Hey, welcome in. I'm Doug Gottlie. This is all ball and uh we got a great guest for His name is Steve Lapis. He's a good friend of mine, of course, the former head coach at Manhattan had Villanova at UMSS and UM. In this part, this is part one, we'll get to his His life story is really amazing, you know, growing up in the Bronx in New York. UM. His
dad was an immigrant. Wait to hear what his dad did when his dad first saw him play basketball, when he first moved out of the house, Like all of it is like you just you can't fount these these things are so good. Um, I gotta do a pod for you on actual things going on inside of hoop. But in the meantime, I think they'll love this. It's too good. Steve Lappas works for CBS. He was an outstanding coach at Manhattan, led them to twenty five wins
in their fourth year and then took Villanova. Uh they were I we played against that team that that lost with Carry Kittles and uh, Chuck Corner Gay and Eric Ebers and Alvin Williams. What a great John Cellistan on a tremendous team. Well, well we'll David dive into how he got the Villanova job all this other stuff without further ado. Here's my man lap. So uh laugh. I mean, I think everyone knows the end of the coaching and into the broadcasting call and n c A tournament games.
But I'm more fascinated by growing up and what took you from there to here. So you grew up where in New York? I grew Brandon, Washington Heights, right by the drug Washington Bridge, and Upper Manhattan. Okay, so Upper man Uper Manhattan? Um, who are the who are the players at that time? You're coming out in high school? This is where you started kind of throw off all the New York City guys. Who are the guys at
that time? Well, at that time, Tiny Archibald was a couple of years older than me, but he was a guy that we looked up to. Ron Behagen was a guy who played for d with Clinton. He was another guy. There was a guy of boys and girls named Ermie Douse and some of the you know, obviously Nate Archibald became a big time playing Ron Behagen played in the NBA. Tom Henderson was another guy who was around and played
in the NBA for a long time. So those those were probably the main guys, you know what I mean from the Manhattan Bronx type area. What was the what was the name of the court that you grew up playing, because everybody had every court had a name. I grew up with Dyken Street and Dyken Streets a pretty famous court. You know, a lot of guys played in the Dykeen projects there. Actually kareem obviously older than he grew up right in those projects. So we played a lot of
Dighting Street projects. But you're you're older than Kramer. He's older than you, He's older than me. Okay, So did you like, did you ever see him play pick up when you're a kid? You ever never saw? I did? I did see Power Memorial play two years after he graduated from there, and they were still very They had Searcy len Elmore and Jack Trimble. They were number one high school team in the country after Korean There were
number one when he was there too. So I never he's about I'm gonna guess he's probably five or six years older than me. So no, would never never cross paths. Okay, So again and and forgive me if I'm wrong for saying this year in this pod, you're allowed to say whatever part of this is. You know, my dad grew up in the Bronx and then moving out to the Island.
His contention always was that New York City is a basketball town and the only reason that that it's still like a Yankees town or Giants or Rangers is just because the basketball hasn't been good, right but this but whoever can get it back to where it was when Red Red Holtzman was coaching the Knicks like that guy, they'll have a ticker tape rate and it will coolly change. So but you were that that you were around during
that era, Oh yeah, absolutely so. So the jutasition of now where the Garden is still great, okay, but players go outside the city to go to prep schools, you know, or go or New York in terms of going to college. What was it like back then? Well, then, there's no question that New York was the mecca basketball. Now, the crazy thing about the Knicks is they've only have two titles in the history of the franchise, and they happened within four years of each other. So that is kind
of the crazy. So here you have this job that the perception is it's, you know, certainly one of the best jobs in the world in basketball. Yet they haven't really been able to bring one home. Patrick Ewing got close, and pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy got close. But bottom line is we haven't had a championship is nineteen seventy three, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. But there's no doubt that it's a basketball time. Now.
If you ask me now, I haven't grown up there, I'm gonna say number one Yankees, number two Nicks if I had to, if you made me put it in or seven they want twenty seven titles. The Yankees are the Yankees, and that's that is never go to Jake, But I would say the Knicks if they're good. But but you don't you don't have and the kids don't play as much pick up as they used to. Okay,
but you don't have stickball in the streets anymore. You still do have some you still have a ton of basketball, right and it's not like New York is pumping out baseball players and that that it's it's a there is you know as a basketball town. Okay, So how good were you as a player? I was a started in high school my senior year, came off the bench on the city championship team. My junior year. What what high school?
Bronx High School of Science. We were in the B division. Okay, they have the A division that was the big schools, Clinton and those schools, even though we played them in those days. We played in the B division, which was smaller schools, and we won the B Division championship two years in a row. My sophomore year I didn't play at all. My junior year I played some is coming off the bench. Then my senior year I started. We
were very good. Probably something doing me starting and then uh I went to c C N Y and I started for a couple of years Division three player. UH average probably seven points and had some assists. No three point shooting. That was the one thing I could do was shoot from pretty far out in those days. But so I was. I was a half pass player and loved it. That's all I wanted to do. What what? What? What was your parents? What were their occupations? Well, my
father came from Greece in nineteen twenty seven. He was a florist. He had a flower shop in Jamaica Queens and you know, and my mother is Greek, but she was born here, and that's one of the reasons why they settled in Washington Heights. It was a big Greek neighborhood, one of the bigger Greek neighborhoods in the country. It was a Greek church there, in Greek school. I went to Greek school from when I was kindergarten to eighth grade. I still read and write Greek because I learned that's
when we spoke at home. So, you know, and my parents. You know, it's funny, Doug, because your parents you want to see all your kids gave. My parents did not see me play basketball until I was in college. I was playing for one was like twelve thirteen years old in elementary school and then in high school, and they didn't see me play time was in college as opposed that now, I've seen my kid play every game he
ever played, probably or pretty close. So, um, what was your dad like when you're you know, you have this passion for a sport that he clearly doesn't relate to at all. Yeah, Like like my like my grandpa was an accountant and then he became a car dealer. He took over a car dealership, and he thought my dad was nuts for for his love for basketball. Like they actually had him like tested to see if he was
if he had something wrong mentally. He's like, no much, just love this sport and all it does for people. What was what was their reaction to your love for basketball? Well, let's understand that he comes here when he's fourteen years old, okay, and so he when never was, never went to high school, so he didn't understand this idea of you play high school, that you play sports in high school. I would go
play after school in high school. And thankfully my mother everyone, I said a Greek bol was born here and had brothers who played sports when she was a kid. I would tell him, no, the kids here, he said, when you get a job after school, what is was he go play bass? What is this playing basketball? And my mother said, no, no, the kids here they go to school and they play sports. This is what they do.
