Interview with Brian Donoher

An Interview with Wright State Assistant Brian Donoher

by Bill Kintner

They talk about Brian’s playing days, his legendary father, the Wright State Raiders and his new life in Dayton.

It all started with a voicemail I left for Coach Donoher. A few days latter he called back and we set up a time for the interview. I arrived a few minutes early, and waited in his office for him to arrive. I saw photos of his family and his playing days at University of Dayton. There was a big stack of VCR tapes in the corner, some books on a shelf and a calendar on the wall with a bunch of notes on it. It pretty much looked like the office of a busy guy. A guy involved in recruiting a top 40 recruiting class.

He arrived and apologized for being a few minutes late. After we talked a little bit about the program we jumped into the interview. He was very easygoing, open and even appreciative in answering the questions I tossed his way. In this interview you will find a well-grounded man who is now getting an opportunity to practice his trade in his hometown.

Brian Donoher is the son of the legendary University of Dayton Coach Don Donoher. He had a front row seat and later an active roll as a player in one of the storied programs of the Mid-west.

Bill Kintner: How did you become a coach at Wright State? Did you seek out the job or did it find you?

Brian Donoher: I sought it out. A friend of mine, Monte Mathis who worked with Paul at Ohio State and I were talking. He helped me get the ball rolling with Paul. This is my hometown and my wife is from here. Our parents are getting a little older. We thought the Wright State job would be a good opportunity. You don’t get the opportunity very often to coach in your hometown. We felt this was a good situation for me professionally. Paul and I hooked up and I am very grateful that he hired me.

Kintner: Did you know him before you were interested in this position?

Donoher: I knew him a little from recruiting where you see a lot of coaches out on the recruiting trail. So I knew what a great guy he was and what a great job he did. I was out of coaching for two years and living in Columbus. It was during those two years that Ohio State made their Final Four run and I was able to watch them play a lot. I really respected how they ran their program.

Kintner: Was it hard being out of coaching?

Donoher: Yeah, but I chose to do it. But it was exciting to do something different. I got married during that time. It did give me the feeling that I could get a job outside of basketball doing anything. Hopefully next time someone will have to tell me to leave before I tell myself to leave.

Kintner: Was that part of the agreement with your wife that you would get back into coaching?

Donoher: We talked about during our engagement period. At that time she lived in Columbus and had a great job. Financially it was a great move. She didn’t care either way what I did. So it has been good for us.

Kintner: What coaching duties are you responsible for?

Donoher: Coach Biancardi has the duties broken up with Coach Greer handling a lot of the scouting. Coach Huckleby and myself do some scouting. But our primary responsibility is the recruiting. You kind of do it all. We are all involved in all coaching areas. We meet a lot to discuss what we are going to do. We all give our input but ultimately Coach Biancardi has to make the call.

Kintner: When you are recruiting what are you looking for?

Donoher: Sometimes you just see a kid once, so you can’t get caught up in how many points he scores. He might have just had a bad night shooting, which all players do from time to time. You can’t just come back and say “he is a bad shooter because he was 5 for 15 that night.” You have to watch and see the whole thing. I like to get there during warm ups to see him shoot. You try to watch the little things like passing. You watch his attitude; you want to see if he is sulking. Sometimes you do take a chance with a kid who has an attitude and you hope you can change that. You want to see if he is a kid who shoots a lot. You can always pull the reins of a kid who shoots too much. But you can’t help a kid who doesn’t shoot a lot. You’ve got to watch and see their personality. You want to see if they talk, if he is a leader and if he does the little things. That is what is going to take him over the edge from being an average player to being a good player?

Kintner: How does the recruiting process start? Does it start with recruiting services, calls from high school coaches or camps?

Donoher: Everything, all the above! Sometimes you are at a camp and you just see a kid. The kid just intrigues you so you start making calls and doing the ground work on him. I am on the Internet every day. That is something I learned from Coach Biancardi. Before I check my e-mail I am checking the web to see what’s going on in recruiting. You can get a lot of information but following up is the key.

Kintner: What web sites do you keep an eye on?

Donoher: The web sites are the ones that we subscribe to with the scouting services, you know, I am responsible for Ohio and Indiana and Coach Huckaby for Ohio and Michigan. You know that is our base of where we are trying to look. Obviously Prepspotlight, Indiana Basketball News, and then there’s links off of HoopScoop, JucoJunction — just keeping abreast of knowledge.

Kintner: How good are they? Are some more accurate than others or do you find them all about the same?

Donoher: You can trust those people and a guy like John Stovall does a great job. He’s at a million games. Sometimes John might see a player differently than we might see a player. Everybody’s got their different evaluations, you know, if it was the same then everyone would have the same type of teams. You respect, you follow, and you look at John – you still got the names and everything – he might just have a kid higher rated than you might have them or lower rated or sometimes you guys might feel the same way.

Kintner: Do you look for trends, like if everyone’s saying the same things about a guy it is probably right?

Donoher: Most certainly, because you still have to do the background stuff. Because sometimes you are watching a kid play and you aren’t getting the off the court stuff and everything, which parlays into a lot of factors in how a kid might develop.

Kintner: Go back to your start as a player. Was there any doubt, with your dad as the famous University of Dayton coach that you were not going to play at Dayton?

Donoher: Yeah, he had asked me when I was a sophomore in high school where I wanted to go to school. I liked Miami; I thought that league would maybe fit me more and it would give me more of an opportunity to play, and I explored those options. Miami ended up taking another kid instead of me so I didn’t have as many options. You know that was where I wanted to go and my dad really wanted me to go to Dayton for reasons for him and a special situation. And I made that decision. I was very fortunate that I got to do that for a couple of years because just being around him each and every day was big.

Kintner: Tell me what it was like growing up in a Donoher household with basketball, basketball, basketball, and Dayton, Dayton, Dayton.

Donoher: It was a great experience. You know when you are younger you just take it for granted. But Dayton went to the final eight and then next year lost to Villanova. So I was around two really good teams. Then throwing the Olympics into that whole thing and it was special. I was a very fortunate kid to be around so many great people at such a young age.

Kintner: What was your household like?

Donoher: My mom she was a typical mom. She carted me around wherever I had to go. My dad was around but he would get home later. There weren’t a lot of dinners around the table. My bother and sister were 10 and 4 years older than me. So I was around alone a lot in high school. There was definitely a lot of pressure on my dad. He put a lot of pressure on himself. Just like almost every coach. As you know there is a lot of pressure over there at Dayton. You are under the microscope a lot. The expectations were a little unrealistic. But we were able to get through it and I had a great childhood.

Kintner: What did you learn from your father in terms of basketball or about life?

Donoher: He was very fundamental and I think just being around him, that rubbed off on me. His philosophies were very fundamental. Things like footwork, the preparation for the shot and the small things that can make an offense work. He was of very high moral character, He tried to do things the right way…….all the time. It is a great way to look at things. In this business there are so many rules and you can tweak things here and there, but you have to try to stay in line because it is not worth it to kids to step over the line and break a rule.

Kintner: Describe what happened when you father left the University of Dayton?

