SHAKA SMART: First of all, I want to say thank you to President Lovell, Bill Scholl. They were instrumental throughout this whole process really in educating Maya and me about the vision that they have for Marquette basketball and the entire university.
One of the things that was so incredibly attractive to us about coming to Marquette is that vision is shared by us. It's a very, very common shared vision that we believe in. It starts with family.
I want to introduce my wife Maya. Stand up, Maya. We have one daughter Zora, who you guys will see running around here soon. She prioritizes school and soccer, but she'll be up here soon enough.
Maya's mother Margaret is part of our family. My mom, Monica, lives about an hour away from here. I'm so excited, she's so excited, about this move. Again, truly excited to be part of the Marquette nation.
Growing up in this part of the country, you couldn't help but follow this basketball program. I was born in 1977. One of the things I remember as a kid growing up watching basketball was I remember listening to Al McGuire as a broadcaster, getting to know his personality through listening to him do games. As I got more and more into the sport, into coaching, I learned about what he did here, what the coaches that followed him did here, truly understanding how special of a basketball program this is.
One thing I want to make very clear is a huge part of the reason that Maya and I are here is the success that has been built by past coaches and past players. I want all those former players, former coaches, to know that I take the responsibility very, very seriously of being your basketball coach.
So I want to say thank you to everyone that's reached out, that's been so welcoming to our family. We just got in yesterday, but we already feel very, very welcome. Can't wait to get to work.
I want to tell you a little bit about my vision, my philosophy, because I think it really, really aligns with what has made this program great over the years.
My number one core value is relationships. I was raised by a single mom. Really my coaches in sports were the ones that filled the void of a father figure for me. I used to look at those guys like they were 10 feet tall. I have to mention my high school coach, Kevin Bavery. Coach is right now at Middleton High School right outside of Madison. I played for him at Oregon High School. He's really the one that helped me fall in love with basketball. He used to open the gym for me on Friday and Saturday nights when I was really the only one thinking about basketball. He taught me about coaching even while I was still playing. We used to talk about diagramming plays and different defenses and offenses.
He was one of many, many coaches who spent the time to build a great relationship with me. Again, that's why I'm standing here today, because I truly believe in the power of relationships. It's a big reason why I coach.
But the relationships don't stop with the coaches and the players. It's the players amongst each other. That's probably the most important relationship in any basketball program, is the way that the guys feel about each other.
As you know, the best teams have a few things in common, and one of those things that they have in common is that they're truly connected around something common, a common goal. They want to do something special. Whether you're talking about 1977 or 2003 or any of the other great Marquette teams over the years, if you talk to those players, if you talk to those coaches, they'll say, Man, we had a connected group. That starts with relationships.
My second core value is growth. Growth is incredibly important to me because we get the chance to be around these young men at an extremely formative time in their lives. 17, 18, years old, until 22, 23 years old. For some of them a shorter time span than that. That's a time when really you go from being a young man to being a grown man, not just out here on the court, but in life.
I take very, very seriously the opportunity to play a role in helping these guys grow and become, as we say, the best version of themselves. It doesn't just happen on its own, no coach has magic pixie dust that he can sprinkle on a guy. It happens through hard work, resiliency.
That emphasis on growth is something that our players will feel every single day. We say get 1% better, just get 1% better each day, you're going to be a lot better by the end of the month, by the end of the season, by the end of the next year.
My third core value is victory. That is a competitive sport. This is a very, very high level of basketball. We step on the floor to win. But in order to win large victories, you first have to win small victories. Things like being on time, things like being the first guy ready, all the things that go into preparation to succeed.
Every team wants to win. Every player wants to win, every coach. But it's really the teams that honor what goes into winning and work at those things every single day that are going to be highly successful.
To me what goes into winning is, again, being connected around a common goal, having the willingness to lose yourself in the present. We live in such a world that pulls you into the past or the future. My goal is to get these guys to be so locked in on the present moment when they get to step out on the floor because it is a very precious time. To win you have to out-compete the opponent.
