There’s some irony — four letters of it — in Josh
Pastner’s name. If the 32-year-old rookie coach of the Memphis Tigers
represents anything, it’s certainly not the past. Over a summer that
saw an ugly story (John Calipari’s departure for Kentucky) get gruesome
(the NCAA’s “vacating” of the program’s 2007-08 Final Four season),
Pastner hit the ground running toward this still-proud program’s
future.
If the Great Recession has taught us anything, it’s that crisis
opens the door for opportunity. Pastner is not so much rebuilding (or
reloading) the U of M program he’s been charged with leading; he’s here
to help it grow. Here’s why Tiger fans should like what they see.
Pride of Ownership. For the better part of a decade, the
Memphis program was less the university’s or the city’s, but
Calipari’s. One coach — one man — was the axis, and that
can be dangerous. But the Tiger program had a national reputation
before Calipari, and it will after Pastner. Whether it’s a sales pitch
or genuine adulation, Pastner appears to recognize the vested sense of
connection this city has with its college basketball team, from bankers
to bartenders, from teachers to traffic cops.
“I don’t want this to be about me,” Pastner says. “This is about the
city of Memphis. It’s the city’s team, the university’s team. It’s
about the former players who put in the blood, sweat, and tears to get
the program where it is today. It’s about the fan base.”
Optimism Trumps Cynicism. A quote from Calipari: “It
disappoints me sometimes — when I’ve been here going on five
years and I’ve been pretty fair and consistent in how I deal with
things — that people get mean and vicious. But you know what? I
don’t hear it, I don’t read it. I just get disappointed if anybody else
believes it.”
This was in January 2005, after Tiger guard Jeremy Hunt made the
police blotter for an altercation with his ex-girlfriend. In Calipari’s
eyes, the community got “mean and vicious” by suggesting that allowing
Hunt to remain in uniform was insensitive.
A quote from Josh Pastner at his introductory press conference last
April: “There are 86,400 seconds in a day, from midnight to midnight.
You realize how precious life is and how fortunate things are. When you
get an opportunity like this, it’s humbling. I totally realize the
responsibility I’ve been given. I fully realize it.”
It’s easy to be positive — as Calipari certainly was —
while going 137-14 over four years. But when times are challenging and
hard questions are asked, calling certain fans “the miserables” doesn’t
help alleviate the tension. It’s hard to picture Pastner even using the
word, let alone using it to describe Tiger fans.
“People here are so genuine,” Pastner says. “I’m the same guy I was
when I was an assistant coach. And I’ve seen good intentions, good
motives throughout the city.”
As for dealing with the lingering cloud of NCAA sanctions, Pastner
is utilizing an arsenal of feel-good techniques.
“I have a word painted above my door,” Pastner says. “Gratefulness.
It’s the most important word. When you’re grateful, you keep things in
perspective. You keep your ego in check. You realize how precious life
is. You don’t live with a fear base: if I don’t do this, if I don’t do
that. What you have to do is live in the moment, being present, being
centered, having clarity. It’s all a matter of attitude, and that’s
based on commitment. It’s not based on money or material things.
Attitude is based on choice, and you choose how you want to be.”
Challenges Define Us. Winning the Conference USA championship
won’t be easy anymore. Pastner would like to control how much the gap
has closed between his program and the rest of C-USA, but make no
mistake: The gap has closed. No Tiger appears on the preseason
all-conference team. They’ll be picked to finish anywhere from second
to sixth, maybe lower by some pundits.
Pastner sees this as the kind of challenge no Memphis team has faced
in years, and he relishes it. “Every game is hard,” he says. “Winning
is hard. Winning 61 straight conference games was hard. It wasn’t
because other teams let us win. Memphis was just better.
“We will get our opponents’ best shot this year, because they all
feel like this is the year to get Memphis. We’ll have to play nearly
perfect games. This is the year teams will feel like they can get
Memphis.”
Underdogs Are Charming. Until they bite. “The expectations
won’t be the same this year,” Pastner admits. “It’s not good or bad;
it’s reality.”
Sports fans experience different emotions when their team wins a
game it shouldn’t, as opposed to winning a game it’s expected to win.
It’s a transition Tiger fans will have to make this season. A sigh of
relief after beating UAB at the buzzer on the road is quite different
from the exultation of upsetting the Blazers in hostile territory with
an NCAA-tournament berth on the line. Scratching and clawing your way
toward the postseason — as opposed to considering the
regular-season merely prelude — has its virtues.
“The city really needs to rally around its team,” Pastner says. “We
don’t need a sixth man in that arena; we need a seventh man. I suppose
I’d rather undersell and over-perform. It’s going to take time. We’ll
get back to where we’re the favorites. It’s going to be a fun year for
fans, for everyone involved.”