Donoher: It affected me quite a bit because I was still at UD as a player and it was after my sophomore season. I was probably looking at getting 15 or 20 minutes of playing time a game during my senior year. That was above any expectations I had going into it. That was just from knowing the system and knowing what his expectations were. It blew up in my face, but it made me a better person now. I just had to change. To that point everything in life had gone how I wanted it. And at that point I had to make some decisions. You know, nobody wants to get fired and my dad has to live with that each and every day. He’s a coach and he wants to coach. So anytime someone takes that away from you, you just have to adapt. As for me, I tried to stay at UD. Coach O’Brien was very good to me. I stayed with the team, but after a couple weeks of practice it just wasn’t in my best interest or the program’s best interest for me to stay. So I made the decision to leave the team and I had to live with that. UD ended up having a great year that year, going to the NCAA Tournament. It was hard to watch but I was happy for those guys because I knew all the hard work and everything that they put into it. I ended up going to Wittenburg and I had a great experience. I got to play that year with a great group of guys, teammates that I really enjoyed being around. I got a lot of experience that helped me get into coaching.

Kintner: As you watch University of Dayton’s program how do you think it is doing?

Donoher: They are unbelievable. I think Coach Purnell did a great job. I think it is all about having some players. I think they have done a good job. They have left quite a few good players there for Coach Gregory. I think they are in a good position to compete. But I think at a school like Dayton they won’t be great every year. I think next year they will have to scale back just a little bit because they graduate 4 kids. They have a great recruiting class coming in but they have to give that time. They should be competitive. But they shouldn’t expect to be World-beaters each and every year.

Kintner: What were your impressions of Wright State before you became a coach:

Donoher: I used to play in a summer league and Wright State guys always played. There were UD guys, high school players and Wright State guys. Every night you could count on former Wright State coach Jim Brown there watching the games. I knew some of the older guys who played at Wright State like Mike Zimmerman and Bob Schaefer. So I certainly knew of Wright State. . I really never came out here too much.. It was a really, really good Division II program. Then they went Division I and Dayton played them. We all knew each other. We all respected each other. I don’t think there was any animosity. It was a great thing. I even spent some time with the WBL pro-team that played here at the Nutter Center. I’ve known the people out here, I had been around the area and to see it just take off was great. It is just a great place and it will only get bigger and better.

Kintner: What is the difference between a Wright State and an Akron?

Donoher: Here the thing I liked about Wright State is the non-football aspect. I love college football, it is the best thing going on Saturday. But at the mid-level, it really drains the budget. At a MAC school it really limits what you can do. That is what I like about Wright State, here you are the top dog. There are some extra things budget-wise you can do here that you can’t do at a MAC school. Like the training facility they are going to build us. That is going to be unbelievable. That would never happen at a MAC school because economically it would not be feasible. I do think you are recruiting the same kids. Wright State is growing to more of a school that houses a lot of the kids, from a commuter school, whereas Akron is more a commuter school.

Kintner: Will your father come out to some games this year?

Donoher: He is a scout for the NBA Cavaliers so he goes to a lot of college games. He gas been out to a practice. When he is in town I am sure he will try to make a game. He travels 4 days a week so I don’t know how a Wright State will work for him. I am sure he will be out if for no other reason that we have a couple of guys he has to watch. I mean Seth Doliboa is definitely on the radar screen for the NBA.

Kintner: Is there anything about Wright State that surprised you after you got here?

Donoher: I think the campus is unbelievable, it shocked me how nice it was. If we can get a kid on campus we can impress him with our facilities and our campus.

Kintner: What are you selling to recruits when you are recruiting?

Donoher: We are selling the staff and the kids we have in the program. That is our biggest selling point. The facility is unbelievable. To walk a kid into the Nutter Center is very impressive. Then it would be what they are looking for academically and socially. You have to tie it all in. How Coach Biancardi does things and how he relates to kids is also a big selling point. He does a great job with that when we get kids in here.

Kintner: Thank you for your time!

Donoher: All right I’ll see you around.

Buzz Peterson Interview

An Interview with Tennessee’s Buzz Peterson

by Bill “CigarBoy” Kintner

Buzz came out to the basketball office lobby to greet me with a handshake and a big smile. When we walked into his office I couldn’t believe how big it was. It was as big as my bachelor pad. Off of his office was a video room with a big conference table. The video room looked like the inside of a ESPN truck. With tons of TV monitors and what looked like a big control board. He could probably rent it out as a movie production studio.

Buzz is a friendly and easygoing as anyone I have ever met. When he talks to you he looks right at you and when he listens he seems very intent on hearing every word you are saying. Another basketball coach once told me “Buzz knows no class.” That means he treats everyone the same. He treats the janitor the same as he would treat an important businessman or a his boss. That has to be true because he treated me like I was actually someone of importance.

Buzz first burst upon the college basketball scene as a player for North Carolina’s 1982 NCAA National Championship team and he got some interesting story material as Michael Jordan’s college roommate. In 1996 he became the coach at Appalachian State and won better than 20 games 3 of his 4 years there. In 2000 he won 26 games at Tulsa and then he came to Tennessee. God has placed success squarely in his path. Even before college he was one of North Carolina’s most decorated high school players. He was a Parade and McDonald’s All-America coming out of Asheville high School. He was named North Carolina Player of the Year and Athlete of the Year as a senior. The runner up for both awards was none other than Michael Jordan.

So sit back and as you read this interview and try to imagine a good old country boy who speaks very well, constantly flashes his million-dollar smile and listens with the same intensity he has when he coaches.

Bill Kintner: You have been the moving king during your career. You do know there are a lot of jokes about your constant moving among fellow coaches? .

Buzz Peterson: I moved a lot there for a while. I guess I have had 3 different jobs within a span of no time really. From Appalachian State, to Tulsa to here. I joke around a lot about moving pretty quickly but I couldn’t pass up the two opportunities and especially this one with Tennessee. My buddy in New Mexico, Ritchie McKay, he had to move quickly to New Mexico and sometime you have to go with the best situation.

Kintner: I got lost trying to follow the interview process when you were looking at UT. You were considering Tennessee, Georgia Tech…

Peterson: If anyone wants to know how to interview, I’ve done a few of them.

Kintner: But this last round it was Tennessee and one or two other schools. Wasn’t Tulsa making a counter offer too?

Peterson: Yeah, cause I talked to South Carolina and Tennessee. My roots are from here. My granddad is from Knoxville area. My dad went to school here and I’ve got a lot of relatives around the Knoxville area so it was the one I really, really wanted. I wanted to get closer to home and be around a lot of family members.

Kintner: Right around the first week of the NCAA tournament, I get a bunch of CigarBoy snitches that go there and get all the gossip. Who’s going to what job and a lot of behind the scenes stuff. Then I write a column on what’s happening and I’m right 9 times out of ten. A few years ago I had this incredible track record but I had Bruiser Flint not going to Duquene, but going to Drexel. I called it perfectly. Flint not going to LaSalle but Drexel. But I made the call that you would stay at Tulsa. The reason was that you would never go somewhere that draws 20,000 for women’s basketball. Who wants to go there? And sure enough, you came here and it looks like it’s going to be a heck of a success.

Peterson: It’s a great opportunity here. If you look back at the sports at some of what they’ve done, like the swimming program.. We only have 8 men’s sports really. Not that many if you count indoor and outdoor track as one, and then you’ve got cross country in there with track and field so we don’t have a lot of sports. We have a super athletic department. Not many athletic programs in the country have separate men’s and women’s departments. We’ve got all the resources. I look at it like what’s happening at Michigan, they know its turning around so it can be done. It takes some time and a lot of hard work.