Lastly, you have to take a win-anyway mentality because we know in basketball there's always twists and turns in the game, we may not agree with some of the calls that the officials make, and you have to be willing to respond. We'll tell our guys all the time, Response is the willingness to focus on the next most important thing.
We truly want to build leaders in our basketball program. Leadership to me is not something that's determined by a title, it's not something determined by your rank or your class on the team. Leadership is simply the ability to make people in situations better.
So if our guys can come out here on the court and they can make the people around them better, if they can make the practice better, if they can make our games better, then they're leaders. If they don't, then they're not.
The best teams are filled with leaders, not just a captain or two. So our job as coaches is to cultivate that leadership.
Understanding this is a very, very high level of basketball and our goals are very, very high. I think in order to prepare for a challenge, you have to challenge yourself during that preparation. So it's going to be hard. We're going to need to work extremely hard. We're going to need to set the bar at a very high level before we even get to the games.
Part of our job this off-season is to get our guys to fully understand that by the time that ball goes up for official practice. I'm excited about that. Really, really excited about meeting our guys. I haven't gotten a chance to meet them yet in person. But they're the ones that make this program go. I can't wait to be around them.
From the players, there's a few things that we expect. Number one, we're going to train with an incredible level of enthusiasm. We step out to practice, we get to practice. We don't have to practice, we get to practice. Huge difference.
Number two, we're going to give each other energy. We've all been around energy givers, we've all been around energy takers. We want to build a basketball program full of energy givers. Through that, things are fun. It's fun to be around energy givers. And it creates winning, it creates success.
Then lastly, we're going to compete. Everything we do in our workouts and our practices, we will have a score. I don't think anyone will win every single competition, but there's going to be a barometer on where we are as a program and where each member of our program is. There's nothing wrong with that. That's an opportunity to grow and succeed and use that barometer to get better.
Can't wait to be around our guys and build relationships with them. I've learned very, very quickly that this is a very, very special family-oriented place and program that's going to be extremely attractive to future players. I'm already sharing that fact with a lot of guys.
So to all of our current players, to all of our future players, I can promise you this: you will not find a coach who has more passion and enthusiasm for pouring into you as a person and helping you become the best you can be. Through that, we're going to have a lot of fun together.
Again, I want to say thank you to everyone for coming today. Thank you for everyone watching. This is only the beginning. Can't wait to get on a plane and go see some of our guys that are home for a little while and connect with them. I can't wait to meet so many of you that I haven't met.
I do want to acknowledge, again, about as impressive a collection of former players here at Marquette as there is in any program. It doesn't even do justice to name a few because there's so many.
I do want to say thank you to Doc Rivers because he's been a mentor for me over the years. Got to know him through recruiting his son Austin. Obviously what a guy of class, what an unbelievable representative of this program.
Can't wait to meet all the alums, all the people that made this program what it is, and can't wait to make them proud.
Thank you, guys. I was taught this today, so we're going to try it out: We are...
Q. It seemed like the deal kind of came together quickly last week. Can you talk about, were you intrigued right off the bat with the possibility of Marquette? What did you like about the job? What ultimately clinched the decision for you?
SHAKA SMART: Absolutely. A close friend of mine, former co-worker, used to be here during the Tom Crean era. For someone that hasn't worked here, I do know a lot about the program just through him. Denny Kuiper. Some folks in the building will know him.
Over the years, he's just shared phenomenal stories with me about the program, about some of the folks that still work here in administration and inside the basketball program.
When the opportunity came about, the potential opportunity, there was really three reasons for me and Maya that we felt like this was an absolute slam-dunk:
Number one, this is a basketball crazy place. This is a basketball-centric athletic department. I'm excited to learn about the success that all the other sports teams are having here. I'm excited about meeting those coaches. At the same time I love the fact that basketball is in the center of it all.