So anyway, so he understand that. So now I'm like twenty years old and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. So I was I made it in biology. I wanted to be a doctor when I was in college. So what happens. I get a C plus in organic chemistry. So now in those days, Doug, you couldn't make medical school if you don't have all a's in every subject in this country. You'd have to like go to Mexico or somewhere else. And I didn't really want to do that. So I'm like, now what
am I gonna do? This is what I've been talking about all these years. I started coaching my brother and his friends at the Greek Church when I was twenty years old, and I, you know, it's pretty cool. I liked this. I love not I want. All I wanted to do is play, even though it was a half as player. I played like eight hours a day in the parks whenever we're looking for a game. That's what I did. And I'm like, you know, why not try
to coach and do this? So I remember going to my father to make a long story short, and he asked me in Greek we used to talk to what are you gonna do? But how does that sound great? What is? What are you gonna do? Is saying saying Greek, did that guy in the smith the zois? What are you gonna do with your life. And I said, well, Dad, I'll be honest with you. I want to try and coach basketball. And he said why he said, and he said in Greek? He said, are you gonna get by
with a ball? That's what he said to me. And I said, well, yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, I'm gonna try and do that. Focus ahead, I become a high school coach. See your first height? Sell, how did you get to high school job? Okay, all right, we gotta take this slow. That Well, what happens is so now I so you graduated twenty years old. I know I wasn't one. I was a junior there trying to figure out what I wanted a major and do
because I couldn't do this bio thing. Okay, it wasn't wasn't really worth the way you switch to p I switched to education. Okay, so I switched education. I said, I'm gonna trying to be a teacher. But now it took me the next year. You go out of college because I had taken all these other classes in sciences. It took me a whole other year to get out. So now I'm gonna be a fifth year guy. I'm and we're commuting to school. It's different in those days.
How about this dog course? Fifty two dollars to go to C. C and Y. In those days, if you were in New York City resident, where where was C. C N Y? Right in Harlem? It's right in the middle of Harlem. So from from where you live, it was a fifteen minute bus ride. You did the bus, didn't do the subway? Did the bus the bus? The subway was further. The bus dropped you off right in the corner that where the campus was. So so Steve
lap Is years old hopping on the bus. You got the post every day, like what was your what was what was your day of routine? Got to New York Post every day, no doubt, still to this day read it every day and just you know, go there, go to school. Now my fifth year, obviously I didn't play on the team because I was already done with my eligibility. So I was in practice, right and I was just going to school, taking as many course I could in education so I can get get out. Who is your
who's your high school coach? My high school coach is a guy named Norman left Woods, who was a tremendous See we were considered I don't want to say it. I guess I said we were considered the real smart school in New York City, so we weren't supposed to have good teams. That this guy was a tremendous coach. We would win games forty two, forty forty six, forty four. That's how Anyway, he's also one of the founding fathers.
People don't know this a five star. He was on the first five star staff with Garfinkel at Will Klein. He was in their first tremendous coach. So I played for him in high school. But I'll tell you what, Doug, he put the fear of God in me. I was so scared of I mean scared to death here I what I mean. I think everybody it was a little taking it back by him. You know, I grew up going to this Greek school. I never really got yelled at that much. You know. I was kind of the
good kidd. Did what I was supposed to do, and he scared me to death. So he was. He was hard to play for initially, and then you know, it got a little better. But but ironically, when I graduate college, I don't have a job coaching rethink. I voluned. He becomes a Division three head coach, and I becomes volunteer assistant at York College, which is in Jamaica, Queens. So I did that for a year, just helping him, you know, going to practice, trying to recruit a little bit. Whatever.
What was he What was he like in terms of his practice planning, in terms of what you guys worked on, because you know, like all of these planted seeds in what made you into an outstanding coach? What was he like? He was we do the same thing every day. He had a system. We ran this like wheel system, and that's what we It was kind of it wasn't as complicated as Princeton, but it's kind of like those Princeton guys. You know, those Prinston guys are like, this is like
a religion. Running that stuff is a religion, and this is what we do and that's it and we're doing it. That's how he was with his offense. And it was a very patient offense. Passed cut cut, It was the saying, and we just did every single day in our sleep. We could do it. So his his practices were very basic passing drills. You know, it was different in those days, you know, based baseball passes just passes. And I'm not saying there's not a place for it today, But I
don't know high school coaches dribbling drills. You know, it was like basic fundamentals and run through this offense and play defense like there's no to law. Okay, So then who would you play for? CCN one? And SE's why I played for two guys, three guys. I played for a guy named Ralph Baco who, uh in ninety seven was the leading scorer in the country at Northern or southern Northern Northern Illinois. Really good guy. He's passed away.
Then I played for a guy named Jack Camoner who was kind of a legend in the New York area, coached in the Bronx and coached in Westchester Counties, Carsdale Eyes. I don't know if you know you're a West Coast guy. You remember a guy named John Revelli played at Stanford. Yeah, he's probably, you know, too old for you to know because you're too young. But and Butch Graves, those are two guys that he had played for him. That one
went to Yale alone went to Stanford. He was from Scarsdale High School, and then I played for Floyd Lane, who played on the nineteen fifty c C N White team that won the n c A and an I T Championship. Um, what is there anything of those three guys that you took with you that you said I want to do that or or you organically did. I took a little bit of all of them, to be honest with you, not a basketball perspective, not much, but from a personal perspective and how they dealt with people,
how they dealt with situations I tried. All three of those guys that I had in college were really personable, really great guys, and they had great communication skills with the players. And that was one of the things that I saw and I liked because it made me feel Whereas my high school coach was a great coach and we became good friends, I was afraid of him in high school. These guys I wasn't afraid of, And so,
you know, I think that's some of the things. And you know, Jack Camerer was a guy who was a tremendous teacher and a little more advanced than Norman left Woods was. It was my high school coach, but a guy who could really break things down and like take a take a game plan and make it into drills of Okay, we gotta do this to guard this because so he's the one who gave me my first experience with that kind of stuff. Um, okay, so you get done and you you volunteer at York right. Okay, so
York's in Jamaica queens. Your dad's flower shops and Jamaica queens. How you are you making money? Are you working for him? Are you doing anything that or you're just simply grinding with hoops. No. I get my first teaching job in the Bronx at a Greek school um called the Greek American Institute, And I was making five thousand dollars a year and I would teach, get out at to thirty three o'clock and drive the Jamaica Queens every day. Now
we didn't have a car. That was the first car our family had, was the one that I had when I graduated college. Uh. My father took the subway to Jamaica every day. Was an hour, three subway, three trains every each way, every day. He did it for thirty five years. And you know, Doug, it's funny. His day off was two day. Imagine Tuesday, Like everybody's off Saturday and Sunday, his day off was Tuesday because in the flower business, people at weddings, people had things on Saturdays
and Sunday, so he was open. And so this is what it's amazing what these guys did that came from the other side, the work ethic and what they had to do to so you know what it was. It was a and I don't want me to be a get on a soapbox, but life consimpler. They they weren't worried about how we're gonna eat. We're worried about I want this car, I want this house or no. It's very basic. We need to work. So that weekend live period, and that's what it was. 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. You know, my my, my, my grandpa. He no one had been the college and he couldn't afford college. Also c c N Y and so what he did
was he and a buddy. I don't know if they rented a truck or at least a truck or bought it, bought a truck like one of those uh box box trucks, right, and they would go to the docks and they would buy fish okay at you know whatever, you know, ungodly time in the morning when when the when the fish would come in, and then they set up the counts at different restaurants and then they would sell the fish
to the restaurants. So that's so he would take night school and then wouldn't go to sleep, would simply go and get this box truck, get the fish, and then do the fish and then sleep in the afternoon. And that's how he paid his way through through c C N Y and became an accountant, and then he became a card dealer because as an accountant, he looked at people's and like, you know, they couldn't pay him. So he'd take one businesses that he thought could make makes sense.