Kintner: OK, you considered going to a place that draws 20,000 for a women’s game. Did you look at that and all the guys who have come and gone. Was that in the equation?

Peterson: I thought about it some but also when you start thinking about your family and all that. I mean, I grew up as a kid over in Ashville, NC. Came to a lot of basketball and football games as a kid. So just being a fan of Tennessee, I spent a lot of time watching Volunteer sports. I look at it as a challenge. You know…. why can’t the men’s program be there? So that’s why we continue to work on it. Trying to get it to where the program needs to be. I also know this; when I looked at the situation, Jerry Green was very successful. Four straight years, of 20+ wins. I was looking at what was going on here and I told my wife I knew I had to hit this job head-on. There is something going on there we don’t know about and that’s where I had to dismiss two of the guys, my first year. So now we are, I don’t want to call it rebuilding., We are trying to establish a program. That is what we are trying to do and doing it with newcomers. That’s where we are right now.

Kintner: Did your wife say “anything you want to do.” Or did she say, “Tennessee or nothing?”

Peterson: Whatever. She really liked Tulsa. She liked the community and everything but she was real tickled to be here because it was like home.. For the holidays the family is here with us.

Kintner: Is she from this area?

Peterson: Yeah, so it’s back with family!

Kintner: You talked about having a young team. I look at your schedule and pre-conference looks pretty light.

Peterson: For a reason.

Kintner: Talk to me about your scheduling philosophy.

Peterson: I really think you’ve got to adapt it to your personnel and everything. Yeah, we’re going to get on TV enough, that’s no big deal but I want to make sure that I’m building this thing up and getting us ready for conference play which is the most important. I always look at it and see it in three parts. 1) non-conference, 2) conference, 3) the post season. I’ve got to build them up right for that conference play and try to win as many games as possible. I don’t think RPI is a factor for us, because once you get into league play, it’s going to be high enough anyway.

Kintner: I bet that’s quite a bit different than how you scheduled at Tulsa. What’s the difference between coaching at Tennessee and Tulsa?

Peterson: Oh, at Tulsa, you were trying to get big games. You were trying to play some of the top opponents. Most of the time, you’d have to go to their place first. For us at Tulsa, that was fine. .

Kintner: They must have been two for one?

Peterson: Two for one, had to go to Iowa, play the tournament and play there twice. Two games there and then they come our place. Kansas was one in Lawrence one in Kansas City, and one in Tulsa. But that’s the philosophy. We are trying to get the money. The harder thing at Tulsa was these guarantee games cause it now means we’ve gotta cross the Mississippi so you would have to pay more to get to the game because of the farther travel. Here in Tennessee we’ve got so many schools locally, we don’ t have to pay as much as we did at Tulsa because there’s so many around, you just get in a bus and drive a couple hours and you can pay them a guarantee.

Kintner: The directional schools of the world?

Peterson: There’s Martin, Chattanooga, East Tennessee, they are all around.

Kintner: Besides scheduling, what’s the difference between coaching in Tennessee and Tulsa?

Peterson: I think the big thing is the league. In the SEC, the game’s on TV. It’s a lot of exposure. It’s just out there across the country where at Tulsa the WAC did not quite get the exposure. The WAC was always right there with Conference USA running a 7, 8 spot, in the RPI. Of course you’ve got the top 6 conferences. So the big thing is the conference separates you so much.

Kintner: When you are selling Tennessee you are probably selling tradition and the conference. At Tulsa, what were you selling?

Peterson: We were selling small school, nice environment, nice arena, chance to play in conference., W sold that we were an up and coming program. They may call it mid-majors but, one that the majors don’t like to play against..

Kintner: What’s your coaching philosophy? Can you sum it up in a few sentences?

Peterson: I always feel like it’s what I want to do every single day. When I have my players out there I try to motivate them every single day and get them to reach their maximum potential every day out there. Sometimes they have had a tough day in class. That’s where I found out that you’ve got to get into every person’s head. You have really got to try to motivate them, get them fired up. I don’t believe in swearing or any of that. There’s other ways to do it. That’s why I try to get into them, motivate and get them to play to the highest level they can that day. We only go four days, then we take a day off. The season’s long enough as it is so I don’t want to drag it out. We try to keep our minds fresh and our legs fresh, that why we take that break on the fifth day

Kintner: Does that mean you are always rotating your off day?

Peterson: Yeah, after every game we will take a rest. We rotate an off day. I haven’t gotten into my coaching philosophy. I was big into stats, X’s and O’s with all that stuff. But I don’t buy that anymore. I know it’s important. I’ve really found that it’s got to the part of micro managing now. How do you micro-manage your players. It’s a little business. I have some talented guys but I’ve got some guys that need to get stronger mentally. That’s why we hired this company to come down and do this psychology test to figure out personalities. Ohio State’s doing it, Rutgers, UNLV and us are doing it. I just want to find out what motivates my players. I want to know how many leaders I’ve got and how many followers. I have a lot of followers. You don’t need that many. I need to recruit some leaders out there. So I may take a lesser talented player but I need somebody that wins a lot of ball games and is a leader. That’s the program I have.

Kintner: Did you ever think about that in Tulsa, leader vs follower?

Peterson: I always looked at X’s and O’s and stuff like that, get the best talent you can. And that is how I did it. I found out about getting into different minds of what they were thinking. Why aren’t we going hard today? What don’t you want to go hard today? What’s wrong with your competitive level?

Kintner: What I’m going to do is throw out the names of some coaches and you give me a sentence or two that comes to mind. Steve Alford.

Peterson: One of my best friends. Communicate with him every two or three days. He is just a person that’s lived a dream life. All-American kid type but just somebody that I have a lot of respect for. We have a lot of things in common. Three kids, about the same age, and he’s one of my best friends.

Kintner: Barry Collier

Peterson: Barry’s a hard worker, pretty intense, one of the nice guys in this profession. Keeps things to himself. Minds his own business. Keeps his nose down and works hard.

Kintner: John Calipari

Peterson: Have you ever seen a fish mounted on a wall, has his mouth open all the time. That’s what reminds me of Cal. (chuckling) No, John is the life of a party. He’s got a lot of energy. We are connected through Larry Brown a little bit. He worked for Larry. John has been very good to me and I respect that. I’d call him a close friend.

Kintner: Bob Huggins

Peterson: Huggs, I don’t know him that well. I know we see each other, and speak to each other but….. when you get down to the fact of people motivating their players to play hard, Huggs is doing something right If you watch his team, it’s pretty physical and I respect physical ballplayers. Two things make a good defensive team. They are physical and they talk, they communicate. I know one thing, Huggs’ teams can be pretty physical. I think it goes a long way with me, what he’s doing. His players are very motivated and he’s doing something to keep them motivated. Terrible golfer though?

Kintner: Terrible golfer? But he does smoke cigars. Rick Patino

Peterson: When I was starting in coaching, I read a lot of his books. I admire/respect what he did and I’ve taken some of the things he does as a coach and tried to put them towards what I do. You can just tell he loves the game. He’s really intense

Kintner: Oliver Purnell

Peterson: Class act is what I call Oliver. He carries himself well. I feel like nothing’s really going to rattle Oliver. He’s always going to be under control, not going to let anything rattle him. I think that’s a good sign in a coach.

