Jess Wynn here. Dad suggested I keep a journal of my first season. Great idea, Dad, why didn’t you think of it on May 1.
First some background. I was born on May 1, 1991. I was the butt of a joke that went national the day after my birth.
When Al Davis, the famous general manager/owner of the Oakland Raiders heard that my parents had named me Jess he called the big national sports network and said the following:
“I never met Will Wynn or his wife, Lenny, but I gotta figure this kid has got to be mine in some way. I mean how could it not be when it’s a Jess Wynn baby?”
Yeah. About that Jess thing. Mom had an Uncle Jessup and Dad had a friend named Jessum. So they compromised on Jess. Of course from about 6th grade through college “funny” guys called me Jessica.
My sister Marisa was 12 ½ when I was born and brother Sean was 10. I was never really close to either. By the time I was born Marisa was already at that college for geniuses in Western CT, and Sean headed to MIT before I turned 2. We all speak and that but I can’t say I know them at all well.
Marisa wound up with a private company doing something with physics and space travel. When he was 11 Sean solved some 300 or 400 year old math problem that every math geek in the last few centuries had been working on. At that point MIT found him and all but stole him away. Actually he really wanted to go there and Mom and Dad didn’t hold him back.
MIT taught him all the complicated math in the world in the next couple of years. At 15 he made some kind of discovery that just about proved that matter will never be able to travel at or above the speed of light, and he just keeps making more and more math discoveries that maybe a couple dozen people can even understand.
I went in my own direction. Mom’s a world famous surgeon. That would NEVER have appealed to me. I was always tall and EVERYBODY kept telling me what a great basketball player I would be. It turned me off so much I refused to even watch a game or a practice until- well, that comes later.
Anyway, I swam and played soccer all the way through high school but had no interest in doing either at the college level. When I started college I became a runner and I continue to run. It keeps me in great shape.
When I was 7 dad finally landed his dream job at UConn and we all moved to the boonies. Didn’t matter much to me.
My love was statistics. I was simply fascinated by numbers and by their relationships, and by manipulating any kind of data that could be quantified. I am still fascinated by that.
I’ve always been a loner. I don’t hate people and I do have a few friends, but I can go days and days without human contact. Well, that won’t happen in the coaching business, but I used to be able to do that.
Anyway, I went to UConn- unlike my siblings I never skipped any grades so I entered at 17. I studied stats there.
Early in my Junior year Dad asked me for some help with a fairly simple statistical analysis on some data related to assists vs. turnovers; the concept was simple but I had no frame of reference. Since all I knew about hoops was that the ball was round I couldn’t help without learning a bit about the game.
Well, I went first to a practice and then to a game, and I got hooked. I really got turned on by the game. From that day on I worked toward learning as much as I could about hoops. I picked Dad’s brain until I’m sure he wanted to scream. I spoke with his assistants and players. I read everything there was to read about the game, particularly about strategy. It helps that I’m a speed reader and have a near photographic memory. I watched games, live when I could, on TV otherwise, and came up with more questions. The web provided me with lots of help.
By the time practices started the following season, my Junior year, I had become a student manager, but functioned in many ways as an assistant coach.
Dad agreed when I said I knew all there was to know about strategy, but knowing is not understanding, and knowledge is not practical application. I knew not a thing about either, and perhaps less about the human factor, which Dad has always maintained is the critical element.
So during my Junior and Senior years I learned from the best, Will Wynn.
On April 25 of this, my Senior year, the head coach of South Dakota State University, traveling by car with his three assistants, somehow went off a mountain road in the Black Hills and tumbled several hundred feet, killing all four of them. No one knows exactly what happened. A. D. “Truck” Ford needed a new head coach right away. He called Dad, and Dad somehow talked him into hiring me as the new head coach. I flew out to Brookings on 4/29, and started my new job. I took my final exams at UConn via the internet.