So it's it's a similar thing. It's a it's a I just figure it out right, how and how can I put things on the table. It wasn't And and he too just like just like your dad, like he thought my dad was crazy, Like you really my master's degree from Colombia And when you want to coach basketball, Like, yes, what he wanted to do. A matter of fact, in one he was the head coach at the w Milwaukee and they were going to Division three. They were Division
one to Division three. So he walks and my grandpa we lived with him for a year in in Hewlett, New York. We lived with them. My grandpa wanted my dad to take over one of his car dealerships, just the one on Long Island, Like it was a layup, you know, just I mean a running a car dealership that's already been up and going for twenty five years and really successful. And my Dad's like, how about we
buy the new Jersey nets for one million dollars? And my grandpa, again, this is an eighty one is before Burden, Magic took take took the lead off, Lee offf My grandpa count looked at the books and said, this is a disaster. No one should ever, you know, buy an NBA team, Like it makes no sense financial right, But the point is it's the same sort of work ethic where that we we we don't have the perspective of what it was like. We just don't. Okay, So you're
you're you're teaching at a Greek School. You're courch coaching at York. Okay, that season ends, Um, this is two years now that you have been playing and you've been coaching right then? One then I become I find out and I live in Washington Heights, which right across the bridge from Fort Lee, New Jersey. And I had a couple of friends who used phony addresses to go to Fort Lee High School instead of the local high school in Washington Nights, which wasn't very good. So we had
some connection there. They needed a JV coach. I take the job at Fort Lee High School as the JV coach and that's what I did that So that was my first paying job. So you're now are you now? Are you teaching at Fortly High School? You still teaching Greek School? And drive the Greeks go in the Bronx near co Op City, driving to uh Fortly High School every day? Coach? What kind of cars? I had a Honda Civic. Yeah. I had to have a small car because it was it heights. You can't park well, yeah,
Honda Civic because what what what? What? What year? What years is? Oh? This is now uh nineteen sim It's amazing because when we moved to California. In one my dad became text Winners assistant at Lombie State and the car that he gave him recruiting was a nineteen seventy six brown Honda Civic hatchdown mine was like a brownish gold You know what, here's the thing. If you're gonna live it, now you gonna understand. He's the other thing. We were immigrant kids. I lived home till I was eight.
You know now my kids have been OUs is their eighteen. I didn't go away to college. We lived home till we got married. You know what I mean. That's kind of how it was. Um bedroom right, like you want to went to Stanley here, Well, I I shared my brother till I was twenty eight, who was five years younger than me. Yes, really had a two bedroom apartment. Okay, so this is why you dive in because these things I had no idea. Um okay, So so you're at Fort Lee as the JB coach. Who's the varsity coach?
A guy named Chris Anorado. What was he like? Good guy? Good guy? You know he was a little bit older than me, not by me. I was twenty four. Now I'm twenty four years old. Uh, and so he was, you know, good guy treated me good. You know. It was did you help up? You help him with the varsity or you only Yeah, I was kind of like the bars. It was really like he had an assistant under you were the JV coach. You do a JV coach and you were one of the varsities. But he
had a real assistant, you know what I mean. It was with him all the time. I was because I was practicing with them, but I helped him out somewhat. Yeah, I helped him out something. Yeah. So now this is your own team though, first time, and I'm getting paid. I got playing hundred bucks. What are you running? What
are you doing? I'm running the stuff that I did in high school that doing the wheel, doing the wheel and winning with when we won games, we were like you know, well like I think we were like fourteen and eight saving something like that, and you know we're running the wheel and we're winning games six and you know, playing smart, not turning it over, just running the wheel, playing solid, and you know that's that's kind of what we did. But on no siety is I don't know
if you remember what you do? Remember sure that bridge Gate thing with the Christie and the Mayor Affortly. Well, the Mayor Affortly was on my JV thatt Mark style he was. He played for me on that JVT. Anyway, that's amazing. Okay, So you get done with that year. Then I get a call from I said I had
three college coaches from Jack Cameroner. Jack Cameroner had left C C and Y and took over as the head coach at Harry Has Truman High School in the Bronx, and he had left there and left his assistant the job. His assistant now I'm just complicated, tears his a c L. Like three days before practice is supposed to start, he's taking a leave of absence. They need somebody to coach Truman High School for the year. So I said, what
the heck, I'm a JV coach. I'll go. You know, I don't know what I'll do next year, but coach to varsity this year. There and that wen't do it. So that call really changed my life. That one call. This guy tearing his a c L, pull selling town. I'll never forget his name, tears his a c L. I come in, I'm coaching Truman High School for the year, which was we had a really good team in you know, the New York City Class A and the Bronx, and uh,
I loved it. It was great. Just so now you're community so much shorter, right because I'm literally a mile away from Truman High School. So so now you're now now it's close, and now you're coaching at the higher level that you want to. You still run the wheel, still running the wheel, ran the wheel throughout my high school career. Okay, you know, let me say one thing, Doug. It's and I will probably get to this at some point. It's amazing how much I didn't know about basketball when
I was a high school coach. It's amazing, like you were so much. I didn't know you, well, I didn't know you kind of from Afar when you were a kid, but you were so much more well versed in offenses. I knew nothing. And then we'll get to when I learned something. I know nothing. I just been with my high school coach or one of my college goes. I have no assistant and an X and O. I didn't experiment.
This is what I did. Period don't really Well, it's it's interesting because that's what you know I mean it's very normally like you you run what you know, right, coach what you know. But I used to we used
to go to high school games. My dad. My dad wasn't as into X and O's, you know, he was he that he was just you know, he would do the Ralph Miller one for the the love because he coached a year with Ralph and he just wanted guys to play hard and I get highball, screen, share the ball, whatever, Whereas I've always watched basketball, and I had a high school coach that I had to high school coaches, but one which we actually learned almost all the basic offenses
so we knew how to defend them. Like one day we would practice, we'd run flex because so many teams ran flex, you know, and we never actually ran flex, but we just run it for that day, so you know the offense and then if you know it well enough, you know the intricacies out of Anyway, my dad and I used to watch high school games and I played like a game where I try and figure out how long would take for me to figure out what they're running, right,
because everybody ran a pattern because we've gone away from kind of motion or are they running motion whatever. So that's where that And then I played for so many different people. You know, when you start to play professionally, you played for so many different people and there's so many different ways of doing the same thing that if you're paying attention. I remember my last year playing in France, I played for a young African coach and he was
we were talking strategy or someone. I was just like listening, man, just tell me what you want and I'll do it. You don't have to like just tell me basically, like what do you want to do? And I've seen it all, Like I've done it all. Do you want me to look to shoot and score? Do you want to run your office? We want to get the ball to tell them what you like to run and we'll run it. And that's it. You have to worry about nothing. You were about everything else and I'll just do it. And
that was what. It took me a long time to get that confidence to say that to somebody, whereas a lot of times when I was in college it was I still had a fear of God from those those coaches. Okay, so how did it go at Truman High School? Well, the first year we lose in the championship, the Bronx Championship, so we get that's like the equivalent of I guess, uh, you know, maybe the quarterfinals of the City Championship and
we lost to Stevenson High School. Uh Fred Brown. I don't know if you remember Fred Brown of of Georgetown fame who threw the past to Sam to uh James Worthy at the end of the Georgiantown game. He played the Stevens in high school and we lost to them in the Bronx Championship game my first year, and I loved it. I mean it was great coach at that level. And I my best player was a kid named Benji Bowman who went to Florida Southern and played for how Whistle.