Kintner: Seth Greenberg

Peterson: Opposite ends. (Laughing) He is a guy that really gets after it. A real competitor. You know you can find out a lot about these guys when you play golf with them, do things off the floor with them and things are different. Seth’s a very strong competitor. He’s been around a while and I really respect what he’s done.

Kintner: Thad Matta

Peterson: Interesting talking about Thad. I was at Appalachian State, as a head coach, he was an assistant at Western Carolina. Didn’t know who the guy was at all, had no clue. Then I saw he went to Butler, I believe, as an assistant and then to Xavier to be head coach. Just over the years, the things that he’s done creates excitement for me. He’s doing some good things. I don’t know Thad that well but I’ll tell you what, if he wrote a book or something when he’s done, that would be one to read because he’s doing tremendous. Amazing, I was a head coach and he was an assistant at Western and now he’s the head coach at Xavier, one of the top 10 in the country.

Kintner: Ed Schilling

Peterson: Ed is a close friend and just a tremendous man. If I could raise my son to be like somebody it would be him. That’s probably the highest compliment I could give, I’d want him to be like Ed Schilling. I really would. I have the utmost respect for this guy, just the way he lives his life. I’ve tried to live mine on a similar path that Ed does. He’s just so disciplined. He is such a disciplined person. Boy, when it comes to respecting people, Ed Schilling is right there at the top of my list.

Kintner: Phil Martelli

Peterson: He’s just a fun guy to be around. Loves to talk basketball, loves the game of basketball. I’d call him almost a basketball junkie in a way. Guy just sits there and draws X’s and O’s all over the place and does a good job of doing it.

Kintner: Bruise Flint

Peterson: If I had to take a bunch of guys somewhere and wanted to have a good time for a weekend, golf or whatever, Bruiser Flint would be in that bunch. He’s a fun guy to be around. I spent some time with him recently down at Calipari’s in Memphis just talking basketball. I came out of there impressed by just his basketball mentality. I could see Bruiser being a tremendous recruiter. You know, people talk recruiting but all you have to do to be a good recruiter is have a good personality. Being personable with people is what it takes. Willing to extend a hand, shake a hand with somebody. That’s what the good recruiters, the Calipari’s of the world do, and just talk. Cal’s that hype of recruiter. I gotta figure someway to make money off of him. (Chuckle)

Kintner: I’ve got a fellow North Carolinian for you, David Henderson at Delaware. I was just with him last week.

Peterson: I played against him when I was with North Carolina and he was with Duke. I’m very proud of what Dave has done. He’s done a great job and he’s going to stay successful. He took over a situation that wasn’t easy. They won so many games. He’s doing a great job and will continue to.

Kintner: Let me pull one out of left field, Dale Layer.

Peterson: I was at State and he was at Queens College, coaching there. We talked about playing. Dale went out there and moved himself up. I’ll tell you what, the people working his recruiting, work hard for Dale Layer. He’s going to tell you who all the better players are in the country. He’s somebody who’s a very highly organized person.

Kintner: Tim Buckley

Peterson: Workaholic, a good salesman and a great basketball coach. I look at him, one day being in Big 10 or a power conference. He’s got all the tools that he needs to have in college coaching. If you don’t like going out and speaking to the local Rotary club or getting out and shaking hands with people, at that point, you better get out of college basketball, because you are going to have to do that. Tim Buckley doesn’t mind doing things like that, and that’s what you’ve got to be able to do, sell your program.

Kintner: Now I want to get to the important things in life now. There are people around the country that are going to read this from coast to coast and probably people overseas will be reading it and they all get hungry, so I want you to tell us, what are your top 5 favorite restaurants?

Peterson: Chinese. I’m a big Chinese man. One of the best things that happened here in Knoxville was Sing Chang. (Thinking)………. Golly, I’m going to have to call my wife. There’s a restaurant in Hilton Head that’s right up there on my list. Any kind of like a Morton’s Steakhouse, I like those. I’ll keep working on that.

Kintner: You’ve given me three, and one’s on a beach in Hilton Head, but we don’t know where. Need two more. If someone said we are going to take you out to dinner, we’ll fly you there, we’ll pay for it, where would you go?

Peterson: (Chuckling) This restaurant in Hilton Head, Alexander’s, that’s where I’d want to go. Another favorite of mine locally is Spooky’s, that’s soul food and Rafferty’s, that’s a chain.

Kintner: Now it gets better. What are your 5 favorite cigars.

Peterson: You’ll have to help me with this. I just got a box of them. Montessori?

Kintner: Monte Cristo’s?

Peterson: No, something different. Let’s call the wife, real quick. . . . . Monte Cristo’s, Partagas, Ashtons and Cohiba’s . (after a quick call home) Ok it is Montesino cigars!

Kintner: When you aren’t coaching basketball, what do you spend your time doing?

Peterson: Spending time with our kids, Nicole 10, Olivia 6, and Rob is 4. My real name is Robert. Buzz is just a nickname I’ve always had from a cartoon named Bubba Buzz. My sister’s favorite cartoon.

Kintner: I’ve never heard of that one.

Peterson: It had a bee that flew around all the time. I’ve had it for 37 years now. I just leave it alone. So if I get free time, it’s usually doing something with them. I get little Rob to come to practice so I spend some time there. We bought a boat last summer so we do some boating with one another which is fun. I love golf. I enjoy playing golf. Between family, boating, and golfing, I’m pretty much over here or doing something basketball related or something with the university. I want to pick up fishing a little bit.

Kintner: Have you done fishing?

Peterson: I have once or twice but not much. I wouldn’t mind picking it up.

Kintner: Bob Huggins is always talking about quitting basketball to go fishing. We’ll see if that happens but he is talking about fishing all the time. Maybe you can fish with him? Last question, when you get up in the morning, what excites you?

Peterson: This profession I’ve chosen. I just love basketball, just a tremendous hobby. I love coaching it, and directing my coaching staff and my players to work hard and achieve well in the classroom and on that basketball court. That kind of motivates me. How well competitors are doing and trying to get our team to that level. Almost to the sense that it’s not a nine to five job. Hours are a little bit longer. I’ll tell you, the special person in the whole thing is a coach’s wife. They’ve got to be pretty strong, be people that can handle the kids and handle being alone by themselves because coaches do a lot of traveling. They’ve got to be able to put up with raising kids on their own.

Kintner: Thank you very much for your time. Good luck in the upcoming conference season.

Peterson: Thank you, it was fun.

Interview with Colorado State’s Dale Layer

An Interview with Colorado State’s Dale Layer

by Bill “CigarBoy” Kintner

In his third year at Colorado State, Dale Layer has a 46-45 record and 19-14 last year with a surprise NCAA appearance. The Rams were playing great ball toward the end of last year beating UNLV in the Mountain West title game and nearly upsetting Duke in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The play at the end of last year provided a glimpse of what Rams fans can expect in the future. It also got Dale Layer a contract extension.

I caught up with Dale this past summer in Indianapolis at the Nike Camp. We met at downtown sports bars to eat and talk about basketball. So in between potato skins, ice tea and the Reds game on Fox Sports we managed to find out a little about a coach who is starting to raise some eyebrows in the Mountain West Conference.