Brookings is close to… absolutely nothing, but having grown up in Storrs, CT it wasn’t too much of an adjustment.
That’s enough for this installment. I’ll take you through 4/30-11/13 in the next installment and then report things as they happen.
Oh, I definitely like girls. I had to break up with my GF when I left to come out here but I'm REALLY hoping I find someone soon.
Jess Wynn, to do the impossible
Jess Wynn's Journal: First Installment
by Wayne23 » Sat Apr 20, 2013 8:50 pm
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Jess Wynn's Journal: Second Installment
by Wayne23 » Sat Apr 20, 2013 9:24 pm
Jess Wynn’s Journal, 2nd installment: I’ll try to keep this one short.
Dad stunned everyone when he announced his retirement on May 2. 39 years, 1,044 wins, 15 national titles. I don’t think anyone will match those numbers any time soon. Dad said he woke up on April 27 and realized he’d had enough. Nearing his 70th birthday he wasn’t prepared to go through the rigors of another season. He did NOT plan to go the announcer route. As a matter of fact he had no plans at all.
As I write this on November 14 he’s still kicking around the house reading books, breeding exotic tropical fish, growing some house plants and taking it easy. He says he thinks about foreign travel but he spent so much time in airplanes for the last four decades that he isn’t ready yet. Besides, Mom has no intention of retiring, maybe ever, she says.
Dad is my mentor and we speak almost every day and communicate by email several times each day. I run everything by him, and I wouldn’t have even considered taking this job without having him to help me.
Okay, I’m not going to repeat the stuff Wright Page wrote in Total Sports Magazine, or the stuff he will write in the future. You already know I hired coaches, ran kid camps, started recruiting, ran practices, worked out my rotation, had two exhibition games and redid my rotation. You know I’m recruiting, but not very successfully, and you know the season’s about to begin. You know I get along great with my assistants, especially Mel Davis, and you know that Truck Ford and I have a good relationship even if he is a football guy. The one goal he set for me is to not finish last.
When I arrived on 4/29 they set me up in a grad student apartment until I could find my own place. I did that a couple of weeks later. I don’t need much and I did NOT want to worry about cleaning and all that so I got a tiny little three room apartment. I drive a 6 year old Prius that I bought my second day in town.
The facilities at SDSU are not great but they’re adequate. I have everything I need in my office and my assistants are well set up as well. I share an office assistant, Shirley, with the women’s hoops coach, and Shirley has been a huge help to me.
Frost Arena sits 6,500, and I like the way it’s laid out. I was afraid I’d be in a high school gym environment but it isn’t that at all. It’s a small bowl and I’m betting if we get lots of students in, it will be a noisy environment. It being SDSU’s first year in Div. I, I don’t know how much winning we’ll do but I’m hoping we can win many of our home games; as Wright reported I went for a soft schedule. Wins build attendance, which helps in so many ways. The locker rooms are okay, but no more than that.
Let’s see, I’m a lousy dresser but I have enough jackets, ties, dress shirts and pants to look something like a coach. Mom flew out here and spent some time shopping with me, and she showed me how to do laundry. She said I was making enough money to send my shirts to the cleaners and she reminded me to do the same with the jackets, and on a regular basis.
She made sure I bought enough clothes that I could have some at the laundry and still have enough to wear. Tee shirts, sweat shirts, shorts and sweat pants, along with jeans, are what I’ll wear the rest of the time. Oh, I have plenty of winter outerwear. I’m told I’ll need it out here. Basketball shoes are my only footwear except for one pair of dress shoes.
As for food, I eat cereal for breakfast, lunch is at the SDSU cafeteria, and at a local restaurant on weekends and during school vacations, and when I’m home for dinner it’s a fruit smoothie. I air pop corn if I’m hungry at other times when I’m home.
I like to keep things simple.
Okay, I guess I’m up to date. Let’s see what kind of a game coach I am.