They won the National Division to National championship with him as the point guard like two years later. So you know it was. It was a very good high school team, no doubt. Then then we had a couple of years that weren't great. Wait wait, so you stayed there, so the I didn't come back. The guy never came back. The guy let me, I'm sorry I didn't explain this. The guy ended up applying for full disability because he got hurt on the job, so he couldn't come back
and just coach because he was getting disability. So they give me the job. You get disability for an a c L. Yeah, for any imagine that for an a c L. Because he got hurt on the job and got disability for that's a good point. Yes he did. So now I get the job. Next year we make the playoffs. The year after we don't make the playoffs anyway, so I'm skipping ahead in my fourth year. You know,
we're gonna be pretty good, pretty good. And you know, one of the kids comes up to me and says, coach, and I just want to tell you there's a kid he's gonna be he's coming into the school. He's transferring from Rice High School, and he's he's pretty good. So that's great. You know whence he comes out tomorrow, he's gonna start his first day of school at Druman High School. Whatever, Okay, come come to the gym. He comes to the gym, I swear to God that he goes up and down twice.
And I turned to my assistant coach, who was a friend of mine volunteered. I said, yo, I think that's what a pro looks like when he's fifteen years old. It was Rod Strickland, and I'm like this tude. First of all, he was like five nine, like a hundred thirty pounds. But I had never seen anybody bounced that ball like this guy. But it was different. It was it was Yeah, I've seen great ball handlers in my time. No, No, this was something completely different. The way this kid bounced
the ball. He went where everywhere. We went to a drill, Doug, you know, in the half court circle. This guy, I would have two guys in that. You have to stay in the circle at hare court. Two guys could take it from, could take from two guys that are just there trying to take the ball from. He could dribble the ball half an inch off the ground. He could dribble it to feet off the ground. I never saw
anything like a ball forget about both hands. You know, I always tell people, they say, as he's I'll tell you about Rosherville. The same thing with any sport. At one point, he was giving a ball for the first time in his life. Whether he's two, three, four, or five, I don't know how old it was. And the first time he bounced it. He could bounce that thing he just could bounce it and this kid was unbelievable. So we had, you know, we make the playoffs that year,
we're losing the first round. Then the next year's which ends up being my last year at Truman High School, we go eight and to twenty seven and three. We win the New York City Championship and the New York State Championship. And I'm gonna throw something else in there, because Rod Rod was a junior that year and he was our only Division one player. He was obviously a pro. And we were talking about my parents. My father came
to that City championship game. He had to be the proudest guy in the history of the worlds he would come. He was at St. John's University, sold out and he was there and he was on the court with us after the He so, here's a guy who went from not knowing this and when I was coaching at Villanova in those places, he'd have articles in his pocket. Then
he showed his friends, you know what I mean. So he had come full circle about seeing what this wasn't but started really you know, that night at St. John's he saw like, Wow, this is this, this is something that this guy is doing, you know, and so that we won the city and state championship. My last year a Truman school, I went to Villanova is the uh restricted earnings coaches. They called him the guy who, you know, could only make a certain amount of money. So how
did that conversation take place? Well, you know, the funny thing was, I had worked coach massa Mino's camp a couple I knew well all this time that I'm at Truman High School, I'm working five star because I know, you gotta make connections, doun. I am sending resumes all over the country to be a graduate assistant anywhere. I'll go to Lehigh, I'll go to I'll go to California, win in nobody even yet I never even got answers. So I was doing. I knew what I needed to
do to get into college. I wanted to get into college, and I knew what I need to do. I needed to either be a graduate assistant, get to know some people or something. So I started working camps in the summertime. So I worked coach Massamino's camp. I got to know him. But the big thing was, now, all of a sudden, all these people are coming at the end of that year.
They want to talk to me about Rod Strickland, Joey my every coach, and now this kid went and you know, I never I haven't seen this Doug, a kid that was on nobody's radar none to being like the guy everybody wanted. I never saw that. In like six months, nobody heard of him. And then all of a sudden,
is the guy everybody wants. Anyway, So I got to meet all these guys, and Coach Massmino came in and talk to me about Rod, and we had a great I had interviewed for the assistant coaching job at Columbia that I wanted so desperately. I'll never forget, I hinted, and I was telling him, you know, coach, I just interviewed like two days ago at Columbia for an assistance job and he said, okay, as great, So you didn't
think ohing of it. Like two weeks later, Paul Cormier, who was on his staff, gets the head coaching job at Dartmouth, and Mitch bar Girl, who was his topassistant, calls me and says, hey, you know, we have a job open. Are you interested? He said, not, only pays six thousand dollars. Listen, I don't care if I got to pay you. I'm interested. Are you kidding me? So? Okay, So coach Mass. I meet coach Mass at the Princetonian Diner. We have that's where he interviewed. We have a great talk.
I think it went great. Go home. I had just been we had just been married, you know, two years, and uh I go home. I tell Harriet, I said, Harry, I'm telling you this might be it. I can't believe this. I'm trying to get all these jobs at these low level places. Now this is in Villanova, then not what is? He had been to three lead eights, so it's not like they had a great history and tradition. Jack Craft went to the finals against U C. L A and
nineties seven. Bill Nova was big more North Carolina, Bruce big time. So he says, I want you to come down with your wife Sunday, and well, I want to meet her. So I'm like, I'm gonna I gotta beginning his job. Why do you want to be my wife. We're down there eight hours the whole day, we have a great time, the whole thing. I'm very ready to leave. He says, all right, I'm gonna call you this week we leave. We are on clouding and he also got understand we were two kids from New York City, had
never left New York in a lies ever. And so now I'm waiting. First week, you don't call, second week, you don't call, third week. You know, I'm like pupping down. I'm like, I can't believe this, I said. I thought, I'm getting this job. Somebody else gotta be involved in this job. Why why is it taking so long? I get up the nerve to call him, and you know, when you were talking to him, he was like, I do one of these, like coach. I don't mean to bother you, but I just was curious. Any chance you
have an idea. I'm trying to like, do it, soft show it. He said, I'll know next week. But next week comes nothing. Week after I buy, I buy an answering machine. In those days, like answering machines were like high tech. I buy an answer machine to make sure I don't miss this call. Finally calls. I got bad news for you. I'm giving the job to somebody else.
I was crushed, crushed. I've never been I don't know I've been crushed since then, There's no question never that was as big as crushing as I've ever taken in my life. He offered the job to Jerry Wayne. Right, So I'm crushed. I don't even want to go out for like days. Harry tells me, listen, forget this bologne. He go back, start working camps again. You'll get another chance somewhere. The Columbia job didn't working out. In high school job, no, I haven't quit my highchool job. Oh no,
I still had my high school job. But it was like I was so close to the big time. Yet two weeks later, I'm working in Manhattan, man in colleges camp, ironically enough, and my wife calls me on the pay phone because there were no cell phones. Then called on the pay phone and says, you know, I got a message. I think it's coach Massimino. All rights it played for me, and he says, you, god damn Greek, you're still interested?