Number two, it's clear that Marquette is about family. That goes beyond sports. That's something that resonates with us. When we talk about family, that doesn't stop when the boundaries of campus stops. We're in the city of Milwaukee. Maya and I have always had a passion for just being part of positive change, being part of improving the community. We can't wait to roll up our sleeves, partner with all the folks that are already doing great work here.
Then number three, the alignment. From Dr. Lovell to Bill, to Mike Broeker, there's a common vision. Again, it's a shared vision that I have. Those things were all extremely attractive.
Again, I grew up about an hour from here. I was born in Madison. Spent my whole childhood in Wisconsin. It's phenomenal being back. But the reason I came back was Marquette. That's why I'm here.
Q. I was wondering, was it just Marquette that made you interested in going somewhere or did you feel you kind of needed a fresh start somewhere else after this past season?
SHAKA SMART: Well, for me, I felt like those three factors were a better fit for our family than Texas. We had six great, great years at Texas. I mean, the relationships we were able to build, some of the unbelievable memories, our team won the first Big 12 tournament championship ever in program history. I will never forget those six years, the six years before that at VCU.
One of the things when you're in coaching is you learn when you're at a place that more than anything it's about the people. So when you move from one place to the next, that's really what you miss, you miss the people.
But I'm so excited about being part of this community and this program.
Q. After any coaching change, people wonder about what the roster is going to look like next season. Marquette has a lot of talent, Dawson, D.J., Justin. You met with them virtually, but do you get a sense of any of them returning, what the roster will look like? And the recruits for next season?
SHAKA SMART: Those guys have been great in communication. I'm going to go see those guys next week, the guys that are not on campus. The few that are I look forward to meeting them hopefully tonight.
This is a really unprecedented era in college basketball for a variety of factors. Obviously COVID being one of them. But the guys have been terrific. I think they're really excited about the possibilities moving forward of what we can do together. They're all to a man young men that want to win and want to be successful, want to be part of something special. They also love Marquette. I'm looking forward to spending time with them, getting to know those guys.
I went through a coaching change myself when I was in college. It's hard. It's something that it does kind of rock you a little bit. My college coach called me and told me he was leaving. I cried. I mean, I told you the way I looked at coaches.
So when you go through a change, it's challenging. It's our job as coaches to build relationships such that there can be a level of trust. But that doesn't necessarily happen overnight. It takes time. Just excited about spending time with those guys to do that.
Q. Obviously you had recruited a player from Brookfield Central down to Texas, so you know the basketball in Wisconsin, the talent, how it's gotten better over the years, probably a lot better since when you played. How important is it trying to keep some of the local talent here for you? Number two, we thought you were coming here seven years ago. What is different? It's all about timing, obviously. Was it just a better feel this time around with Marquette?
SHAKA SMART: Yeah, I think a few things are different. One, it's a different time for our family. Number two, at that time, obviously something was reported that wasn't true. We had a group of guys that quite frankly I wasn't ready to leave. Again, any coaching change, because I went through one myself, is something that I have a lot of sensitivity to.
In terms of local talent, one of the great things about Marquette is there's been Marquette teams that have been filled with local talent, that have had a lot of success, and there's been Marquette teams that have been led by guys from further away. There's been great players here from really close by and there's been great players at Marquette from the east coast or different parts of the country.
We want to recruit guys that fit our vision. We want to recruit guys that value relationships, growth and victory. One of the best ways to build the culture that you want to have is to bring people into your program that have a similar view of how to play basketball, how to train, and how to conduct themselves off the court.
Absolutely it's important to us to do a great job recruiting in a local area. It's important to us to do a great job developing relationships with the high school coaches and grassroots coaches in this area.
You're right, the talent has gotten better since 1995 when I graduated from high school. So we're definitely looking forward to building relationships with young men and their families that are from this area.
Q. How have you adjusted your strategies since you got to the Final Four with the VCU havoc style? What style of play do you think would fit best here?