CigarBoy: Tell me about your first NCAA appearance as a head coach, last year.

Dale Layer: It was kind of an unusual season. Early in the year, we won 12 straight home games and were rolling and things were fitting together pretty well for us. We were 2 and 1 in the conference at UNLV and things were running well. We were excited about how the season was progressing and then they beat us by about 35 at their place.

CB: Was that the beginning of that losing streak that hit the Rams last year?

DL: Yes, we were 2 and 1 in the league going into that game. That kind of turned our season around. That was the first of seven straight conference losses. Things are going well then all of a sudden you hit the skids and lose seven straight in the middle of the conference season. That was tough. We were playing well. We thought our team was progressing. We just couldn’t win a basketball game. We lost by 2, lost by 3, lost on the last possession. But, yet, our team came to work every day. Kept their spirits about them. Kept working and improving. I could see us getting better, yet we weren’t getting rewarded for it.

CB: Let me stop you there. When you see a team that is in the games yet struggling a bit, what do you, as the coach, do?

DL: Think about suicide, one. Think about quitting, two. No, we just thought, “okay, what can make our team about 5 percent better”? You’re tempted to scrap things or start over or make wholesale changes but the staff just kept trying to determine what could make us 5 percent better because if we were 5 percent better we would start winning games. So, we started looking at tapes and breaking things down. Little things like a loose ball here, we stepped in the lane here, and we gave them two extra free throws …. We kept convincing our team that if we just got a little bit better here and there, we could start winning some games. Then, we beat San Diego State by 13 in our last home game, which was senior night. That gave us some momentum, I think, especially after we had lost seven straight. Then, we carried that into Utah and they had won something like 65 straight conference home games. We beat them, there, when they were ranked 23rd in the country. You could see us starting to believe.

CB: Was that the end of your conference play?

DL: Yes, we were in February. That was, in fact, our last conference weekend. Then, we were at BYU in Utah. There were only about 24,000 people there that night. We played them tough, lost by 12 or so but felt like we were really gaining some momentum heading into the conference tournament.

CB: Okay, let’s stop there. Wyoming has been the class team of the Mountain West, right?

DL: Yes, they had won it back-to-back years. They are our closest rival in the league, only 45 minutes away. There are a lot of passions there between the Cowboys and the Rams.

CB: Looking at last season going into October 15th last year, what did you think your team was going to do? Be honest, now.

DL: That’s a good question. I don’t ever know … every season is a marathon. There are so many things that happen – injuries, hot streaks – you just don’t know. It’s like guessing what will you be like at retirement? It’s just so far away; you don’t know when you start the season. You just kind of go game to game. Practice, practice, practice and you hope to get better. I thought we had a chance to be a little better than .500 and maybe challenge for 4th or 5th in our league. Our team did better than that. Getting hot at the right time in the conference tournament was a key. Everything came together at the right time.

CB: In the tournament, as you headed to Las Vegas, what did you think was going to happen in the tournament?

DL: Well, you never think you’ll win 3 games as the 6th seed. We won 3 straight nights and it was in the last possession of each of the 3 games. Who would have thunk it? You can’t go in thinking you can win all 3 games because that’s such a long shot. But, you break it into game-by-game and every time you win you get a little more momentum and a little more confidence. (Briefly, the interview is interrupted by our attempt to change the TV channel from the Yankees/Braves game to the Reds game in the sports bar where we are doing the interview) Hey, wait a minute. They’re switching the TV. Let’s get them to put the Reds game on.

CB: Yeah put the Reds game on! (to the waitress)

DL: Gee, where are we … in Atlanta or New York City? (to the waitress)

CB: Okay, it looks like they switched out TV over to the Reds game. Okay, you’re going into your 4th year, how are things looking this year?

DL: We lost 2 thousand point scorers, first time in history we had 2 thousand point scorers who graduated in the same year. So it’s Andy Birley and Brian Greene graduating, both who were terrific four-year players for us, but we got seven of our top nine back. So we have Matt Nelson, a seven footer, a Mountain West Conference tournament MVP who averaged 17 points per game for us last year is back and the offense will go through him. He’s just a junior and he’ll make a lot of money someday playing basketball if he keeps progressing. So he will be a very good player. Matt Williams and Ronnie Clark – they are both capable of getting double-doubles on any given night. Michael Morris is the son of NBA player Chris Morris who played in the league for thirteen years with Utah and New Jersey. He started as a freshman for us, he’s back. We’ve got a really good nucleus and we’ve got the best recruiting class ever. A 6’11″ kid out of Texas and a seven foot kid out of Texas, a 6’8″ three man out of Fort Worth, Texas and a guard, Dwight Boatner out of Louisiana. So we’ve got by far the best recruiting class ever. I think that we’ve got a good nucleus and, some good newcomers. I don’t see any reason why we can’t take another step in the right direction and be improved. Who knows how many wins that means, there’s great optimism and as we head into next year.

CB: Okay, did you set goals for your team last year?

DL: We’ve got to get better today. That’s our goal, what’s today and how do we get better? Is it in the weight room? Is it in the classroom? Is it working on our free throws? You know there are things that we do, to emphasize practice to practice, game to game depending on the other team’s weakness and strengths and we do set some goals. We were second in the country in field goal percentages last year with 51 percent. So we try to take good shots, we try to take care of the basketball, and play great defense. Mostly it is a game to game practice to practice thing. The overriding factor is how do we improve and how do we work hard enough to improve daily?

CB: Tell us a little about the conference. Could you go around the top teams in the conference and give a little review about each team.

DL: BYU will be picked to win the league again. They return four starters, and nine of their top ten players, They have a great coach in Steve Cleveland. He led a team that’s been in the tournament the last two years. They are the odds on favorites. Wyoming will be strong again. Utah is always very, very good with Coach Rick Majerus. UNLV had a very good recruiting class. San Diego State has seven of their top ten back. New Mexico is kind of reloading with a lot of new guys. They lost Ruben Douglas, the nation’s leading scorer last year, but I think they’ll be a lot more balanced and probably a lot deeper. They had a great recruiting class. Air Force runs the Princeton system. They are extremely hard to play against because they are well coached. I think they run the Princeton system better than anybody does in the country now. So Princeton, I think runs the Air Force system now more than Air Force running the Princeton system. So we’ve got a great league. It’s 5th in the nation in total attendance and average attendance per game. Not many people would know that our league for home games is right around ten thousand a night in attendance.

CB: Coach, when you come to a camp like Nike, this weekend, what are you trying to accomplish here?

DL: Number one, you evaluate players a little bit. Most of the time you track guys that you’ve been recruiting as juniors all year. They know you; they want to be sure they see you along the sides in the stands. It’s important that the head coach is there.

CB: I think the hip kids would say, “you’ve got to show them a little love?”

DL: Yeah, you can’t go up to them and shake their hand. But you can at least show that you’re there and you’re tracking them. They appreciate that. They want to see what kind of shirt you’ve got on and what shoes you’re wearing. It’s interesting what 17 year-olds think and observe.

CB: When you are recruiting a player, what characteristics do you look for? Personally and athletically, what is the profile of the kind of guys you’re trying to recruit?

