TicketsI recently had the chance to sit down with each of the coaches for a quick interview, so you, the fans, can get to know them better as the season gets underway. Meet assistant coach Mark Ehlen!
Reggie Philpott: What will your role be on the coaching staff this year?
Mark Ehlen: One of the reasons I'm here is because I'm a veteran coach. I was 13 years at Toledo and nine years at Xavier, and I was a high school coach before that so I've been through the process of a season many times. [Head coach] Jamelle [Elliott] being a first-year head coach, I think she wanted somebody that had been through the wars before as a head coach. I think my main capacity is to help her with the basketball side of things ... I'll be working with the guards primarily in terms of position work and fundamental growth.
RP: What is it that attracted you to return to the city of Cincinnati?
ME: Skyline Chili [laughs]. I lived in Cincinnati for 15 years, I was six years a high school teacher and then nine years at Xavier, and even though I wasn't born in Cincinnati, I always loved Cincinnati. It was tough to move away when I left to go to Toledo to be the head coach at Toledo. I spent 13 years in Toledo, but my heart was always in Cincinnati. I met my wife here, my wife was a teacher here, we were married here. And a lot of great friends are here as well as great experiences both at the high school and college level. So, the opportunity to come back to Cincinnati was a no-brainer. I couldn't say yes fast enough when Jamelle asked me if I was interested.
RP: With a few weeks to go before the season gets underway, where is your focus?
ME: Because we have so much to do introducing a new system to these players, we want to use this time to introduce our base defense and the offenses that we'll use, and getting them familiar with that. We're in the process right now of planning our season ... making sure that everything is set out, by our first game everything will have been covered. There's a lot of planning that has to take place. You don't just show up at practice and say, what do we want to do today?
RP: Obviously, over the past couple years, the team can't get much worse. What are some of the challenges associated with using this year as a springboard to take the team to the next level?
ME: Good question. That's the biggest challenge, and I think what Jamelle brings to the table is somebody [whose] vision of what this program is going to be starts now. What she's doing right now is showing the team and the players how we're going to be as people, how we're going to be as players, how we can win every day. It's a cumulative effect; it's not just on game day, we win or lose. It's that we win every day in practice. What we do every day in practice, what we do every day as a team, how we treat each other as players every day leads to success, and it's those off the court activities as well as on the court activities. When you're on the court, it's how hard we play, it's what kind of teammate we are there. It's the focus that you have, it's all those little things. I think Jamelle's doing a great job of that with our players, making them accountable right now for every aspect of what they do. One thing I think that's important to realize, it's easy to look at Jamelle and say, well, she comes from Connecticut where they've won six national titles, but when she came to Connecticut, no one knew of Connecticut. They were a losing program, too. It was in her four years when they won their first national championship, and so she was able to see what it took as a process to go from a losing program to a successful program. It doesn't have to be a national championship team. We're trying to change the mindset here of not just the players but of the community, and our fan base that we're going to build a winning program here. It's going to take some time, it's not going to happen overnight, but you have to chip away at it every day.
RP: Speaking of the community, obviously, wins on the court is going to be big. What else does it take to get a fan base to really buy in to the team, at this point?
ME: Well, it takes our part, and that's one thing that we're doing: we're opening up our program to people, and saying, join us! And what will happen is when things start to build ... it's easy to jump on the bandwagon when things are going good. It takes a little courage to build the bandwagon when there's nothing built yet. But the fun part is in the building. I've built programs everywhere I've been, in high school, at Xavier, at Toledo the program was already built, but the most enjoyable part about being a part of anything is the growth. I just sent a letter out to recruits today, and this was the thought of the day: "a great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." That went out just today. I think that's true for our fan base as well. Be a part of something, and then with their enthusiasm and their support in all different ways, they can help us build a program. That groundswell of support, that enthusiasm is infectious. It just starts to grow, and then when something great happens, I get goosebumps thinking about it right now, when something great happens they can say, I was there at the beginning. I didn't jump on at the end when they were winning 20 games, but I was there when they were just starting. That, to me, is the pleasure and the payoff of joining us now.
RP: I know you mentioned Skyline already, what are some other Cincinnati traditions that you've been happy to be able to partake of again?
ME: And I have partaken. I've gained about five pounds since I came back [laughs]. Everybody talks about Graeter's, and I love Graeter's, but I love UDF too. Obviously Montgomery Inn. See, here's the problem: when you've lived at a place, and I was here for fifteen years, you have all your favorites. So when you come back, you have to go back to all your favorites. But then, oh, look over there: there's a place I haven't seen before, so I have to try that out, too. And everybody's talking about this new place, I have to go to the new place too. I love food, so I'm trying out all the pizza places that I never knew existed. Just yesterday I was at Adriatico's.
RP: That's my favorite pizza.
ME: Not bad. Yesterday was my first day, so there's a good example. I'm trying it out. There's a little pizza place in Mt. Lookout that serves New York style by the slice. So I have to try all these places out. Fine dining is not me; I can't be accused of going to the Celestial, and I don't even know all these new places that are out there. But for the junk food? Yeah, I'm all over it. Pizza? All over it [laughs].
RP: Do you have a perspective to share on the Cincinnati fan?
ME: I know that Cincinnati in general is dying for a winner. Once they find one, they're all over it. You look at their Bearcats football team this here and how people have rallied around that. Not just this year, but this year is a culmination of past years. I'm not a big expert in UC football, but I know that what Brian Kelly has done and the enthusiasm he's brought is obviously a reason for that, but there were coaches before him that helped build that program up to a point where he could take it and really run with it. That's what we're trying to do here: build something that the city of Cincinnati can be proud of, and support, and I know what this town is like, having been on the other side at Xavier for nine years, the loyalties are in many ways divided here between Xavier and UC. We just want to build a program that Cincinnati fans of women's basketball can rally around and support and feel proud of.
You can learn more about Ehlen by checking out his profile here.
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