This Job Will Shape Josh Pastner. The new coach is a clean
slate, a tabula rasa, a newlywed even. No NCAA baggage, no failed NBA
adventure. Pastner will make his name here.
“I worked for Coach Cal for only a year,” Pastner says, “but what he
did the last four years — the number of wins [137] — isn’t
reality. That was the greatest run in the history of college
basketball. But as much as he helped shape the program — or Coach
[Gene] Bartow or Coach [Larry] Finch or Coach [Dana] Kirk — I
hope that the program will shape me for my time. I also hope to do some
great things in the community to help shape it. It’s a win-win for
both.”
Pastner dismisses the thought of coaching in the NBA someday, or
anywhere else for that matter. “This could be the final-destination
job,” he says. “Usually you hop from job to job before you land an
elite position like this. I hope to be here like Jim Boeheim at
Syracuse or Lute Olson at Arizona. I hope the community will want me to
be here that long, 30-35 years. I love college basketball, molding
young men. And I love developing student-athletes toward the chance of
playing in the NBA. Then I can go watch them play! I love everything
about what I’m doing.”
The Big East Watch. Pastner dodges questions about a BCS
conference like a seasoned politician. We’re in C-USA, he’ll tell you,
so that’s the league we need to win.
But U of M athletic director R.C. Johnson didn’t hire Mike Tranghese
— former commissioner of the Big East — to sample buffet
options at alumni events. The next evolutionary step for the Tiger
program is a major conference, one that will bring television revenue,
major-bowl opportunities for the football team, and a recruiting hook
C-USA will never provide. Among the major conferences, the Big East is
the most likely suitor, with only eight football teams and a basketball
league — including old rivals Louisville, Cincinnati, and
Marquette — that would benefit from the addition of Memphis.
Reconnect with Memphis’ “Farm System.” In 11 years under
Larry Finch (1986-97), the Tigers suited up eight native Memphians who
scored at least 1,000 points for their hometown university. Over the
nine years Calipari was at the helm, the program had two such players
(Antonio Burks and Jeremy Hunt). Calipari made it a priority upon his
arrival to “recruit nationally,” and to ignore talent beyond the Bluff
City would be myopic. But when your program sits in a hotbed of prep
talent, “inside-out recruiting” (as Pastner has described it) is a wise
approach. Memphians don’t go to Kansas City for their barbecue or St.
Louis for their blues. Start with making FedExForum the destination of
choice for top local talent and you’re likely to see a magnet effect
that stretches beyond the Mid-South.
With Elliot Williams returning to his hometown after a year at Duke,
Pastner’s team will have an immediate infusion of local blood. Add to
the mix 2010 recruits Joe Jackson (White Station High School) and Chris
Crawford (Sheffield), and Pastner may exceed Calipari’s total for local
1,000-point men by his fifth year on the job.
“Our job is to protect our home base,” Pastner says. “This is an
elite program, and we’re still going to recruit nationally. But there
are so many good student-athletes here locally. It just gives us a
leg-up. If we want a kid from Memphis and he doesn’t come here, it will
be strictly because he doesn’t want to play here. It won’t be because
someone outworks us.”
In evaluating his team, Pastner sees its speed as a chief
strength. With veteran guards Willie Kemp, Doneal Mack, and Roburt
Sallie joined by Williams, the Tigers will be pushing the ball. But the
quickened pace may expose what Pastner — and everyone else who
looks at the roster — sees as the team’s primary
vulnerability.
“Our lack of depth is our weakness,” he says. “We have two inside
players: Pierre Henderson-Niles and [junior-college transfer] Will
Coleman. Our numbers make our margin for error slim to none. We’ll play
small ball a lot, but I think that can be a strength. Knock on wood
that we stay healthy.”
Like a veteran coach, Pastner turns to his seniors with the hope of
finding leadership on the floor, particularly three players who have
endured a turbulent transition and still have basketball to play. “This
is the year for Willie, Doneal, and Pierre to really leave their mark,”
Pastner says. “Sometimes people have a natural tendency to lead. You’ve
got to be able to do your job and be accountable for your own actions.
Leading is by sincerity. If you don’t believe, people see through
it.”
So what does the city’s new standard-bearer for optimism actually
worry about? What’s his chief concern when he skips the temptation of
coffee (or soda, to say nothing of alcohol) and starts his day? “The
community has been so good to me,” Pastner stresses. “I love Memphis.
And I want to give back. I want to win for the city. I don’t want to
let anyone down.”
