OCD, Snickers Bars, and Me
My education by fire
October 15t, 1982, the first official day of practice, had finally arrived. I was going to start my coaching career on the floor. Up to this point, my coaching duties consisted mostly of marketing, promoting and recruiting. I was also getting to know the players and trying to “fit in”. The fact that a few players were my age made it a little uncomfortable for both me and them. Coming from Point Loma Nazarene, where I had experienced a very sheltered college life and being unaccustomed to “the real world”, I was extremely nervous telling these guys what to do let alone acting like I knew what the hell I was talking about. I DIDN”T! Actual coaching was completely foreign to me. Yes, I had played 4 years at PLNU, but that was far different than coaching. I decided to take the “sit back and watch” approach…BIG MISTAKE with Coach Wilson.
Lyle Damon was back for his last year, but clearly, this was Wilsie’s program.
My baptism “by fire” would make that very apparent to me after the last practice before the start of the season…
Twenty minutes before our first official practice, I witnessed something crazy. Coach Wilson did this before every practice. HE WOULD SHOVE TWO SNICKERS BARS IN HIS MOUTH AND INHALE THEM. He had this thing down pat. He took pride in his ability to annihilate those bars. It was like a ritual of his. After devouring both bars in record time, he’d tell us little peons, “TIME TO GO TO WAR!”
From the very moment he stepped in the gym, it was CRAZY. He was on such a sugar HIGH that he was bouncing off walls, players and my frail ass body. I’d never seen anything like it. Well, actually I had. It reminded me of the scene in the Exorcist where Linda Blair’s head does a 360. That was Wilsie, minus the green puke. He was crazed, a MADMAN, possessed. Quite honestly, I LOVED IT! The energy in the gym, the players being juiced, it was just like the atmosphere during playoff time. After that first practice, I reached the decision that Coach Wilson was “My Guy”. This guy was a genius. I was going to learn EVERYTHING from him about coaching, practice planning and energy in the gym. But first, I would have to survive him teaching me a VERY PAINFUL lesson that embarrassed me like never before.
My first year at SFSU was interesting to say the least. I was a “young pup”. New to world that is college basketball. I was 23 years old, just out of college and completely ignorant to the demands of being a college basketball coach. Over the next year, I’d learn more than I ever cared to know about this unique profession. Looking back, it was all worth it.
Coach Wilson educated me on numerous things pertaining to the life of a basketball coach, but this quote says it most prolifically:
“Being a basketball coach is just like being a janitor-THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING TO DO!” — Kevin Wilson
That same year, I also learned that contrary to expert medical opinion, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) IS contagious. No, It Really Is. OCD may not have been talked about much back in 1982, but it was definitely thriving in the Gator Basketball offices. We had the cleanest offices in the country. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was SPOTLESS! This included all the stuff that usually gets left for “spring cleaning”. WE CLEANED IT ALL! We had an office can of cleaner and rags and Wilsie would clean his desk before leaving the office. No, not at the end of the day, this was done each and every time he left the office. That shit went on 5–6 times a day. So guess what? I HAD TO DO THE SAMETHING! Being constantly engrossed in Gator Basketball rituals and routines got my creative juices flowing. After the first week, it was my time to ask, “CHIPS AND A POP?” It was either that, or the buzz I got from sitting in the office taking in the fumes from all the cleaning that drove me to run the “GATOR BASKETBALL” gauntlet.
Pride in the program was also very big for Wilsie, which meant sporting the school colors: PURPLE and GOLD. We even had purple and gold pens and he had a specific metallic gold pen he used just for special occasions. He’d buy a new pen and bring it to the office and pass it around to us. I LEARNED VERY QUICKLY TO ADMIRE THAT PEN, CHERISH IT, FONDLE IT AND SPEND TIME WITH IT, because if we didn’t, we’d be lectured on the importance of the “little things”. And the “little things” did become very important to the program. It’s hard to explain, but all those little things that most people think of as being stupid or insignificant actually pulled everything together in building SFSU into a basketball power. To this day, I still use many of the things Wilsie taught me, minus the snickers bars!
GATOR BASKETBALL was THRIVING and I was given the opportunity to see it up close and personal. Watching it all come together in year two was magical, and something that I’ll never forget. But first, my biggest break in coaching was about to happen and yet I had no clue what was coming…..
August 1982. Here is the original “Goal Ladder” Coach Wilson had me do my first month on the job. Not having any idea what I was doing, I wrote down where I was at the time (volunteer assistant), then a 10 year ladder to where I wanted to be. I wanted to either be a DII Head Coach or #1 Assistant at the Division I level by age 33. Remarkably, I reached all of these goals ahead of time, without knowing how I did it!