DL: Number one, we’re trying to figure out what kind of person they are. What makes them tick? Can they fit in with an academic environment? Can they fit in with the guys that you have on the team? You can’t separate the character from the player and the playing ability. Because it’s like fitting into a family. Can he fit with the rest of the family? If it’s not a fit then it really doesn’t matter how good of a player he is. He’s got to be able to fit in with twelve other guys. What kind of person are you adding to the family, that’s number one. You are always looking for specific skills. Do they compliment or accentuate your team? Some years you are looking for a defensive stopper, some years you are looking for a great shooter, sometimes you’re looking for size or a point guard that can make everybody else better. So you are looking for different things that fit your needs based on what you’re going to graduate that year and hopefully will make your team better.

CB: When you were recruiting student-athletes for what do you sell? What are the things that you sell about your school or your program?

DL: We’re in a great location. Fort Collins, Colorado’s about 125,000 – 130,000 people, 45 minutes from Denver. It’s beautiful, it’s clean, it’s nice, and it’s a great college town. We got big time football, always ranked in the top 20 in the country. Facilities are great. Our league is probably under-appreciated and underexposed. In the Rocky Mountain region, there’s not a highly populated area and people on the East Coast don’t know about us. If they’re not insomniacs or hoop junkies, they really don’t know what’s going on because we usually play at midnight, Eastern Time on ESPN. We talked about the great teams……UNLV, Utah, BYU, Wyoming and New Mexico. It’s a great league, with terrific basketball-conscious fans. You know we had two guys drafted this past year in our league, and a lot of good things can happen in our league.

CB: What’s your recruiting base? I mean there’s not that many players in Colorado.

DL: Wherever there is a player, we will go. Convincing that player to come to Colorado is difficult. From Florida its kind of a long drive or long flight. So our base is mostly in the West Coast and Texas; we have seven Texans on the roster next year. That state has been very, very good to us. You know, to folks that grow up in Texas, Colorado is pretty attractive; you’ve got the mountains and low humidity. It’s not that far away from Texas, so we’ve had a lot of success there. We still recruit Colorado very hard, but there are just not that many good players in Colorado in any given year. But the best players in the state we sure want to get them to stay and we do our best to try to recruit them. But we’ve got one from Florida on the team, one from Louisiana, seven from Texas, a couple from the state of Colorado. Let’s see, last year we graduated a guy from Washington.

CB: Phil Martelli said that he recruits from Texas, because they travel. Is that pretty much the way Texas recruits are known? I guess it is, isn’t it?

DL: There’s not that much of a loyalty in Texas. If you grow up in Kentucky, you might be a Louisville fan or a Wildcat fan. If you grow up in Indiana you’re a Hoosier. In Ohio, you either like Cincinnati or Ohio State and that’s your dream to play in one of those programs. Texas, you know, they don’t have that kind of basketball tradition. Certainly, maybe with the Longhorns at some point with the success they are having, but right now there are a lot of players in Texas and they need to go somewhere. Generally speaking, they are not averse to leaving the state and Colorado is kind of an attractive spot.

CB: Last question. Right now, we’re in July; what excites you right now?

DL: Oh, Gosh, what excites me besides Cincinnati Reds baseball?

CB: Besides Cincinnati Reds baseball and smelling the aroma of my cigar.

DL: You can leave that one (the cigar) off the list pal. (both chuckle) Well, it’s exciting to go on the road recruiting even though it wears you out. You know it’s kind of a transition. You get to July and your mind starts thinking recruiting because for that seventeen or eighteen straight days or so in July it is all recruiting. Come back from July, you end up taking ten days off for vacation and then school starts. So you know when you get to July you focus on your recruiting and you have to get out there. You get to eight or ten different places in a month, seeing ten thousand different players and you try to sort them out to get two or three guys. You kind of get your energy, your passions and your juices going again because you are starting to think about how to put together the following year’s team.

CB: I know you need to get back over to the gym so I will let you get going. It was a fun, at least on my part and thank you for your time.

DL: I had fun and the Reds are winning!

Interview with Marty Monserez

An Interview with Marty Monserez

by Bill “CigarBoy” Kintner

Marty Monserez is a former Butler basketball player, who is now a sales manager for Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati. His son Michael plays for Butler University and his other son Nick plays for Lehigh University. As you will see, both athleticism and smarts runs in this family.

I met Marty at Lafayette University last February while I was evaluating their gym for my arena project. His wife somehow spotted me on the sidelines and introduced herself and Marty to me. Next thing I know it is 6 months later and, I am sitting in a Firstwatch chowing down French Toast while coaxing Marty into talking into my tape recorder. Coaxing is the right word because he doesn’t like to talk about himself. He would much rather talk about his two sons and his wife.

Marty Monserez was a successful basketball player and student at Butler. He is a very successful executive at a major corporation. He is a successful father having raised two successful Division I student-athletes. I think this guy knows a little about success and I think he is doing something right and I wanted to find out what it was.

I do want to note that Marty was very generous with his time. Not only did he spend a couple of hours with me over breakfast, but when some of the taped interview was hard to understand he graciously provided me additional material so that the interview would be complete.

So get your notebook out and enjoy the story of a successful family.

CigarBoy: Tell me a little about your years as a player at Butler?

Marty Monerez: They were great fun; I met a lot of great guys — both on the team and on the campus. Probably my best memories were playing for Coach Theofanis and playing with Daryl Mason, a 6’7″ jumping jack who eventually became Butler’s all-time rebound leader. They were great times and I only wish we had won more. Our last two seasons were winning years, representing the first back-to-back seasons in the last 15 years, but we never got close to an NCAA or an NIT bid.

CB: When you came out of high school in South Bend, tell me why you chose Butler and a little about the recruiting process at that time.

MM: Well, at that point, they were the only school who would take me. I was a 6’3″, 163 pound senior in high school who grew a few inches my senior year and who had average 20 points a game after Christmas my senior year. That’s not exactly the normal resume of a D1 basketball player. However, my high school athletic director, not the basketball coach, took me to Indianapolis to meet this George Theofanis, who was a tremendous coach at Indianapolis Shortridge high school and who had just accepted Butler’s head coaching job. As the AD pulled into the Shortridge high school parking lot to meet the new Butler coach, I said to the AD: “What are we doing here? I thought we were heading to Indiana Central…a D2 school south of town. I can’t play D1 ball at Butler”. My Athletic Director said: “Well, I think you can.” We left Coach Theofanis the tape of the greatest high school the game of my life and then we went on down to Indiana Central, which is where I thought I would ultimately sign. Three weeks later, Coach Theo called and offered me a scholarship at Butler.

CB: Tell me about some of the memories of the characters that you ran across at Butler University.

MM: Memories and characters…where do you want me to go with that?

CB: Tell me about the first time you ran across Todd Lickliter and the Big Chill, Ed Schilling.