SHAKA SMART: I think the biggest thing with style of play, it's always got to fit the guys on your team. Then as you go through the recruiting process, you try to recruit towards that. It's interesting because you are always going to have some returning players and then some incoming players.
Getting to know this group of guys that are here at Marquette currently, I do think it's a group that can play with a level of speed and pace. Offensively I think that's the most important thing to me, speed up the floor and then pace in the halfcourt, the ball moving so it gets ahead of the defense in order to create closeouts.
Then really good basketball players are great when their defender has to run and close out to them from the paint. In those situations now, you want guys that are really good shooters to shoot threes, and you want guys that can get in the paint and draw fouls and get to the foul line.
Defensively I've always loved playing an aggressive brand of defense, being disruptive to the other team, taking them out of what they do. At VCU we called it havoc. That was really more a mentality than any particular full court press or way of defending. It was a mindset that we're going to take you out of what you're trying to do. That's exactly how we want to play here.
The game has evolved some in the last 10, 15 years. I think it's officiated a little bit differently. I think depending on the league you play in, you're dealing with certain different levels of guards, different levels of guys that can attack certain defenses. But to me, it's about being disruptive, it's about getting your hands on the basketball. We always want to force 32 or more deflections, that's a big stat for us.
Then the best defensive teams, I don't care if you're playing zone, man, pressing, whatever you're doing, have one thing in common, and that is that they play with multiple efforts. They go to block a shot, but then they go to get the rebound. They help their teammate, then they recover to their man. They slide their feet, then they recover to go contest a shot. Multiple efforts is going to be a huge part of our defensive style.
Q. You mentioned your high school coach. Did anybody else from growing up here have a great influence on you, maybe not just basketball, also the core values that you mentioned? Secondly, can you elaborate a little bit more on Doc Rivers, how far you go back, how you two know each other, what you've talked about?
SHAKA SMART: In terms of influence on me, my mom. Biggest influence. Her name is Monica King. I won't tell you where she went to college, but (smiling)...
I have three brothers, and for the most part she raised us as a single mom. She did the best she could. I mean, she worked a lot. It was very tiring. I remember when I was a young kid she would come home from her day job, she'd be home for an hour or two, then she would teach a Lamaze class at night. I'm like five, six years old. I would always cry and whine because I didn't want her to leave at night.
When you're that age, you're not really thinking about how your mom feels about how you're acting. But she taught me so much really without beating me over the head with it. It was more through example, through conversation. My mom and I have always had a really close relationship where we just talk.
When I told her I was coming here, words can't express how overjoyed she is. She was the biggest influence on me. Her brother, my uncle, also a huge influence. Then my grandfather, who has passed away, lived in Chicago my whole life.
I drove through Milwaukee, we drove through Milwaukee, every time we would go visit him. Sometimes he would meet us up here halfway. I hope he can see us here today because he was a big influence on me, as well.
Doc Rivers, I got to know him in, let's see, 2008 or so. His son Austin, his three sons, middle son Austin, phenomenal basketball player, NBA basketball player, as everybody knows, was a young star player in Orlando, Florida. I had come to the University of Florida as an assistant coach to work for Billy Donovan. Austin was committed to come to Florida. He ended up changing his mind and going to Duke. I was at Florida for just one year before I went to VCU.
During that time I got to know Doc Rivers. He was so kind to me. It was great to just be able to kind of stay in touch with him over the years. I try not to bug him too much. But if you think about it, he's about as accomplished as any basketball coach in our game at any level.
He also does it with a level of class that is out of this world. Then he also takes an interest in younger coaches. He's influenced me a lot more than he probably knows, just from the kind words that he's had, the way that he's conducted himself.
So I'm really, really glad to be at his university, part of his program. The same goes for all the greats, all the former players, that have made this program what it is.
Q. You referenced the basketball-centric nature of this program. How important is it to engage with that passionate fan base? What does a fan base like that do for a program?
