To the casual college basketball fan, some of the more anonymous people in a program are the assistant coaches. Players and the head coach are often known, and a few assistant coaches – either ones who have been a head coach, have been at a school for many years or are considered rising stars on their way to being head coaches – might also be known. But unless you’re a devoted fan or a college basketball junkie, that’s often about the extent of it. And yet, there are few people more important to a program, and with compelling stories of their own.
Lamar Barrett is helping to get some of those stories out there. Unmasked, a series of interviews largely with college basketball assistant coaches, is his offering to this end. The idea came to him while on – what else? – a Zoom call during the earlier days of the pandemic where he was asked about some facets of being a college basketball assistant coach that many don’t know about. Many in the discussion were fascinated by what he shared, to the point he could see he had something interesting on his hands.
Barrett has plenty of experience on the subject matter, having spent 16 years as a Division I assistant coach at a number of schools up and down the east coast. When he wasn’t a coach, he was dealing with them often while working at The Hoop Group, and he was also an assistant coach at Oxon Hill High School in Maryland, which produced a few Division I players over the years. He’s been there and done that.
Back in my days of covering college basketball, assistant coaches were not the first people I met on the job. Post-game press conferences would always consist of the head coach and perhaps a player or two. When my coverage expanded into recruiting, however, assistant coaches were all over the place, and I built many relationships with them. Those relationships would extend into the season, when I would catch up with them and meet others before and after games. I count many, including Barrett, as friends, people I would talk to about things off the court as well and sometimes whose families I also came to know over time. My truest friend in the entire business, Ken Dempsey, has never been a Division I head coach in his decades in the college game.
That, however, is only the beginning of the story of one of the sports world’s most interesting fraternities. Assistant coaches wear many hats: they recruit, they are part of game scouts (often one assistant leads a scout for a particular game), they are a big part of non-conference scheduling, they lead different parts of practice, they do extra sessions with players, they deal with players off the court, some of the administrative details, and some are even given responsibilities with addressing the media. Many already talk to members of the media in the course of doing their jobs, whether before or after games or when out recruiting.
It might seem like a lot of fun to a sports fan, and it usually is, but as is often the case, reality is a little more complicated. Being a college assistant coach is not for the faint of heart in many cases. Besides the obvious of ambitious coaches wanting to move up and one day become a head coach, many things can lead to changes in assistant coaches on a staff. While head coaching changes get all the news, many more assistant coaching changes happen every year. Meet someone who’s been an assistant coach for over ten years, and chances are you have met someone who has lived in a few cities and not necessarily because that was the game plan when it all started.
It’s one reason why even head coaches at the mid-major level and below in Division I don’t always jump for just any higher level job if they have won. After moving around a lot as an assistant, stability is a nice thing to have, especially since coaches often have families. I remember Dennis Wolff, reflecting on his 200th win at Boston University back in 2006, mentioning that because he moved around so much as an assistant, the first consideration for him was being in a good and stable situation for his family, as many coaches in his position might have jumped ship well before hitting that milestone. For years, some wondered when Wolff would leave for a bigger school, but he found the combination of the job he had and his family’s situation living where they did worked well for him, and thus no need to move as soon as possible.
One of Barrett’s first questions in many of these interviews – what happens after you’re all done with human resources on your first day? – sheds light on college coaching being a little different than the casual fan might think. Even those who played, who have been around the game practically for life, find themselves in what seems like a strange world at first. You might think recruiting is straightforward – and I count myself as being one of those people back in my early days of covering the sport, before I was knee-deep in that world – but that simply isn’t so. For some in their first coaching job, it’s even a bit of a culture shock.
None of this is to say anyone should feel sorry for a college coach or think it’s really not something you should ever want to do. It’s only to convey that like just about any other profession, it has challenges. Most of the ones I know and even count as friends love it, and as someone who spent nearly two decades in the game in another capacity, I can understand why. There are lots of rewards to go with the challenges. Even as a member of the media, it was always fun, but by about mid-late February every year, it got to be a grind until the end of the season. Given the chance, I would do it all again in a nanosecond just like I know these coaches would.
In the interviews, coaches relay recruiting stories both good and bad, strange-but-true stories with players they coached, some of the stresses and sacrifices that come with being a college coach, and much more. Stories with memorable scouts come up as well, as every assistant has had some real hits and misses in that department. It’s all done to give a more complete picture of some of the most important people in a college basketball program, all while they are often quite under-exposed.
Barrett began the series by conducting many interviews last summer, and they number over 60 that are live as of now, with many more to still come. They have included former head coaches like Bill Courtney, Bruiser Flint, Larry Harrison and Anthony Solomon, as well as some who should be head coaches one day. Many of these coaches have been in the game a long time and have many stories to tell.
Much has come of this that he could have never foreseen. One interesting effect this has had is it has led to some connections being made among coaches. Later, with the aid of his wife, a logo and some apparel came into the mix as well, with the apparel becoming a big hit. There is much more still to come as well.
A unique college basketball season is ongoing, with plenty of starts and stops. No doubt it is producing many more interesting stories, including with assistant coaches. With Barrett’s help, those stories are becoming known for the average fan’s consumption and will continue to emerge, and it’s a welcome addition to what’s out there on a great game.