Dad stunned everyone when he announced his retirement on May 2. 39 years, 1,044 wins, 15 national titles. I don’t think anyone will match those numbers any time soon. Dad said he woke up on April 27 and realized he’d had enough. Nearing his 70th birthday he wasn’t prepared to go through the rigors of another season. He did NOT plan to go the announcer route. As a matter of fact he had no plans at all.
As I write this on November 14 he’s still kicking around the house reading books, breeding exotic tropical fish, growing some house plants and taking it easy. He says he thinks about foreign travel but he spent so much time in airplanes for the last four decades that he isn’t ready yet. Besides, Mom has no intention of retiring, maybe ever, she says.
Dad is my mentor and we speak almost every day and communicate by email several times each day. I run everything by him, and I wouldn’t have even considered taking this job without having him to help me.
Okay, I’m not going to repeat the stuff Wright Page wrote in Total Sports Magazine, or the stuff he will write in the future. You already know I hired coaches, ran kid camps, started recruiting, ran practices, worked out my rotation, had two exhibition games and redid my rotation. You know I’m recruiting, but not very successfully, and you know the season’s about to begin. You know I get along great with my assistants, especially Mel Davis, and you know that Truck Ford and I have a good relationship even if he is a football guy. The one goal he set for me is to not finish last.
When I arrived on 4/29 they set me up in a grad student apartment until I could find my own place. I did that a couple of weeks later. I don’t need much and I did NOT want to worry about cleaning and all that so I got a tiny little three room apartment. I drive a 6 year old Prius that I bought my second day in town.
The facilities at SDSU are not great but they’re adequate. I have everything I need in my office and my assistants are well set up as well. I share an office assistant, Shirley, with the women’s hoops coach, and Shirley has been a huge help to me.
Frost Arena sits 6,500, and I like the way it’s laid out. I was afraid I’d be in a high school gym environment but it isn’t that at all. It’s a small bowl and I’m betting if we get lots of students in, it will be a noisy environment. It being SDSU’s first year in Div. I, I don’t know how much winning we’ll do but I’m hoping we can win many of our home games; as Wright reported I went for a soft schedule. Wins build attendance, which helps in so many ways. The locker rooms are okay, but no more than that.
Let’s see, I’m a lousy dresser but I have enough jackets, ties, dress shirts and pants to look something like a coach. Mom flew out here and spent some time shopping with me, and she showed me how to do laundry. She said I was making enough money to send my shirts to the cleaners and she reminded me to do the same with the jackets, and on a regular basis.
She made sure I bought enough clothes that I could have some at the laundry and still have enough to wear. Tee shirts, sweat shirts, shorts and sweat pants, along with jeans, are what I’ll wear the rest of the time. Oh, I have plenty of winter outerwear. I’m told I’ll need it out here. Basketball shoes are my only footwear except for one pair of dress shoes.
As for food, I eat cereal for breakfast, lunch is at the SDSU cafeteria, and at a local restaurant on weekends and during school vacations, and when I’m home for dinner it’s a fruit smoothie. I air pop corn if I’m hungry at other times when I’m home.
I like to keep things simple.
Okay, I guess I’m up to date. Let’s see what kind of a game coach I am.
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1 and 1
by Wayne23 » Sat Apr 20, 2013 10:21 pm
The Journal continues: Entries 3 and 4:
First game is at Longwood. Remember, our first four are on the road. 2-2 would have me jumping for joy. Longwood looks like they have some talent up front, but not much in the backcourt. We’ll see!
11/14: I try not to show it but I’m REALLY nervous before the game. Feels like it’s never going to start. Then it does and I feel like my parachute didn’t open for awhile.
My guys must be feeling the same way. We go down 7 early, 15:44. I try to settle them at the first time out, but they’re down 9 at the second, 10:11. We go back and forth for the rest of the half and go in down 6, 31-37.
We’re rebounding well but awful with the ball. Both teams are shooting well- either that or the D sucks, which is more likely!