SHAKA SMART: I think it's really important to engage with the fan base. I think communication is so incredibly important. As we know over the past couple decades, communication has changed in so many ways. But it's critical to share your vision, to share your message.
It's interesting because in coaching, there's certain things that occur within your program that you want to stay within your program. But then there's a lot of other things that you want to share. Especially you want to share with fans that are so passionate about what you do.
I think the most important thing to share with the fans is who these young men are as people so that they can connect with them on a human level. When they go watch D.J. Carton break down his defender at the top of the key, fly down the paint, not only do they see what he's doing physically and athletically, but they understand who he is as a person. I know from coaching for 22 years, the players really value that, too.
To me, the best programs separate themselves from other programs in that there's a very, very distinct, special relationship between the players and the fans. Part of my job as a coach is to help cultivate that. It's part of my job, again, to share our vision and to communicate. But I'm really excited about that.
How important is it to success? It's hugely important. I can't wait for that first game. I keep asking Mike Broeker, who we playing? With Bill, though, Give us a little time, we don't want it to be tomorrow just yet.
But it's going to be a phenomenal opportunity for us to be part of just a basketball program that's so beloved and supported by the folks around it.
It's huge, makes a huge difference. I mean, everybody knows this season was unlike any other because of the restrictions that occurred with COVID. I do think that affected team's home court atmospheres, particularly when teams are used to having a raucous environment.
Excited about hopefully us continuing to move forward from a health standpoint so that we can get back to packing the Fiserv Forum. Again, when you have that synergy between the fans and the team, I can't really put it into a quantity and number of points that it's worth, but it's certainly worth a significant amount.
Q. As you look to fill out your coaching staff, hiring ex-head coaches for a while, offensive coordinators, defensive coordinators, analytics people, what are you going to be looking for?
SHAKA SMART: First and foremost on a coaching staff, we're looking for people that are going to be in complete alignment with our vision. I talked earlier about relationships, growth, victory. We have a variety of principles underneath each of those core values. We only want to add someone to the coaching staff if they align in those areas.
Our job, number one thing we can do as coaches, because these guys are recruited already because they're talented young men. Certainly there's areas of the game where they need to improve, they need to get stronger, they need to grow, to continue to get better as students. But they're already really talented guise. So the most important thing, the best thing we can do for them, is help them play with a clear mind, a clarity, a confidence to go attack, and to go after winning.
I mean, if you think about the best players here, a guy that I've had the chance to get to know a little bit is a great example, Travis Diener. I was a young guy on a staff at the University of Dayton when Travis was playing here. What I saw is a guy with no fears, absolute confidence, and an absolute command over his game. He didn't try to be someone else. He was Travis. That's just an example of a guy playing with an unbelievably clear mind.
If we can help our players, if we can help Dawson Garcia go play that way, Justin Lewis, those guys are going to play well because they're very talented young men.
Q. I just wonder if becoming the first black head coach in this program's history, there's only been 18 head coaches, did that distinction come up at all in conversation before you got here? What does that distinction mean to you, Maya and your families?
SHAKA SMART: It did not come up in conversation because we talked about having a shared vision. I think it's interesting. There's been so much dialogue in our country about race and other factors that are related to race over the past several months. In a lot of ways that dialogue has been really, really good.
The interesting thing is when you're in sports, when you're in basketball, it's exciting that when you get out there on the court, and the clock is running down, and the score is tied, it's 10, nine, eight... People are only really thinking about one thing, nobody is looking out there on the floor and thinking about some of the labels that we tend to place on people. Nobody is worrying about what someone said or any of those sorts of things.
All of us here in blue and gold, we're trying to win for Marquette. So that's one of the cool things about sports, is you truly can lose yourself and you can let go of some of that other stuff that does tend to plague our world sometimes. Not that it goes away, but for a moment you can just be lost in that special time.
