Kentucky’s Sean Woods talks about what it’s like becoming a head coach and the adjustments from a winning program like Kentucky to a low-major school like Mississippi Valley State. (run time is 7:49; transcript below the jump).
[podcast]http://www.lostlettermen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Woods2.mp3[/podcast]…..
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Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Kentucky’s Sean Woods, member of the 1992 Elite Eight team and one of the four members of the memorable senior class, “The Unforgettables.” Mr. Woods, thank you very much for joining us.
You just completed your second season as the head coach at Mississippi Valley State. After two seasons, what can you say about your first two years as a head coach?
Sean Woods: Well it’s been interesting. It’s been trying. But whenever you can continue to improve, that’s always a good thing. When I got the job I inherited the job late in July where recruiting is almost obsolete and the team was pretty much after a championship year, winning the SWAC and going to the NCAA Tournament, we were left with three scholarship players and no one averaged more than five points a game.
So it was kind of an interesting situation that I stepped into, a rebuilding situation. But it’s been gratifying because it’s just like a flower that you’ve planted and you’re just watching it grow and it’s growing in the right way. We’re an institution where finances are very low, resources are very slim and it’s a trying situation. But it’s a situation that’s very gratifying to me because all of the circumstances that you have to deal with in this type of situation.
LL: What has been the most rewarding experience for you so far?
SW: Well, first of all taking something and being competitive when no one thought you could be competitive and do the things that you’ve done thus far in a situation like you’re in. You know that deal. Being my own man and being a head coach is something that I’ve always wanted to do and being good at it.
I’m still learning, but coaching young men and being around young men and teaching them the way you play basketball and the way you approach the game of basketball like you were fortunate enough to be taught by some big time coaches.
LL: We’ve talked to a lot of former athletes who are in the coaching ranks, not head coaches, but they are on various levels of the coaching ladder.
When you think about all the years you spent working up the latter, when you finally got the job at Mississippi Valley State and everything is finalized and you’re finally the head coach, was there a moment there where you said to yourself, “Finally, I’m the head guy in charge”?
SW: Yeah a little bit. But in my situation you hit the ground running real fast and you don’t have a chance to think about it because there’s so much to be done. So I really haven’t come up for air yet to really think like that. I’m so into my job that I don’t think about how fortunate and things like that. I should but I don’t because I’m so competitive, my wife tells me.
But that’s the nature of the beast. Everyday I’m fortunate to be doing what I love to do and be paid for it and that’s being around the game of basketball and teaching and like I said before, teach young kids to play the right way like I was taught.
LL: You mentioned how much of a competitive person that you are and I’m sure as a coach even if you’re seeing improvement with your team and you’re seeing your team grow, at the end of the year when you have a record of 8-21 (Editor’s note: Finished season 9-23), which you guys did, and a 7-9 conference, as a competitive person I have to imagine that it can be tough during the season.
How are you able to go through this season even though you have maybe on paper you’re not doing as well as you’d like, you’re trying to find victories elsewhere?
SW: Well that’s hard to do and that’s my biggest problem. When you’re in a conference like that and you have to play all the guaranteed games that you know you’re not going to win for money purposes it does get frustrating. But you have to find some type of common ground.
It took me this year to really realize the reality of the job and the situation that I’m in. And the main thing is just really getting better in our league in SWAC play more so than judging myself on playing against the Arkansas or at Gonzaga or Oregon, Oregon State. Those type of deals.
Because you’re such a competitor, if you’re thinking that you’re just as good and you’re preparing to win games, when the reality is the odds are stacked against you so high that you don’t think that way because you’re never been in low-major basketball. You’ve always played in high-major basketball where everything was equal and pretty much you won most of those games.
So it’s taken awhile for me to adjust and accept those types of situations but I’m working toward recruiting guys that can help me not only compete but win some of those games every now and then. Become a Gonzaga of the South. Not just be successful in my conference but also have some type of success throughout the NCAA like some of the high-mid majors that you have to play because of monetary reasons.
LL: Like you said, with college basketball during the course of the season you do have a lot of situations where you do have the “sacrificial lamb.” You coming from a program like Kentucky you just talked about how difficult it can be that transition was for you.
A lot of your players, however, there coming into this experience and this is maybe not as much of a shock as it was for you coming from Kentucky. But how do you keep them involved and keep them from getting too down on themselves when they have to go into these games with the realization that they’re probably not going to win?
SW: Well I don’t coach that way. Every game that we play, especially the guaranteed games, the money games, we prepare to win just like we prepare for anybody in our league. What we do is you treat it the same way … I actually catch myself, especially this year, in not putting so much emphasis emotionally on those type of games but learn a lot from those games to prepare us for once we get into conference.
But you still gotta coach the same way, prepare the same way. I’m not one of those guys that walks through the locker room and says, “Hey guys, look; we’re not going to win this game so let’s just play our butts off and expect the best.”
I can’t coach that way. I prepare, I watch tape, I break them down, just like I would coaching anywhere else. And we practice as hard and things like that. So you want them to be disappointed in losing because you don’t want them to ever accept that fact of losing, no matter who they’re playing. Because if you do that then you never have a chance. Every now and then you may “slip up” and win. But the only way you can do that is going with the mentality of, “We’re just as good as you are.” You can’t go in there saying, “I’m not going to beat this team” – then you’re not going to get anything out of them.
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