MM: My first, and really only, meeting with Ed Schilling was at a preliminary game to a varsity Butler game, I was a freshman, when freshman were ineligible to play varsity. Butler brought in some of the better alums to play against the freshman. So I was guarding Ed Schilling at the high post and I was still pretty amazed that there I was on historic Hinkle Fieldhouse’s floor and playing college basketball. As their guard fed the high post, I went for a steal, and Ed Schilling turned with his elbow — and he’s about 6’6″ and 250 as I remember it — and he hit me in the side of the head. I looked up at him ready to kill him, thankfully thinking twice that that wouldn’t be a good idea. He then said to me, “Welcome to D-I basketball, kid!” (CigarBoy chuckles) and I quickly realize that that’s the way you need to play….tough and hardnosed. I never forgot the lesson Ed Schilling taught me that night. I crossed paths with his son later in life and it was great to think back that Ed Schilling taught me a lesson very early in my college career that you better be ready to play and play hard.

CB: Well, what are your connections to Barry Collier and Todd Lickliter?

MM: While I graduated from Butler in 1974, I went back to Butler and coached for two years as an assistant to Coach Theofanis. So, I actually coached Barry Collier when he came into Butler as a junior college transfer. I have some very distinct memories of Barry Collier — a terrific shooter, big and strong, and he helped us a great deal those two years. In terms of Coach Lick, I had finished playing at Butler, as I recall, and just about wrapped up my brief coaching career. I was about to go into the corporate world, having finished my MBA, and Lick and I played on the same summer team. I remember Lick as an absolute bombardier. He let it loose from everywhere on the court. I knew of his dad as a tremendous high school coach at North Central in Indianapolis and uh, I guess Lick is now telling the story that I never passed him the ball, which seems entirely possible since I was 23 and Lick was 17, and I thought that I had earned the right to shoot it. Lick was a great, quick player, who went on to play at Butler after I had gone on to the corporate world. We are fortunate that he’s so involved in our son’s life.

CB: When you made the decision to go into the corporate world, were you were looking at a family possibly, so you needed some money…

MM: I went into coaching after washing out as an insurance salesman and thought that might be a career path for me. I was in graduate school getting my master’s in Business and thought I might coach, but I remember very clearly that Coach Theo was under some pressure from the media and the alumni because they weren’t winning enough. That helped to sour me on coaching. But more than anything, I remember late in the game, I don’t know who we were playing, but that we had led the whole game, had a great game plan and were right near a victory with about a minute to go. We were holding the ball — now we had no shot clock then – and we were up three points with a minute to play. On two successive possessions, one of our players, more interested in his scoring average than in winning the game, held the ball and pivoted until he was fouled, rather than passing the ball and killing time. So, on two successive possessions, he misses on the front end of a one-and one, and the other team went down, hit the one basket after his first miss and hit another at the horn to beat us by one. The headlines in the paper the next morning said that Butler coaches “didn’t do this or didn’t do that”. This is a crazy profession as we did everything we could but shoot those foul shots and, had we moved the ball unselfishly, we would have won that game. So, that was probably a message for me to get into the corporate world. But, I never lost my love of basketball. That situation, however, helped me realize that basketball wasn’t likely my life’s work.

CB: How’d you find P&G?

MM: When I interviewed with them as an undergraduate, they told me they didn’t have any opportunities in sales so they wanted me in their accounting area. However, that didn’t seem like a fit, given my personality. So, I finished my masters and sent them another application. And one thing led to another and 27 years later, I can tell you, it has been a spectacular experience. P&G is a great company that cares about its people, values hard work, and demands success. That’s something I saw at Butler, and that I have been thankful enough to continue at P&G.

CB: What do you at P & G?

MM: I am a sales manager. I manage all of our corporate business in the convenience channel. I head a sales organization across the US that is responsible for the sales of all P&G products to convenience stores across the company

CB: How did you recruit your wife or maybe how did she recruit you?

MM: We met at Butler, which was one of the many wonderful things that happened to me beyond getting a chance to play basketball and getting a good education. We were actually best friends. She dated a fraternity brother of mine. I remember getting back from our dates when we would talk for hours on the phone until early in the morning. Two years later, after she broke up with my fraternity brother, I asked her out. And we have been married for twenty-five years. It has been a real blessing to have shared my life with her.

CB: Jumping forward a little here. Now you have two sons, was their destiny to play basketball or were there other sports in the mix?

MM: They showed interest in all the sports. We were thrilled when they showed interest in anything. We were not parents who pushed our boys into any specific area of interest. Michael, the older boy, would watch sports with me all the time. But, during his first year in t-ball, he was out in right field picking daisies. I was worried that a ball would be hit to him and he would catch it with his head. By the next year, Mike was really quite a good athlete. Nick had even more diverse interests. He loved sports, but he also loved to roller blade, play street hockey and just hangout. Now Mike was just so focused on baseball, basketball and playing quarterback on the football team.

CB: As your sons got into high schools were they just playing basketball or were they playing other sports?

MM: While the opportunities for all sports are tremendous for these kids now, it forces them to choose a sport way too early. Michael, as I said, was the quarterback on the football team, a really good pitcher and first baseman, and, of course, a basketball player. But in order for him to play AAU basketball in the spring and summer, he had a hard time playing baseball for Moeller high school. In the end, he needed to give up baseball after playing two years at Moeller High School to focus solely on basketball. I still believe that had he gone on in football, with his 6’6″ 235 lb. frame, he would have been one heck of a quarterback. And I am even more certain, had he stuck with baseball, that he would have been a heck of a baseball pitcher.

CB: So you knew when they went to high school that they would both end up being basketball players?

MM: When Michael couldn’t attend an AAU basketball game because of a high school baseball game, he felt so uncomfortable that he wasn’t fulfilling his AAU basketball commitment and that he was letting down his teammates. So the next year, he just played basketball. Nick, on the other hand, was probably a better baseball player at 14 years old than he was a basketball player. Now Monserez’s trend to grow late and Nick was only 6’1″ as a sophomore in high school. When Nick said, “I am going to play basketball full time,” a lot of his buddies said, “Nick, you are better at baseball, what are you doing.” But Nick knew what he loved the most and, by the next year, he was 6’5 or 6’6″. The game is a lot easier when you are that tall.

CB: Are there any principles or lessons you taught your sons that influenced them as they matured?

MM: The singular lesson that my wife and I taught was “whatever you choose to do, do it to the best of your ability, or do something else.” So, when they played and didn’t give their all, they usually heard from me on the way home. We insisted on the same thing in their school work. We often refer to a passage in the Bible that said if you are not using all of your blessings, you’re cheating God”. He deserves maximum return on the blessings He gives us.

My wife would tape basketball games for the boys. After every game Mike would come home from his youth basketball games and watch the tape of each game. We taped them so the boys could watch themselves play later in life. But Michael, and Nick to a lessor degree, watched them after games. I am convinced that Michael has seen so many basketball games on tape that he has an understanding, and a view of the game that few other players have.

CB: What was it like for the boys growing up in the Monserez household?

MM: It was great and it was crazy! I remember so many Friday nights when we would have a baseball game starting at 5:00 or 5:30. Then at 8:00 we would head over to a gym because they would have a late AAU basketball game. Then on Saturday there would be both baseball and basketball. Then on Sunday there would be a doubleheader. We just didn’t spend any time at home. I was either working, on the ball field or in a gym. I was active in coaching our boys until they got into high school. My wife and I didn’t see a lot of each other because the boys played on different teams often in different parts of town, often in different cities playing different sports. But those days were wonderful! There are many, many families doing the same thing. I can’t imagine a better way to spend time with your kids.

CB: What did your wife bring to the table in terms of encouraging your sons as they were growing up?