Call me. I'm like, it's like, honestly, look, it's like you gotta reprieve, like you was so crushed and now it's staying. I call him back and said, you wanted to still want the job? I said yes, He said it's yours. Jerry Waynewright turned it down, and now that's how I end up getting there. Long story, it's amazing. So so you just pack up all your stuff, okay, and you moved to close to campus. It's a beautiful area where no, no, we couldn't, we couldn't live back
close to games. How about this, the restrict their earnings. Coach before me, who got elevated now to a nice, good paying job for those days, certainly you know what I mean, gave me his He had this car that used to call the bomb. The players still tease me about. It was a nineteen eight in power. Okay. So, um, you show up at Villanova. What was that like? What's it like? Raleigh Massimina? What was it? What was it like? Let me tell you something I am. Okay. First of all,
he used to tease me all the time. We went out to dinner the first night I was on the job with the staff. He always believed in dinners with the wives and everybody. And I'll never a good sitting next to me and he goes, I just want you to know. He points his finger, like right in my face. You just went from being Mickey Mouse to Mickey mantle and I said, hey, I hear you. I know that. And he used to he used to teach us, to call you a high school Harry. You would teach me
because I knew Doug. These guys would sit in the office and X and O, and I swear to gun. By the time I figured out where the first past one they raised it diagram and something else, I was lost completely. That's what I'm trying to tell you about you your knowledge. I had no knowledge they were X and oh, and I didn't even know what they were talking about. And I said, well, I got a lot. I got me a lot of work to do here, I can tell you that. So I realized very quickly
what I didn't know. And if you don't know what you don't know, you ain't never gonna learn it. And so I was. I got the sneakers. I used to drive two hours to pick up Coach massamenos cheese. Uh you know what, wait, hold on his cheese. He had a certain you know, he was a pasta freak, and he had to have this certain cheese on his pasta
every so every so often. I had to drive to like, you know, Allentown, Pennsylvania out that way and to get him this cheese from this particular Italian stuff store before it was a Pecorino Romano. Now you no, no, no, Um, that's that's that's what we get. I forget the name of it. Forget the name of it. But yeah, so he had to have the specific cheese. So every so often I'd have to make the right to pick up the cheese. Um, get the sneakers. I did the academics.
I did the academics and uh talk, but I really Doug knew nothing. We would do Scotti reports and he he always wanted to make sure you weren't allowed to have notes when you were an assistant coach, like you better know that whole thing by heart, and you better have every and one thing about him. He was the film freak. So if there was something that report, if someone wasn't in that report, that dude would find it because he was watching tape after tape after tape. He
would find it. And if it wasn't in there, you were dead man. Okay. So nine four your first year, okay at Villanova, Um, you had but ed Pittney Blaine Blaine, you had Harold Pressy, Gary McClain. Right, this is this is the team. This is the team. But this is your first year college basketball. Okay, I think all anybody knows is one game, right is one game? What was that? You're actually like, well, you know, we we underachieved that people expected. I mean, we were nine seats, so there
you go, you know what I mean. So people we we were we underachieved for the year. And coach Mass was disgusted with these guys. He was, really, how about this. We played Pittsburgh on national television on CBS, last game of the regular season. We are getting drilled with down twenty, and at halftime he comes in the locker room and says, you guys, got three minutes. You don't do something, you're out for the rest of the game. Sure enough, three
minutes out. Everybody national TV. You don't care. Everybody's sitting on the bench. We get drilled. We go to New York, now the Big East Tournament. We play St. John. We win the first game. Forget who we played. We play St. John. Second game, drilled. Chris Mullen and those guys Walter Barry killed us. We go to his house after the game. He said, thank god, I got one more game with these guys. Because they're driving me nuts. I can't they
go on to win the championship. As he said, I got one more game because he felt like we're gonna make it, but just barely, because those space if you're a nine C, he could just barely made it. Isn't a large team, the only sixty four teams then, and uh, we thought it was gonna be short. And you know what, Doug is funny because people tell me you need momentum coming into the tournament. Oh no, no, you need momentum during the turn. Okay, so your first game, it was
the two point game with Dayton. You guys are eight C by the way, nine to nine, they were enough. What do you what do you remember about the game? I remember, first of all, Don donoher was a great coach, and he's he was kind of low in the philosophy that I was telling you about with my wheel and the way my this guy there was no clock. You knew you were and we're by the way, we're playing them on their floor. We're playing Dayton at Daton on
their home court. So now we know we're in for a battle because these guys, you know, the way they play, they don't make mistakes. They're gonna run the system all the way through. Tight game. Twenty seconds they go, they got the they're holding for the last shot. We make a steal and we make a layup with like five seconds deal win the game. Otherwise that home they're holding for the last shot on their home court. We make
a steel and make a layp We went. Next game, now we're feeling like, yeah, you know, like you said, we were the eight day were the nine toss up game we want? Thankfully. Now we're playing Roy Tarpley, Antoine Hubert, Michigan. They were the number one seed, and we played them in the second game and we play unbelievable. They gonna understand Twayne McClain was a pro, Pickney pro, Presley pro. We had a good team, we just didn't play great
that year. We beat Michigan. Now we're starting to feel like, WHOA, something's going on here. Next game Len Bias, Wow, Maryland. He had toured we played them during the regular season. He had had like thirty five. The only game of his career I believe where he was not in double figures was that NC Tournament game. We were defensively, we were unbelievable. Was that the last game was that the last game of his life. They express that was his
That was his first year. His next year we played him again, so though that was his first year of what what was he like? If you were if you were to give the analysis like to today analysis that he was what is he? He was the best player, like the best player I had ever seen up and he was the best player that I had ever seen up to that point. You know, well him and Patrick Ewing, because Patrick Ewing was in the Big East in those days. He was I always felt like in my lifetime, Patrick's
you know right there. So he's not what six eight six nine six six could You know in those days when you saw six a six nine got a good shoot, you never saw that these guys you six a six nine, you're playing inside in those days, no three point line. Every think this guy can step out and make seventeen footers. You could put it on the floor. Yeah, you felt like this guy is gonna be an all time great, no doubt about it. I mean he put thirty five
on us a couple of times in regular season games. Okay, so you beat Maryland, then who's next? Now you gotta say it? So here I am who would have died to be the assistant coach of Columbia. And now we play in North Carolina to go to the final four. So they got Kenny Smith, they got you know, I for got who the other obviously they have guys. You know what I made it. So we're playing then to go to final fourt and I'll never forget this dog. So we're sitting outside by the way. You forgot that
you beat Michigan. You played Dayton and then Maryland. Okay, so you played Carolina. Carolina has Kenny Smith, Brad Doherty, Joe Wolf, Buzz Peterson, Dave Popson, h Ranzino Smith, Curtis Hunter from Warren Martin. Okay, good, but not not like an all time team. You guys smelled him. We're down ten at half time or eight a half. We're down at half time. By year, down five and half seventeen seventeen. You outscore him thirty nine two in the second half.
