for Brandon Roy, but coach a lot of them guys out of that area UM during your years and even a little bit before you kind of fit that mold I would. I've been talking to

different Cats about the state of Washington. So Roberto Bergerson is a guy that's gonna be in a couple of weeks on an episode, and we talked at length about just the culture of basketball up in that Seattle Tacoma area up in Washington. Can you talk about just what that connectivity is like in that basketball culture and why it produces so many high level UH basketball players that fit a certain mode high i Q skilled and usually

with some size. I've never seen anything like it, and I've been there a lot of cities, a lot of states have been around basketball a long time. You know, the Doug Christie's and Michael Dickerson's Donnie Marsh some of those guys began to pay the weight for these guys and to create kind of that interest, that thirst. And then Jamal Crawford was so dynamic in high school, so dynamic, an absolute wizard, charismatic and a great, great human being, to where there's so many that just they wanted to

be doing what Jamal Crawford did. You know. Right after that, Jason Terry and so on and so forth, Well, Jamal kind of was the guy that really started from Seattle started to mentor some of the younger kids, you know, and that was right around you know, Jason Terry and those guys, and then the Brandon Roys came around and they would mentor Isaiah Thomas's and then Isaiah Thomas with

with mentor you know, Nate Robinson, Will Conroy. These guys kept they continue to hand down their knowledge and work with these kids, and uh, it was just a thing

of beauty. And you know they would come up to the University of Washington all the time and and work out and use the gym, and and you're right, it's carried all the way down now to Pollo Ben Carroll to where those same guys that mentor and you watch he's gonna be mentoring some kids, he's gonna be mentoring the next ones, and it just keeps getting handed down. And that's why I think he continued as one of the reasons you continue to see great talent come out

of the Seattle Tacoma area. Yeah, and I like, what something that something someone talked about as far as like how that area you have like coaches that kind of instilled this foundation of fundamentals and drilling, and then you had the athletes and sort of that thing kind of married that that that match, that match of athleticism with that old school sort of fundamentals and you know, you know, the drilling of that side of the game, and that's why a lot of those guys are so guild and talented.

I mean, when I'm looking at your resume, coach, and you coached the number one pick in the draft, I mean, you've coached a six pick. You've coached a bunch of high level guys from that area, and um, I just want to say, man, props to you for that, coach. I got a couple more questions for you. I know, you got films and stuff like that, and you gotta go. But I wanted to know this because no one ever talks about this and this hit me out the blue when you took the job, talk to me about this.

You've been on the sidelines at u c l A, you dubed and you have a coach. What was that year behind the bear down iron curtain? Like? I always wanted to know about what was that experience like in Arizona coach, because that was that was an interesting thing

when I read it across the ticker. You know, it had to be interesting, right because competing against Arizona all those years at U c l A and then even at Washington, there was a time when you know, we were able to win a couple of championships and uh beat them out and you know, they they were the top dog a lot of times with U c l A. And it was interesting, as you said, going behind the scenes there. Uh, they have a really nice operation over there.

The support fan support is unbelievable. You you really can feel that there. It happened to be the year where there was the FBI investigation. It happened to be that year, my only year that was there. But I'm gonna tell you what, Uh it wasn't always fun because of that. But aside from that, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I thoroughly enjoyed my time working with Sean Miller and the assistance the group that I was with. It was I just really enjoyed it, really enjoyed my time. Man,

that was a really interesting time. You guys did pretty good that season. I think he won twenty seven games. I mean, obviously coached the big time players, but that I always wanted to ask you that coach one more question then I'll let you go. I wanted to just talk to you about how the n I L and the Transfer Portal has either altered or affected the way

that you're approach to recruiting. Has that cause you to sort of change up the way you do things a little bit, or are you sticking to your guns um and and kind of gonna do things how you've always done them. First of all, I think the n I L is great, I really do. The n I L to me is a modern version of back in the day, long time ago. You get recruited, Hey can you get

me a summer job? You know, and they provide summer job for you, right, so, so now it's not the summer job as much as an N I L. I do think the question I had asked before, how will you monitor it? And that's the thing that I think the n C double A is still working through. And Uh, there's definitely the rich can get richer with it because a lot of programs aren't able to provide what some others can with that N I L situation. So I

think it's great. It just has to be worked out. Uh. The transfer porter is something that I don't like at all. I really don't like that at all. Why not coach? Well? I think when you combine the two, then I think players get soft and don't learn how to stick things out. I think, I mean, Chris, if you would, uh this is day and age, you could just leave and you'd

be eligible the next year. I mean, I don't know if you have stayed at U C L A. I don't know if there I can name me a lot of players that wouldn't have stayed at the school that they were staying. And I'm not talking about where they went somewhere and it worked out. I'm talking about where they stayed and it worked out, and you're glad they didn't lead, and they learned so many lessons because of it. I just think when you combine the two, it's just easier to to not have two feet on the ground

where you are. And I don't think you learned from that. Our approach as uh, you know, maybe it won't be effective, but try to find those that, uh, that's not the number one thing they're looking for. The first thing something goes wrong, I'm gonna blame someone and jump ship. We're trying to find those that have a passion for the game and are are committed to what you're doing. Character. I mean, I think character is important now, being loyal when you make a commitment, stick to it, and also

not giving these kids. Sure you can give them whatever, but there still needs to be a level of accountability in the sense of you earn this, um, you know, everything just can't be handed to you. I feel like if a kid signs in an I L deal, I question you know his motivation. I've heard kids talk about how I'm gonna work harder once I get the n I L. But you don't see that. But you necessarily

don't see that all the time. You're about dudes like so because because getting fifty dollars in your bank account is like a you know, transcendent type of experience. You know, you you know your body, you don't know what your minds at that age. You see all the zeros coaching. Yeah, but I don't you know, I don't say this is this is terrible. I don't say that all. I think if the student athlete can get that, it's great. Uh, but we're not gonna change. We're not gonna baby someone

because they might leave. We're not gonna do that. Uh. Then I feel like I'm cheating the kids that we're coaching. If we're gonna do that, you're gonna have to go out there in the real world and you're gonna have to survival when it's tough. You're gonna have to make it through. So again, hopefully, if we can recruit kids that have the makeup, the mental makeup to be able to weather the storm, then we can we can be Okay, absolutely coach. Last question, w C C. Laugh is down

in San Diego. The Zags are the Zags. St Mary's is gonna be St. Mary's. How does Pepperdine get into the mix, crack that mix and then get into the tournament. How do you do it this year. I think this will be the first year that we've been here that we feel we have built a solid, solid foundation. And I think we have some talent. I think we have some players with some passion for the game. We've been younger,

we've had injuries. I think this is the first year where we're solid and when you say, how are you gonna do that, We're gonna worry more about ourselves and get where we are, build on this foundation, and then, UM, I'm not good at predictions, but uh, we'll see what happens. That's all good cause we'll be pulling from you. I might come out to a game in Malibu come check you out. UM, I appreciate you today for coming on kJ Live. Ladies and gentlemen. Coach Lorenzo Romar, keep doing

what you're doing. Man, you're doing great. Yes, sir, I appreciate your coach,