My three best, Bick, Clerq and Price are all playing really well. I’m playing ten guys. The other seven aren’t giving us a lot but they aren’t hurting us either.
I tell the guys to tighten up the D. We aren’t in foul trouble so we can afford to be in people’s faces. On O I tell them to take better care of the ball and to find the open man. Anyone who has an open look should shoot.
As I walk down the tunnel to start the second half, even though we’re down six I’m thinking about how much fun this is.
We come out slow and we’re down 9 again at the first break, with 14:48 to go. I get a little more intense and tell my guys it’s time to step it up. They’re being way the hell too careful. I want steals, I want quick cuts and I want guys working to get open.
They seem to wake up and they get to within 2 with 7;23 left. At that time out I tell them all the things they’ve done right since the last time out and tell them to keep it up and to go out and grab the lead. They do, with an 11-3 run.
Then we fade and they come at us. They hit a 17 footer at the buzzer and I’m in OT. What a way to start!
I am all over my guys for letting the lead slip away. I tell them I expect us to walk all over them in the OT.
And we do. When the TV time out hits at 2:41 we’re up 8. My big three are getting it done and the others are contributing. At 1:11 I call a TO and tell them to take the air out. The final score is 73-64 and I win my very first game- in overtime! What a feeling!
+16 in RBs but 22 TOs, not acceptable, and we’ll be working on it. They had 16. Holden and Moon didn’t get it done. Root did, he’s was the best from the bench. After the game he told me he wants his starting job back. I told him to keep doing what he’s doing. And to be patient. If I felt he’d earned it he’d get it back. He nodded.
Dad was able to see the game via his satellite system and he critiqued my performance. He asked what I’d said during that time out just before we started to turn it around. He said I’d done well and reminded me yet again to keep it simple during TOs. Too much information just confuses kids. That has been his advice all along and I try to heed it. I do not do that huddle with the assistants thing at the beginning of TOs but I am constantly talking with and listening to my assistants, especially, Jim Carney, my game and practice assistant, but Andy and Mel too, throughout the game.
Mel won’t be at a lot of games as I want him out scouting and live is WAY better than on CD or tape delay, even though that’s the way most games will be seen.
Dad asked why I didn’t use a time out when the lead started to slip away late. I told him he was right. He said I could have used two TOs if necessary. It was late and I had 3. I’m still learning. I told him about kicking butts before the start of the OT and he liked that and liked how well it worked. Tim Clerq was player of the game with 21, 5 and 2 and 3 steals. Mike Bick had 16, 6, 4, and Tre Price had 12, 13 and 2. They’re my big guys. 9 and 1 for Root.
We’re at Presbyterian next. They’re in the Big South. They didn’t look very good in their opener but they had four guys contributing; no go to. If we can control their PG we should do okay.
11/17: We go up 5 at the first break, 14:55. Up 7, 7:22. 26-22 at the break. Good first half! Clerq is hitting shots and Holden, too. Only 6 TOs.
And it falls apart quickly in the 2nd, down 8, 15:29. Down 15, 10:44.
I’ve called 2 TOs, tried different looks on D, subbed in, all to no avail. We’re just getting kicked around.
It sort of levels off but we can’t make up any ground. The final is 60-73.
+6 in RBs but 17 TOs to 16. Still way too many. I knew PG would be a weakness and I’m not at all deep there, but we need to do better in this area.
20, 4, 3 for Clerq, 12, 3, 1 for Holden. 8, 4, 4 for Bick but 7 TOs. Still not getting much from the bench. Root was awful. He avoided eye contact after the game. I won’t kick a man when he’s down though.
Dad had lots of good advice but he twice said that we just didn’t have it tonight and there probably wasn’t a lot I could have done. But, I was quick to note that we let them shoot 57.4%. That won’t win you many games.