Did Steve Lapp has come in as a restricted earning this guy and make the adjustments? No, I think it's funny thing go ruling. Massima made one of his most famous speeches at half time. The guy, guys were all up tight, and they weren't. He said, you know what, you guys, all I want right now is a big poll of pasta with liguini and clam sauce. That's what I want right now, and that I swear to God said it a half time and everybody started laughing. Whatever. Now is that why we went out and beat the
heck out of the second? I don't know, but that's what he said. He's the thing. Before the game, we're sitting outside the locker room with the coaches. We're talking and who's coming down the hallway towards Dean Smith? Not for me. I'm like, this is ridiculous. I was cooking high school last year. Dean Smith walks down. He says, Hey, Hi Roley, Hi Mitch. She knew the assistance him Mark. He know me. I never met him, said hey, high coach. I'm like, Dean Smith called me coach. Oh my god,
I'm like, I'm beside him. We're playing North Carolina, go to final four. Last year was in the Bronx and you know what, we're playing the Lemon High School and sure enough we played great. Now we're going to the Final four Alexican to Kentucky course. Famously there's three big easte tames. The other one other than Georgetown, was St. John's that had Chris Smullen, that had Walter Walter Berry March Jackson like that was at all time, all time
teams all time. So you're getting ready for the finals and you're gonna play Georgetown. Now you played them what three times previously to that year, but twice or three times every year while Patrick was there and Edie pick he was there, so we were there was no all factor. They beat us by once by two and once by six that year, close one possession games. Role. He played those teams great every time and beat him the year
before once at the buzzer. So our guys like pick the youing what you gotta I think I think if somebody else, uh Doug played Georgetown from somewhere else in the country, they were intimidating, but they weren't intimid dating. Does We played him every year? Eddie picked me as a software at twenty seven points, at twenty two rebounds against Patrick Ewing any game, so he knew he could play against Patrick. Yeah, Patrick's better, and there's no question,
but you know, we knew we could play. So I know they call it the greatest episode of all time, but I gotta be honest with you. We thought we could win. We never were like, wow, this is gonna be no. We said if we do this, this and this, we can win. Now, the fact is we shot sev one by two free till life was that. How did you keep him off the free till line? Zone? Played him all zone. They were not a good jump shooting team. It wasn't a good zone coach either. And you know
what the funny thing was Patrick as great. You know, it's funny Patrick. He made a crazy transformation because in college he was a defensive force, you know, dominating games defensively. Yeah, but people forget that about Elijah are right, Like Elijah Onan is known for the dream shake. When he was in college, all I did was dunking block shots, right, That's Patrick did. He became a much better offensive player. You know, in the NBA. He never made these shots
that he made the NBA. When you were at NOVED, I was at Notre Dame. We played them and we had never practiced zone as a team. A day of practice the day before he played Georgetown, we put in a little two three zone and we nearly beat him. It was the same, and it was it wasn't that he wasn't Every coach has his strengths and weaknesses. I don't feel like he was a great zone coach. You know. They were incredibly physical, they were tough minded, they played hard.
They played hard like those guys played hard, all right. And and they weren't talkers, right, I didn't feel like they were talking. They weren't timid, but they weren't intimidateing because they were talking trash right like. But I didn't feel like there was anything special about what he did against his own and they just first guy that got it shot him. So you win this game. It's your first year coaching in college, okay, and you you guys beat Lefty right, uh uh, Let's meet Steve Fisher and
I mean not uh Freeder? Right, be Donna her at Dayton at Dayton, okay, and then you and you beat Dean Smith and now you beat John Thompson and Pat Ewing. You guys win a national title. Well for you, what are your personal memories? When that buzzer sounds, you look out that you got sixty six and they got sixty four. Well, the funny thing is they have that famous clip where as soon as the game's over, on like the first
guy that gets coach man. So that a little bit that well living in for me, as they say, you know, but just it was surreal, like it's like it did you know, it feels like it didn't happen sometimes, but obviously it did. I remember walking to the press County coach mass afterwards, you know, he's going to meet the media, and I said, I was posting his chop saying what's
so hard about this? He clunched me in the arms are So I will tell your memory I have is there was a Sports Illustrade article right where I think it was Dwayne McClean, right, he admitted to using using coke like throughout the tournament. Gary McClain, Oh, Gary Clay, I'm sorry, Gary mclett, not not doing Gary mcclett. Um as as a young coach, right, the young coach, you're supposed to be the eyes and years and know what's going on, Like did you know any of this stuff
was going on? Boy, Doug, that's a you know, that was like a dark time for us. You know, it was first of all, I think to this day. It's the longest article ever written in Sports Illustrate, was six six pages long, and we heard when it was coming out. Coach Mass was devastated. We were all devastated. Was Gary mcclein doing cocaine? Yeah? I mean I think a lot of kids were doing a lot of things in those days. Was he high in cocaine every day? I don't think so.
But now the other thing is, and Gary is you know, I can tell you this is a fact. Sports Illustrated paid him forty dollars for the article, So I don't know does that was? It was? Also and again this is very important. It is a very different time. Okay, I never I've never seen cocaine in my life. Okay, But the following year, Len Bias or two years later, right us later, Len Bias is the second pick of the traffic and save the Boss, Tell the Sea died.
He died like what I believe is from like cocaine. And that was like the wake up call to all athletes. Like that was the in my childhood. Don't do drugs? Was was was because of that, right, don't have unprotected sex because magic got HIV? Right, These are the learning lessons, But you have to like now if you hear guys use cocaine and cost but eighties different just different time was everywhere thou me, that's what they did. So I know,
won't I won't say a name. I know there was a prominent, very very prominent coach at a very problement school. And we can talk about this off air, but um that I believe he was let go because they caught him using cocaine in his office, right like it was? Is that it was. That was the early to mid eighties, and I frankly think that len Bias, while he tragically passed away, probably saved a lot of dudes lives. And because it was it all of a sudden, it became
much more taboo and it wasn't previously. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. So you know that that was that came a couple of years later after the championship when that article came out, and that was that was Coach Mass felt really betrayed, really betrayed. And it kind of took for the time being, it took a little bit of the because we were kind of a field good story villain still are you know, I mean, I hate I hate bringing up. But but it's part that it was.
It was a huge thing at the time, huge huge, Um you get done with that season? When did you get bumped up the full time? So now Mitch barter Euro leaves and goes becomes the head coach of Fairfield and so roll he puts me on the road for like until he figures out what he wants to do. And I'm devastated. He decided not to give me the job. He decided not to move me up. He brings in John Olives. I remember remember John Oliver, of course, so he brings in John Allen. John Olives was his first recruit.
