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Mike Montgomery a thinking man's coach
Saturday, March 6, 2010
(03-05) 21:55 PST -- The consummate coach can take the five guys on his basketball team and beat you, and then take your five guys and beat his five guys. In the case of Mike Montgomery, he can build a power at Stanford and then years later find himself cutting down the nets for archrival Cal.
"Your job as a coach is to put your players in a position to be successful," Montgomery said. "Regardless of the situation."
Even if you're at Stanford, which has the most severe academic restrictions of any major-conference program. Or at Cal, where he coaches a freewheeling style very different from what he had on the Farm, with big centers down low.
Last Saturday at Haas Pavilion, Montgomery's Bears locked up the program's first conference regular-season title in 50 years, this after his Cardinal ended a 36-year Stanford drought in 1999.
"I'm sure it seemed weird to some people, going to work for your archrival, but the bottom line is he gets paid to do a job," said Utah State coach Stew Morrill, a close friend and former assistant of Montgomery's. "And boy does he do it well."
Cal athletic director Sandy Barbour put a scare in the rest of the Pac-10 when she brought in the gun for hire two years ago. And Montgomery's put some more notches on his belt. The Bears are 20-9 heading into today's game at Stanford and have all but sealed a second straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament - after finishing ninth under coach Ben Braun in 2007-08.
"It's very pleasing to see this group of seniors grow like they have, together," Montgomery said. "We're playing well right now."
Montgomery, 63, draws little attention to himself.
He was asked if he had gotten any phone calls congratulating him on Cal's title.
"No, people know me," he deadpanned. "Over the years, they know it's better to let me be."
Montgomery is happy for his players, who have been getting slaps on the back in the community.
"I think everybody's excited. A lot of people waited a long time and probably were fearful of being let down again," he said. "When we finally won, it was probably a load off a lot of people's minds. It's been pretty positive."
Winning approach
On Monday, Montgomery showed his players a videotape of all the things they had been doing well lately, from making the extra pass on offense to helping out teammates on defense.
Senior guard Patrick Christopher ate it up.
"Coach sees the glass as half empty most of the time," Christopher said. "So when he pours a little bit of water in there, it gets your attention."
Montgomery is admittedly a no-nonsense type on the court - " I want things done right," he said.
When he came to Berkeley, his resume - he now is 11 wins shy of becoming the 34th Division I basketball coach with 600 - demanded the Cal players' attention.
"Coach has had great teams in the past," senior forward Theo Robertson said. "Everything he says has worked and is proven."
"Obviously we needed some type of direction from Coach," senior point guard Jerome Randle added. "He put us in the right spots on the court to be successful."
/// The key is to explain to the players how an individual effort can improve the overall team result and how it can benefit each individual player.
A chess match
Montgomery considers the game a chess match, and clearly enjoys pre-game strategy sessions and late-game management.
"He is one of the most logical coaches there is," said Butler athletic director Barry Collier, a friend and former Montgomery assistant. "I know that's not going to win many points in a sexy contest."
Besides being an excellent evaluator of talent, Montgomery breaks the game down to a simple formula - if you shoot a higher percentage than you allow, limit turnovers to 10 a game and out-rebound your opponent, you win.
"In a world of chaos, he has unbelievable common sense," Morrill said. "It's a wonderful attribute. He never panics and is able to sort things out."
With the Bears, he's sorted out a roster that is more suited to shooting jumpers than scoring inside.
"We're not big and strong," Montgomery said. "Even if I wanted to be that kind of team, we can't be. We've gone with what we do best. And we've gotten better defensively and fundamentally."
He's given Randle, Christopher and Robertson the freedom to pull up for three-pointers on the fast break and has made peace with the fact that center/power forward Jamal Boykin prefers shooting 15-footers to playing with his back to the basket.
"One of the greatest things he's done is that he's allowed us to play our game," Boykin said. "He's never said, 'Don't take that shot.' He's allowed some unconventional players to still be creative, under his basic structure."
/// Focusing on one's strengths usually create a state of predictability for the well-prepared opposition.
Sister schools
Montgomery is not a flashy guy - the Long Beach native calls himself a homebody who prefers to curl up in a chair - and that helps explain why he is currently wearing a Cal sweater, with some Stanford ones still in the closet.
"There are places where it's national championship or nothing, and the graduation rate is not a factor," Montgomery said. "I don't think I would be very happy at those places."
There are obviously many things that differentiate Stanford, a private university, from Cal, a public school, and the cultures on the two campuses, but they do have similar values when it comes to academics and athletics.
The Cardinal hadn't finished higher than fifth in more than a decade when Montgomery arrived on the Farm in 1986.
"At Stanford, they didn't really feel like they could win," Montgomery said. "It didn't seem to be in the cards. 'This is what we are.' "
Were.
From 1986 to 2004, Montgomery led the Cardinal to 12 NCAA Tournament appearances, including the 1998 Final Four.
"One of the best things Mike did at Stanford was convince everybody nationwide that there is no excuse for not being a great student and a great basketball player," Collier said. "That's a testament to his ability."
After Stanford
Montgomery left Stanford to try his wares at the highest level, the NBA. He was 68-96 in two seasons with the Golden State Warriors, learning for himself how much more power the players wield than the coaches.
"The whole dynamic changes," he said.
He then worked as a television commentator for two years but was anxious to jump back into the college ranks when Barbour came calling.
"He is an expert at his craft," said Barbour, who was never concerned that Montgomery had become synonymous with Stanford. "But even more importantly, he has a passion for creating something special on behalf of the institution and the young men in the program."
Montgomery got to coach at a Pac-10 school that he respected, got to keep living in the Bay Area and got to work with his son, John, the Bears' director of basketball operations.
And simply, he got to coach. That's what Mike Montgomery is, after all, a coach.
"I like the way the game fits together," he said. "At the same time, it's made up of people with dreams and aspirations. And the bottom line is how you blend the different types of personalities into the same mind-set. That's where the challenge comes in."
Montgomery file
-- 589-264 record (236-123 in Pac-10, fifth all-time)
-- First coach in Pac-10 to win title with two different teams
-- Five Pac-10 titles
-- One Final Four and two Sweet 16 appearances
-- 12 straight 20-win seasons
-- 11 straight appearances in NCAA Tournament
E-mail Vittorio Tafur at vtafur@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/06/SPQ31CBG3M.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
1 comment:
This was a very good article, thanks. The first paragraph sums it all up. He can beat you with his team, then take you team and beat his old team.
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