MM: Tremendous organization and a wonderful soft, loving mother’s touch, especially after dad had a word or two with them.

CB: (chuckle) I can imagine.

MM: She also brought a real focus on academics. She is very, very bright. While we both stressed studying hard, she really ran the house and the academics. She really helped them through that. I was working, coaching, and working on the next day’s lineup or scheduling umpires.

CB: Now Michael’s in high school, he is being recruited by many teams… Walk me through the recruiting process.

MM: I didn’t do as much as his high school coaches did. I did get him over to Five Star Camp. That was an all right experience, although it was primarily street ball and that was not Michael’s game. He was much better at team basketball and making other players better. I did send him the Notre Dame Basketball camp after is sophomore year. My parents live in South Bend so it was natural to send their grandson home to live with them while he was at the ND basketball camp. I never forgot when Coach Kremer, Moeller High School’s coach, called and said the ND Coach MacLeod is in love with Michael. He said, “he loves the way he plays, he loves the way he sees the floor, and I think he wants him to go to Notre Dame to play for him.” That was an unbelievable thrill coming out of nowhere. I thought Mike would play in college, but I had no idea what level. A year later he committed to Notre Dame and Coach MacLeod. He did go to Indiana for a visit with Coach Knight. That was really a heck of an experience. Miami was also very much involved in recruiting Michael.

CB: Was Butler involved at that point?

MM: No…that was really a surprise because Barry Collier was the coach at Butler then. When Mike was a freshman in high school, I suggested he write a letter to all the coaches he might want to play for and he wrote a letter to Coach Collier. However, the Butler opportunity never materialized, but there was never any hard feelings.

CB: So he goes off to Notre Dame and then what happens?

MM: There was a bit of turmoil his senior year in high school. Notre Dame fires John MacLeon, which I think was a ridicules move and one I still have a hard time understanding. Coach MacLeod was a wonderful man that brought back the ND program to a respectable level. So Mike shows up at Notre Dame for his freshman year with a new coach, a new staff, a new system and a new program. Matt Doherty was the new coach and they had a solid year. Mike played 11 or so minutes a game as the back-up two guard and had a heck of a year. They made it to the NIT finals. Mike has some incredible experiences playing in the Big East arenas and Madison Square Arena six times.

CB: After Michael decided to leave, how did he get to Butler?

MM: He looked at both Miami and Butler. He had looked at Miami the first time around. He really appreciated Coach Coles and that program. So he went back and visited again. Then he talked with Coach Matta and Coach Lickliter at Butler. Butler did an unbelievable job recruiting him. Mike and Joel Cornette, already a star at Butler, had known each other in high school although they were pretty intense rivals. Mike was very impressed with Brandon Miller, Darnell Archey and all the guys they had. He saw a good fit for himself. And he knew about the quality academics at Butler. So, he decided to commit to Butler. But instead of calling Coach Matta on the phone, he insisted on driving to Butler to shake Coach Matta’s hand and let him know how excited he was to be joining the program. Mike was half way to Indianapolis from Cincinnati on I-74 when I heard that Coach Doherty was leaving Notre Dame. One of the reasons he wanted to leave Notre Dame was he was looking for a basketball environment that Coach MacLeod and Coach Matta had offered. So I called Mike, told him that Coach Doherty was leaving for North Carolina, and asked him if he wanted to think this decision over some more. He said, “no, Dad, I don’t. Coach Matta has been great to me. He has been very supportive and I want to go over and keep my commitment to him.” As I look back, it has worked out very well for Mike at Butler.

CB: Now you have Mike safely in college, let’s talk about Nick. Actually they were both going through the recruiting process at the same time?

MM: Yes they were. Nick was in his senior year looking to play D1 ball when Mike was going through the recruiting process the second time around. Nick developed much later than Mike, in part, because he had much more diverse interests than Mike. He didn’t work at any one sport as hard as Mike worked on basketball, and he grew taller a little later than Mike.

Nick really started to come on his junior year at Moeller, make a significant contribution his last few games that year. Then, that summer he really started to improve. His AAU coaches showed great confidence in Nick and he really blossomed. He was on a tremendous AAU team that went to Orlando to play in the AAU national basketball tournament, involving 94 teams, and lost in the championship game. Through all that exposure, Nick started to get some interest from colleges. Then he had a terrific senior year at Moeller. He was second in scoring and rebounding on a very good Moeller team. He really helped himself greatly his senior year in high school.

Nick had a huge desire to play Division I basketball at a good academic school. The opportunities for him, given those two objectives, were to play in the Ivy League or the Patriot League. So, with a lot of help from his high school coaches, he was guided through the process. He visited Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, a member of the Patriot League, and a tremendous academic school. He thought it would be a good fit for him and, after two years, it certainly has been. He’s done extremely well on the court and in the classroom.

CB: They were 16-11 last year.

MM: Yes, 16-11, they led the league most of the year. They fired the coach after Nick’s first year. It seems to be a bad omen for coaches to take on a Monserez recruit because they seem to lose their job soon afterward. Ironically, Lehigh hired as their new head coach a former Notre Dame assistant, Billy Taylor, who actually recruited Mike while at ND. Lehigh had a good year last year and they are expecting big things this year. And like Mike, Nick is looking forward to getting the opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament. Maybe both Butler and Lehigh will make the Big Dance this year!

CB: What is the difference between Butler and Lehigh?

MM: I don’t think there is a lot difference. Academically, they are both extremely good schools. They are both about 4000 or 5000 students. They are both private schools. Both have beautiful campuses. Indianapolis is a bigger city than the Bethlehem/Allentown/Easton area. The other difference is that Butler currently has a more advanced basketball program, but Lehigh is on the rise!! Most importantly, when you play Division I basketball, you are talking about terrific players from the Patriot League to the Horizon League to the Big Ten. They all can play!

CB: With two sons playing college ball, what is basketball season like for you now? How do you plan your weekends? How do figure where you are going to go?

MM: It is like the days when they were young. Crazy! But we really love it. It is a blessing to be able to watch our kids compete. Every weekend from Thanksgiving to March in Albany, NY, when Butler lost in the Sweet Sixteen game against Oklahoma, we were on the road. It could be a drive over to Indianapolis and back or a flight to Bethlehem. I was fortunate, with all of the Horizon League teams within driving distance of Cincinnati, to see almost all of Mike’s 32 games. We saw about ten of Nick’s 28 games. It was difficult. Lehigh generally plays Friday and Sunday. Butler plays Thursdays and Saturdays. I have yet to do a Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday road trip. I need to figure that 4-game trip out this year!

CB: So you are looking to see more of Nick’s games after Mike graduates, right?

MM: Absolutely. If Mike gets into coaching, I hope to go see those games too.

CB: As you look aback with your two sons, what makes you proud?

MM: We are most proud of the kind of kids that Mike and Nick are. They are well rounded. They are bright…boy, don’t I sound like a parent.

CB: Well I tossed you the softball!

MM: (chuckle) But it is not the basketball, it is who they are. It has been so enjoyable to watch them grow up and become young men. It they played baseball or were in drama or in some other area of interest doing their best, we would be equally proud.

CB: Well thank you for spending time with me this morning. I hope you weren’t too grossed out by watching me eat all that food,

MM: It was a pleasure! See you in gym real soon.