Did I understand? I understood. I didn't like it. I didn't like it. I was divis I was I was upset, I said, But the truth is I showed up on campus in August. It's April. He basically knows me for four months and now he's gonna hire his first recruit. So he hires John Alive and I'm in the same job. But I swore that I may be number three, but
I won't be number three. I'll be number two. I'm going to come in there and I'm gonna be able to do all the Scott my X and knows had become finally and more I've worked at it got good. I was able to do things. So he was able to lean on me. I knew that, and so that's kind of what I was alwayel like. So so before
that you were the wheel offensively? What was what was ROLLI? Well, first of all, I gotta say this a defensive um like a man scientist, like he loved sitting in that office for eight hours, does ten hours and just figure out ways to screw. He would get a kick out of, Hey, they had no idea what we're doing. That was his like that that gave him the biggest thrill. So like when he Diamond one trying on to and a man, no, yeah, start zone. Get them to run their their their zone offense,
go man, a man show man. Get them start doing it and making it look like we're zone. I mean, the ball gets passed to the right way, and we're gonna do this is the ball gets passed to the left way with that and you gotta have you gotta they understood the system and they were smart kids. You can't you can't just you can't do that. You can't do that with dumb kids. You gotta do with smart kids. You gotta do it with smart kids. And these guys,
I'll tell you what. When you left there as a player, it's like you you knew basketball Like those guys when they were twenty one years old and I was twenty one years old. They had a pH d In basketball. I had another. So they were tremenous. That's what he did. Offensively, Coach Mass wasn't a great offensive coach. You know why because you know I always said this that you can be impetuous and reactionary defensively, but if you're impetuous and
reactionary offensively, it's not good. He didn't have patience if this play didn't work. Now we're getting new him. Whereas defensively, a lot of times even sometimes we were screwed up doing what we were doing, but the other team was screwed up doing what we were in the idea he loved. So he's very he's very obviously animated and passionate. Okay, before, when you're in high school and you're coaching at Truman, were you the same or did you kind of take
on some of his mannerisms? Hey, when I was coaching in the Greek League. I led the thing in technical files. I was bad. So you gotta understand there's nobody in the gym, and I'm screaming like a man man in these Greek League games. I was crazy. No coach mass had another to do with me. Who I was? I was? So who is the who is the other assistant? He had Marty mooreback, who became the head coach of Canisius. He left. You know, I was in the restrict I
was only an assistant for four years. I only recruited for one year. I was restricted earnings for three years, and then Marty left my fourth year and now it was me John Olive and Jay Wright came. What was Jay? Like? Jay was? You know the swap? But what would you do even even then? Like he came by buck Now. Now buck Now is very very proper school. And I don't know what Bucknell was like then, but buck Now cool, little town, very cool school. Kind of feels not Ivy League,
but feels a little a little upper upper crust. Okay, So like when he walked in the doors, restricted earning, this guy or the third assistant, then was he already put together or was it? Was there a transformation. Oh no, he was always put together. I hired him to work our camp. He was an assistant at the time at Rochester Division three school, and I hired him to work, ok because he was from the area. And I'm the one and I'm the one that told Rolie you gotta
hire this guy, you gotta hire this guy. So he was, oh, you know, the personable swab. What you see. Imagine when he was like twenties six, you know what I mean, that's what you want seven And it's the same way, look better, probably because he's younger. Amazing. Okay, so how did you get the Manhattan job? So now we went to we I'm there four years, Manton job opens up, Manhaton job. Get understand that was what was lasting Division one,
worst job in the country. They had one seventy games the ten years before I got there, and had four coaches. The whole bit. It was Roly said, you're crazy, that is the worst job. You can't go there. You got a month, you'll get a better job in that. It started on the island of Manhattan. Yeah, in the Bronx. And so he gave me a list. He said, here's ten things if they got to do every one of
those things that you're taking the job. So, I mean with the athletic director in Philadelphia, I tell him the list of things that I think you need to do if you want to be any good. He comes back, he says, we'll do them all. And one of them was like put they had the tartan floor in those days, put a wood cordon. Who was gonna cause him like sixties seventy grand me? That was a lot of money back in. They did every one of them. So I said, you know what, and I grew up five minutes from there.
I said, you know, coach, I'm gonna take it. He thought it was nuts, And you know, gradually we built it up. My last hold on job at Manhattan College. What your dad said? He was he was retired then he was so happy. He came to the press conference. He was retired, so he would get on the bus every day and come watch practice. He had nothing else to do because he was retired, so he'd come up and he was able to take the bus there and
come to practice every day. And he would joke on me because one of my things I always said was how are you up? How are you up? And he knows it. How do you? How do you? You always imitate me? So, yeah, he loved it. He came to all the games, came to practice, loved it. You didn't. I didn't know anything, really, but I loved watching. There's no that lay in in in Hebrew or in Israel they say y'alla. Now y'alla is actually Arabic for like let's go, right, But they say like yalla in in
Russia and you say divide. There's no Greek for let's go. Yeah, that means how can how came you? You never you know? I always went with English. No my players, yeah, absolutely, and some explutives and stuck in there in between two. Okay. I so now it's been four years since you've been a head coach. Okay, but you learned from the master. You've been to the peak, right, and you've watched all these big East coaches, you know, sitting on that bench like the best of the best of the best. How
were you different? How had you evolved from Truman High School to Manhattan College? Well? I was. I was way different. Now I've learned so much more about the game and excess nose and Scott me what we did scouting wise at Villanova and if funny thing does was I did a lot of things that coach mass Me did defensively but offensively. I became the opposite he wanted. He wanted to call every single play. I went to motion, and I had never been exposed to motion. I was I
used to. I was watching Bobby Knights tapes and all these different Dean Smith's tapes to figure out how I wanted to play on offense because I was like, if we can stop these plays because of great scouting, then why am I gonna run set plays? I'm gonna run something that can't be scouted. And that's why motion. If you have great motion. I thought we had pretty good motion at Villanova in Manhattan. If you run good motion, you can't scout it. Why don't Why don't people run motion? Now?
You know it's I don't know. I really don't know. When I mean, people are running more sets and things like that. I don't know why people aren't running motion like they used it. There was there was a time can offer up a offer up a hypothesis. Okay, now, just you know, like Fran McCaffrey, who's Philly guy. We both know very well. He and I know they lost the other night or whatever, but he's one of the
few that run motion. I've had other coaches tell me like, that's one reason they're so hard to care for is they're doing something that like what do we do here? Coach, like, bro, you just gotta play basketball. I would say, there's there's three things that come to my mind. One is the transferring, okay, because you gotta and it actually, let's start at the start.
The first thing is how they're taught at a young age. Right, every kid now has a trainer, and every trainers teaching them have to play how to play against a cone one on cone right, how to play ball string, how to score man a man, how to how to play downhill. You know, we don't teach kids how to read a screen and how to move and set our feet, right, we don't. So how they taught at a young age and then transition them to college and you don't have them for as long period time if you have a
kid for a couple of years. You know, I remember I got another dame, like I kind of I knew I'd run some motion in high school, but I just remember the first two weeks, three weeks of practice like I couldn't I couldn't stop the other guy, and I couldn't get a shot because I didn't know how to
play really kind of play basketball with an emotion. But once you get it, you're like, this is the best because there's no set pattern, right, you can just read a screen, read your man, and you're like working together. But I don't think teams by and large are cohesive enough because they're going they transfer where they go, pro whatever, and coaches feel that and know that it's even though it's better to run motion, they don't feel stable enough
to to implement it and to have guys struggle. Whereas if you put them in a ball screen, they all know how to play a ball screen and their their their personal skill comes out. You know what, I never that. I never thought because the truth is about motion. Motion is kind of like you have to be committed to it and as a program you gotta get you get better at it every year, and guy get better at it. I tell my asist, I said, you know when we
you know when where we're gonna be. Where I want to be when our guys played pick up and they run in motion, real motion, teach guys how to play. Bobby Knight said, I took it from him. Teach guys how to play, don't teach him place. And that's kind of where we were. Okay, So your your career at Manhattan College is like, that's how you're supposed to do it, right.
You come in your first year, you win seven games, your last year you win, right, and those are all the guys that you initially recruited, right, How many of those guys from your first recruiting class were there for the fourth year for when you when you got when you won everyone and not only that, when I left to go to Villanova after that year, they were all seniors. The following your friend for Sheila took him to the n c A Tournament. We lost at the Buzzer to
Lisalle in the mac j issues game. That year with my last year there and the year we went and then we lost the Notre Dame in the quarterfinals of the n I t and then all those guys were back. They were all juniors. Day he lost in the quarterfying you could have gotten play in the garden, yes, oh yeah, they had a Lofonso yeah, Elmer Bennett, yeah, uh and one more big time player. I forget it was named Dammit. There were three. It was a big freesome. They called
it Damian Sweet. It was Damian He was the third guy. Yes, and based on Billy Billy Taylor, who's very good coaching. He's at He's at Iowa. Now, Um, Carl Cozeno, I got, I got a great story. I guess lamar justice. Okay, Keith Tower is a true story. Okay, Keith Tower, he's from Moon, Pennsylvania. We recruited him. That's funny. Uh, Keith Tower my first year at my first year Notre Dame, Keith Towers in the NBA. Right, he comes back to play with us, and we used to play in the pit.