It is certainly significant. I take a lot of responsibility and pride in being the first black head coach here, especially because this is Doc's school, because of what he's done. I'm going to be leaning heavily on him.
For me in coaching, one of the things that I really enjoy is mentoring. I used to be the really young coach. I think I'm still relatively young. Now having done this 22 years, I really enjoy mentoring young coaches, particularly young African American coaches.
If I'm the 18th head basketball coach at Marquette, hopefully down the road there's another black coach, not just at Marquette but all around the country. I think you see that if you look at some of the jobs that are being filled this spring.
The best thing we can do for that is do a tremendous job with our players, helping them grow as people, then being successful on the court.
Q. You mentioned the importance of competition, sort of keeping a score through all the practices. For you, I imagine there are some tangible goals as well. What does success look like to you in this program? Where do you want to be in a year, five years with the program?
SHAKA SMART: I think long-term is probably the easiest one to answer, and that is long-term you want to have seasons where you're able to put something up in the rafters, whether it's a Big East regular season championship, Big East tournament championship, the ultimate goal is to advance to the Final Four and beyond. That's been done once here in 1977.
There's programs that have won it and there's programs that have never won it. There's some really good programs that haven't even been to the Final Four or haven't been to the Final Four in the past 30, 40 years. I've learned you don't take for granted having done it even once. So those are the long-term goals, for sure.
Short-term, honestly there's a lot of goals that you go after before you even play a single game. Again, we're trying to build culture. Again, that's not a commentary on anything that happened before. I think any time a new coach comes in, you're going to have to build a culture that you believe in.
Again, that starts with relationships and it takes time, it takes communication, it takes a lot of work. But the goals that we have will be short-term making sure that we're able to come together, have, again, a common bond. I think by the time you get to the summer, you want to really know, Hey, this is a group of guys that we have that are all in for Marquette.
Again, this is an unprecedented time in college basketball, for those of you that kind of follow it extremely closely in terms of rule changes, extra years of eligibility, all those things. I think that certainly impacts a lot of programs around the country.
But I'm excited about, again, getting a group of guys to truly be connected around what we're here to do, then to help those guys find meaning in why they're here. When you find meaning in something, then you can really go after it with everything you have.
This is a high, high level. There's a few people in here that played at this level. But for the rest of us that did not play at this level, I think it's important to have a respect for what these guys do on a daily basis. Some of them make it look really easy, but it's not. It takes an extreme dedication and it takes the ability to process a lot of challenging things up here, all the while you're 18, 19, 20 years old trying to figure it out.
My goal short-term is to help the guys in those areas. I truly believe that success on the court follows that. When we hit the practice court on the first day of practice, if you were walking into our practice, I would want you to feel like, Man, these guys are competing at a high level, there's an incredible, infectious energy in here, guys are being coached to get better.
Q. Going back to your coaching staff, obviously you want them to fit the philosophies and values that you're instilling in your guys. I was just wondering about your thoughts about breaking that glass ceiling, maybe hiring a female assistant coach?
SHAKA SMART: It's a great question. I've actually interviewed females before for positions on the staff. I've gotten to know a few female assistant coaches in the NBA that know more about basketball than pretty much any male coach.
I think - I know - our game is certainly moving to the point where I don't think it will be long where you see a lot more female assistant coaches on the men's side in college basketball, and then you're obviously seeing more and more of them in the NBA.
I want to hire the best person. It's really not about anything other than who's going to do the best job to help our program. Again, we owe that to our players and all the folks that do such a great job supporting this program.
One of the things I've learned is you take your time, you get to know people. We had a very good coaching staff at the University of Texas. I'm very appreciative for the work that those guys have done. Again, you get to know people and you figure out what is best for these guys here in this moment.
I want to say thank you to everyone. Can't wait to meet everyone. Can't wait for the first game. If you want to find me, I'll be in there, in the office. I'm super excited about this being our new home. Again, I'm getting the hang of this, but I like it. I'm going to end with this. We are...
Thank you.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports