TicketsCINCINNATI — Jerrod Calhoun was officially introduced as the 29th head coach in Cincinnati men’s basketball history at a press conference Wednesday afternoon at Fifth Third Arena.
"The University of Cincinnati deserves a winner in men's basketball,” Calhoun said. “This city deserves to be rocking and rolling again. People need to fear us in the state of Ohio. It's the best basketball job in the state of Ohio. I think it truly is. Our players will understand what it means to put the Bearcat uniform on. One thing is going to be certain: when they put the Bearcat uniform on, they're going to make this city proud.”
Full press conference video is available here, along with additional quotes available below.
Cincinnati Head Basketball Coach Jerrod Calhoun
Opening Statement
“Thank you so much, John [Cunningham]. I want to really thank Dr. [Neville] Pinto, it was great meeting you, I really look forward to your leadership and spending some time with you in the next couple days. Want to thank our Board of Governors. You guys are the best. I thought this was the best process during my time in coaching. I want to start by thanking my family for the sacrifices that they've made throughout my crazy basketball journey. They're really sacrificing school here lately. We've been in Las Vegas, San Diego, Utah and now Cincinnati, in nine days, and I think they've been to one day of school. So, they're not looking forward to [going back to] school, but they've been part of this journey and play a huge, huge part. I want to thank my agent, Bret Just. This would not have happened without his guidance. He’s represented the last five national championship coaches; there is no better agent in college basketball. I'd also like to thank Cavan Walsh, who also made the trip here today, Bret's number two guy with WME. My journey started right in this gym. The gym looks a heck of a lot different; I can tell you that. I'll never forget coming from Cleveland State University as a player. We're getting ready for opening night, and it was a practice, and I was walking, I'm so confused by the gym, but I was walking with Coach [Bob] Huggins, and I asked him, I said, Huggs [Bob Huggins], ‘What's tomorrow going to look like?’ What's this crowd going to look like? I just got done playing. I'm a student assistant. I don't know anything. He said, ‘Jerrod, there will be 13,176 people every night. They're here to see the Cincinnati Bearcats. It doesn't matter if we play Akron tomorrow. Our team is beloved by these fans.’ That started my journey, and this has been an amazing basketball journey. I told Terry Nelson, and I told Corie Blunt this today. I think the man above had this mapped out; coming back here was in his plan. It started at Cincinnati, learning from Coach Huggins, I think the best college basketball coach of all time, the best practice coach I've ever seen. He empowered Andy Kennedy. He empowered Dan Peters; he just empowered you. He made you believe that you could do anything. Then I was at Walsh University with Jeff Young, probably the greatest coach in Ohio that nobody talks about, won a national championship there, and it was an incredible, incredible three years from Walsh. Then I went back with Coach Huggins to West Virginia. I met him at a Burger King in Youngstown, Ohio. He said, ‘You want a job?’ I said, ‘Sure, Huggs, I'd love to work with you again.’ True story. So, he says, ‘All right, I'm going to make you my director of basketball ops.’ So, I went there for four years and was the director of basketball operations and really learned how to run a program on a day-to-day basis. It was awesome. Then, the opportunity to go to Fairmont State, a Division II school, I took a $60,000 pay cut. We were going into the Big East. I wanted to be a Division II head coach, and once again, I turned to Huggs, and he said, ‘If you want to run your own program, you don't get too many opportunities. You probably need to do this.’ So I went down the road, and Paul Molinari joined me, of course, [Mantoris] Robinson and Joe Mazzulla, and off to the races. The press conference came the next morning. We were supposed to have practice and I’ll never forget this. The stage was still set up. I wanted to call Coach Huggins and tell him, ‘Can I come back? What did I just do? What kind of mistake did I just make?’ But honestly, it was the greatest experience running your own program, because nobody cared, nobody watched, nobody saw your mistake. So, you're able to really tinker with your offense and your defense. It was incredible. We played for the national championship, and then off to Youngstown State, where I was hired by a guy by the name of Ron Strollo. Just a tremendous AD but I was guided by Jim Tressel, just a tremendous president. After they lost the Division II game. He recruited me to go to Youngstown State. A lot of what we do, program-wise and belief-wise, was from Jim Tressel. The way he operated, the way he ran our university. It was just incredible. It was considered one of the worst Division I jobs in the country when we took it, and seven years later, we had two of the best years back-to-back. Then it was off to Logan, Utah, a place that none of us knew about. Was hired by Diana Sabau, probably one of the greatest interviews I ever had. I got to meet the players. It was very unique. The players were involved in the process of hiring a new coach, and as I was selling my vision, I didn't want to leave. I said, ‘Wow, these kids really want to win. They're buying into what I'm talking about.’ It was the greatest experience. But all things kind of always led to Cincinnati, the way we've built it at every stop, and especially the last two years in Utah State. I was telling Terry Nelson this, we have a very unique system. We have a different style of playing basketball. We're very precise on how we recruit, how we operate on a day-to-day basis. In the modern era of college basketball, I think you're seeing a lot of people just accumulate talent. We want to accumulate winners. Utah State, two years ago, we went to the NCAA Tournament with $800,000; we're the lowest at-large team in America. This year, we went and spent $2.4 million on our roster, and we won a regular-season title, we won a tournament title, we won a first-round NCAA game, and we took Arizona to the final four or five minutes in that game. Not here to say we don't need money by any means. We need a lot of it, that's for sure. But I think what it shows you is our ability to evaluate the right people. You have to have the right people. The University of Cincinnati deserves a winner in men's basketball. This city deserves to be rocking and rolling again. People need to fear us in the state of Ohio. It's the best basketball job in the state of Ohio. I think it truly is. So why did I take Cincinnati? It's been a crazy two weeks, and that's why I credit Cavan [Walsh] and Bret [Just] for helping me navigate this. A big part was John Cunningham. A big part was Brad Pike, their vision, their energy, everything aligned with our family, and wanting to get back to the great state of Ohio and put Cincinnati back on the map. But we had other options. There's no doubt about it, but I just kept thinking of Fifth Third Arena, the student section, the fans, all the friendships, and being so close to home. But John [Cunningham] really sold it to me. And there was one other guy. He's out in Los Angeles. He's become a very big mentor of mine. Over the last couple years, he and I have really connected on a lot of things. Mick Cronin. Mick Cronin was tremendous. Seems like he's related to everybody in town, kind of like Huggs in West Virginia, these guys, no wonder they dominated so much. Mick’s vision and Mick’s desire to get this program back, and you're the right guy at the right time. Your style of work there was tremendous. I really look forward to seeing all the former players I grew up idolizing, Melvin Levett, Steve Logan, Ruben Patterson; those are my guys from Cleveland. That means a lot to me. Nick Van Exel, Kenyon Martin, Danny Fortson, Terry Nelson, the list goes on and on. Everybody in here. We all idolize these guys. They're going to play a big part in this. John Meeker. I can tell you that we are going to develop a mentorship program. Our former players will be part of this. We will have a character class. Our players will understand what it means to put the Bearcat uniform on, that I can tell you. Because none of us are here without these players. You see all these guys; it's just kind of very surreal to be up here today. I'll be honest with you, I'm very humbled and honored that Keyshuan [Tillery] and the guys are here. Had a great meeting with him last night. Look forward to growing with these current guys, and in about a week, it's going to be portal season. So, you guys are going to hear a lot of the rumors, a lot of different things about our team, but one thing is going to be certain: when they put the Bearcat uniform on, they're going to make this city proud. They're going to reflect you guys, the fans. We need to do this together. It's much bigger than a coach, one player; we all need to be moving in the right direction. So, I look forward to meeting every one of you guys and women out here. Thank you for coming. We don't take this opportunity lightly. I told John [Cunningham] and Brad [Pike] that. Let's get to work.”
On how he defines his program identity
“Yeah, I think it's family. I think it's a family atmosphere. It starts with our players families on all the best teams. If you ask Coach Huggins about his Final Four team, the unsung heroes of that team were the parents. We had unbelievable parents. Same thing with the ‘92 team, with Erik [Martin] and Terry [Nelson] and those guys, right? So during the recruiting process, you have to do an unbelievable job in a very short period of time to make sure that the guys you are bringing in really fit to how you want to coach and how you want to run your program. So we are very simple. It's putting the team over me. There's a million ways to do that, but we want to make sure every single day we are taking the steps in order to see that behavior, not only on the court but in the classroom, in this community, right? I think the most gratifying thing about all this is we are landing in Cincinnati, and I'm getting texts from parents of players at Walsh, at Fairmont State and at Youngstown State. None of us are taking these wins with us when we go, it's memories, it's relationships, and that's what this program will be built on. I explained that to Terry, and I explained that to see woman like we got to have that on a daily basis.”
On bringing past coaching influences to Cincinnati
“Jeff Young, probably the best skill development guy I've ever seen. Andy Kennedy, I would say, was tremendous and just has a great personality. Coach Huggins, I will say, is the best practice coach I've ever seen, if you look at his coaching tree right now, it's one of the most non-talked about coaching trees of all time and guys like Brad Underwood, Mick Cronin, Andy Kennedy and the list goes on and on. He empowered us to run stations, he empowered us to run a side of the ball. Joe Mazzulla has been similar offensively, because of our relationship, and there's not a lot of coaches that run these types of offenses and that sort of thing. Coach Massimino, obviously, the family atmosphere, the changing of the defense is kind of what we did with Arizona putting that pressure on, that was Coach Huggins. That was Coach Massimino. Just so many lessons. I think you get better with time. Looking at those pictures, it's kind of depressing because they got gray hair and time flies, but as time goes on, I think you get better at every stop of the way. Just so many people have impacted my journey.”
On returning to where is coaching journey began
“You don't know where life is going to take you. You have to take a risk. I think my biggest risk of my career was leaving Coach Huggins and taking a Division II job. I don't know if anybody in the history of college basketball has done that. So I would say, you dream of it, but you don't stop working. At the end of the day, life's about getting on to the next chapter. As soon as all this hoopla ends, and I'm going to go back to my hotel tonight with a headache, because I'm going to have 1,000 things to do by 10 a.m. tomorrow. Coaching is hard, coaching is very demanding, coaching is 330 days out of year. That's why my kids have sacrificed a great deal and my wife, but they understand the way we run our program. We try to integrate everybody as much as we can by getting them on road trips and those sorts of things. To be back here at the University of Cincinnati, it's a dream come true, and as I said, without John Cunningham, Brad Pike and Coach Cronin, I don't know if this would happen. They really had a great vision.”