The pit is now there's now basketball practice facility in the basement of of of the arena that used to be called the pit. That's where we warm up, that's we have practice some days. It was like our auxil region. So here I am punk kids Southern California. Highly tried to recruit and we start playing pickup ball and I'm not in the first game, and now I'm not in the second game, and so I get in like the third game. I played a little bit in them off.
I don't win him off. And this happens a couple of different days, and so finally I go to France and I was like Fran, like, fun did I come here for? Like you told me? I'm gonna start right away, and I'm not even in pickup games. We don't control pickup games. You want to get in the game, get in the game. So so Keith is doing this whole seniority thing right, like if Fawns comes and plays, he's gonna play. If Keith, if any of these guys come play, and the freshman, you guys just get him when we
tell you to get in. We got like five right me a, Tony Weish, Gary Bell, uh, Phil Hickey. Right, we're all just like rereading class and we can't get in pickup teas. So finally they're playing one day and I just stand on the court and the game ends and I'm just staying on the court and he's like, what do you do it? And I said, I'm playing next game called game I have game. No you're not, you're not. You don't have credit outs. It's all right,
you guys play. I'm not moving. So they started playing pick up and I'm there shooting jump shots at the freezer line. Finally they stopped and one of the guys sits out and I get get into the game. And after that it was never it was never an issue ever again. It was like one of those you gotta stand up for yourself moments. Yeah, you gotta do that once in a while. You gotta do it once a while. Okay,
So take me through going from Manhattan College. You lose in the quarterfinals of the n I. T Okay, this is right where you grew up. You finally got a roll in. When did you get to Villanova? Call? Well, originally they had wanted to hire Pete Gillen first. Pete gill and was also a rolely assistant for a couple of years, and then Pete decided he didn't want it, and then they called me. So it's probably two weeks later, and it was you know, like, so so this is
so you get Are you finished playing yet? Are you still playing? Like? I don't know the time we're finished? We're finished playing. This is at the end of the season. So what time beer is it? Like? How how late did it happened? Well, and I'll tell you a funny story that uh about when I signed my extension in Manhattan when I when I went to Manhattan College, one of the things that I asked for was uh an interest free loan, because, uh, you couldn't buy a house
in New York. I mean, I wasn't making enough wind money to buy a house. And so they put in the contracts, Okay, we'll give me give you this loan, interest free loan wasn't that big, but it was enough down payment. And if you made your first house, my first house, my second half. No, I had houses in assistant in Villon. So then, uh, they put in the contract, We're gonna give you this loan, and if you make the n s a tournament, will forgive along. Wow. So
now and he lost in the buzzer shot buzzer. But now here's the thing. The president of the school walks in my office the next day. You know, it brings tears to my eyes when I think about it, he says, Coach, I just want you to know this. We didn't put that in the contract so that you would suffer from some kid missing a shot or making a shot or whatever. But if you did what we you did what we wanted you to do. Here, we'll forgive him a loan. Wow, and I felt and then two weeks later I left. Okay,
So who calls you? Um, the athletic director Tennesseeto, who has since passed away. He calls me, that calls you. Okay, this is now. We're in the now. We're in the nineties, right, So he he calls you on your office phone, home phone, home phone, call me on my home phone and said did you pick it up or Harry pick it up? I picked it up and he said I But he there were a couple of big time boosters who told
me the calls coming. So it wasn't a surprise when I got the call because I had these friends at Villanova had made while I was there as an assistant that warned me and said, you're looking good. He's gonna call you. Okay, So he calls you, calls for you. Now I know. Now you got understand in this to at Villanova event not now so much the athletic that it comes down to the president, not the athletic director. Right. The head priest is the guy who's making a decision
out who's coaching the basketball team. Now, I don't know how it is now they haven't got to do it in twenty years. So but then that's how it was. So the athletic that called me, but the president wanted to see me. Okay, so you shaw, you pack the car and you go see him. Did you did you tell how did you handle with Manhattan today? Did Did they know that they were talking? You're talking they knew that the one place that I would leave for was that. Okay,
Well they kind of knew it from the beginning. I said, listen, I love it here. It's his home for me. You know, my wife's from me here, we're from here. We love it. But if something happening to Villanova, that's all bets are off. Um, So you go meet with the president. What was it like? It was? You know? Uh? He said to people afterwards about me, He said, I liked him because of the
fire he had in his belly. So you know, you can imagine knowing me, you know how I am with this kind of stuff, and you know the fact that I was there, the fact that you know I left there and people like me, you know what I mean, help obviously, And I think I think actually means. I think it actually means more than getting any other job, just because saying we really liked you at you personally, We've seen what you've done, but we know you. I actually think it speaks more to when you can get
a job at a place that you've been before. Yeah, I think you're a percent right, You're right. So and then you know, um Um he told me, you know, I'd like to hire you, and I was like, I couldn't believe it. You know, I did believe it obviously because I knew kind of had a feeling that this was for him to call me in it was gonna happen. But there were other guys involved, you know, Mike Jarvis, they were talking to, They had talked to Nick mccartchick Uh,
they had talked to Uh. I confused the park Hill that was at Penn State, Bruce park Hill, Bruce Um. Those were the main three other guys. Okay, so so last thing. That's the end of part one. Okay, how did you handle it with leaving Manhattan terms of the assistants, in terms of talking to the president, in terms of talking to the players, because it has become a big topic of conversation with is how you leave. I mean, I was very upfront with them from the beginning who
as I got that first call. As soon as they heard Roy left, they knew I had told him. I said, listen, if something happened. I don't know if anything's gonna happen, but if something happens, it's Villanova. And they understood. They were told the athletic director of Villo at Manhattan and the president would and this to me always they understood completely was the problem. You know, I felt so bad for them kids. They came there when the place was nothing.
Now we had this thing going last. How about this the last game in Draggy. Now you can understand this. When I get to Draggy, when I get to Manhattan. We played my first game against Hofstra. Butch Van Bredakoff is the coach. There's fifty people in the gym for my first game as a head coach. I walked in the gym for the game, I said, what did I do? I come in this fifty people. My last game at home, two thousand people sold out. They were scalping tickets out.
I who playing Wisconsin Green Bay. Tony Bennett was playing for his father and we we won that game at the Buzzer. And that's when we went and played uh Rutgers, beat them with the buzzer at Rutgers and then lost another Dame. Okay, so that's Part one. That's just him getting to Villanova. Getting to Villanova, he's been a part of the national championship team, been an assistant coach, been head coach in Manhattan, talked about his kind of own
personal journey. Part two will be coaching at Nova, losing the job at Nova, going to U mass getting into television, and now having a son who's a coach. All of that's up coming in the next one. By the way of the Doug got Leave Show is twelve to three Eastern time, Pacific Coast time, three to six Eastern time, Fox Sports Radio, I Heart Radio app. Wherever you download this podcast, you can download that as a podcast as well. Thanks so much for listening, and thanks to Steve Lapis.
We'll have him join us for part two. That's next time on All Ball