Legendary coach John Wooden has said, “Sports do not build character, they reveal it.” This does not only hold true for players, it also holds true for coaches.
Coaching, it isn’t about the money, it isn’t about the shoe deals, it’s about the ability to lead. The ability to lead young players into the heat of battle against insurmountable odds and have them play like there is no tomorrow. They have to follow the coach’s every word with no questions and no hesitation. It isn’t war, but it might as well be, because the players are essentially putting their young lives in the coach’s hands.
The players and coaches of college basketball today have to develop a working relationship on and off the court. Players have to trust the coaches, not only about basketball, but about life.
Coaching college basketball isn’t as simple as it used to be. Players are not always as responsive to coaches, and the NBA is always lurking about. But, in every successful program today coaches and players are co-existing.
Recent champions such as Duke, Arkansas and UCLA all had coaches who players liked and trusted. Current Saint Louis University assistant coach Cameron Dollar played on the 1995 UCLA national championship team under head coach Jim Harrick and assistant coach Lorenzo Romar. Dollar described Harrick as, “A father figure to his players who has been through so many wars and seen so much that he knows how to win.”
“Coach Harrick was excellent at letting his players play and developing a relationship with them,” Dollar said. An interesting combination indeed. Good relationships with trusting players resulted in a national championship.
Harrick has gone far away from the West Coast and is the head coach at the University of Georgia. “The biggest part of coaching is to be able to communicate your thoughts and ideas to the players, and to know how to teach with good methods, good discipline and good planning,” said Harrick.
When asked to describe Romar, Harrick said, “He is such a hard worker, he is relentless at recruiting and does a great job. He relates well to the young players and they love him.”
Dollar described Romar similarly to the way he described Harrick. “Coach Romar is a father figure in that he cares about the guys as a friend to them. He treats you like he treats his friends. Coach Romar has a great work ethic, great people skills, and he is fabulous at dealing with people, especially alumni and recruits,” Dollar said.
In his time under Harrick, Romar learned a lot about coaching. “Coach Harrick knew exactly what he wanted. He knew how to get the most out of his players because he was a players’ coach,” Romar said.
To Romar, the keys to being a successful coach are “a competent staff, communication, and being knowledgeable about the game.”
Throughout his coaching career Romar has learned some important things about interacting with his players, “They [the players] don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
It is true. Players won’t play with all their heart and put all their trust in the coach unless they believe that they actually make a difference to him. Because of this, coaches today have to prove themselves to the players as much as the players have to prove themselves to the coaches.
Has coach Romar proven himself to his players? Sophomore Josh Fisher was supposed to go to Pepperdine University when Romar was the head coach there. But when Romar decided to leave, so did Fisher. Fisher is now a key part of the Billikens and is only here because he believed in a coach that he hadn’t even played a game for.
Of course, all of this doesn’t guarantee success. There are plenty of personable coaches across the country that lose often. And there are those coaches that like to treat their players like children. They can win too, but normally only if their zero-tolerance policy allows them to.
Romar is in his second season at SLU now, and the Billikens are enjoying great success. The Billikens are 5-1 and just finished a sweep of the Pacific Coast Conference for the year. SLU made a trip to the NCAA Tournament last year, and SLU is the defending Conference USA tournament champion.
If the pattern holds, who knows how successful the Billikens could be? With trusting players who are busting their butts and a coaching staff working their tails off the Billikens could enjoy success similar to that of other powerhouses across the country.
As John Wooden said, “Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.”
One thing is clear. SLU’s coaching staff has the character and the team does have the ability to succeed.