Bad to worse, Doug Pohl sprained an ankle and is out about a week. Fortunately I’m deep up front.
First game is at Longwood. Remember, our first four are on the road. 2-2 would have me jumping for joy. Longwood looks like they have some talent up front, but not much in the backcourt. We’ll see!
11/14: I try not to show it but I’m REALLY nervous before the game. Feels like it’s never going to start. Then it does and I feel like my parachute didn’t open for awhile.
My guys must be feeling the same way. We go down 7 early, 15:44. I try to settle them at the first time out, but they’re down 9 at the second, 10:11. We go back and forth for the rest of the half and go in down 6, 31-37.
We’re rebounding well but awful with the ball. Both teams are shooting well- either that or the D sucks, which is more likely!
My three best, Bick, Clerq and Price are all playing really well. I’m playing ten guys. The other seven aren’t giving us a lot but they aren’t hurting us either.
I tell the guys to tighten up the D. We aren’t in foul trouble so we can afford to be in people’s faces. On O I tell them to take better care of the ball and to find the open man. Anyone who has an open look should shoot.
As I walk down the tunnel to start the second half, even though we’re down six I’m thinking about how much fun this is.
We come out slow and we’re down 9 again at the first break, with 14:48 to go. I get a little more intense and tell my guys it’s time to step it up. They’re being way the hell too careful. I want steals, I want quick cuts and I want guys working to get open.
They seem to wake up and they get to within 2 with 7;23 left. At that time out I tell them all the things they’ve done right since the last time out and tell them to keep it up and to go out and grab the lead. They do, with an 11-3 run.
Then we fade and they come at us. They hit a 17 footer at the buzzer and I’m in OT. What a way to start!
I am all over my guys for letting the lead slip away. I tell them I expect us to walk all over them in the OT.
And we do. When the TV time out hits at 2:41 we’re up 8. My big three are getting it done and the others are contributing. At 1:11 I call a TO and tell them to take the air out. The final score is 73-64 and I win my very first game- in overtime! What a feeling!
+16 in RBs but 22 TOs, not acceptable, and we’ll be working on it. They had 16. Holden and Moon didn’t get it done. Root did, he’s was the best from the bench. After the game he told me he wants his starting job back. I told him to keep doing what he’s doing. And to be patient. If I felt he’d earned it he’d get it back. He nodded.
Dad was able to see the game via his satellite system and he critiqued my performance. He asked what I’d said during that time out just before we started to turn it around. He said I’d done well and reminded me yet again to keep it simple during TOs. Too much information just confuses kids. That has been his advice all along and I try to heed it. I do not do that huddle with the assistants thing at the beginning of TOs but I am constantly talking with and listening to my assistants, especially, Jim Carney, my game and practice assistant, but Andy and Mel too, throughout the game.
Mel won’t be at a lot of games as I want him out scouting and live is WAY better than on CD or tape delay, even though that’s the way most games will be seen.
Dad asked why I didn’t use a time out when the lead started to slip away late. I told him he was right. He said I could have used two TOs if necessary. It was late and I had 3. I’m still learning. I told him about kicking butts before the start of the OT and he liked that and liked how well it worked. Tim Clerq was player of the game with 21, 5 and 2 and 3 steals. Mike Bick had 16, 6, 4, and Tre Price had 12, 13 and 2. They’re my big guys. 9 and 1 for Root.
We’re at Presbyterian next. They’re in the Big South. They didn’t look very good in their opener but they had four guys contributing; no go to. If we can control their PG we should do okay.
11/17: We go up 5 at the first break, 14:55. Up 7, 7:22. 26-22 at the break. Good first half! Clerq is hitting shots and Holden, too. Only 6 TOs.
And it falls apart quickly in the 2nd, down 8, 15:29. Down 15, 10:44.
I’ve called 2 TOs, tried different looks on D, subbed in, all to no avail. We’re just getting kicked around.
It sort of levels off but we can’t make up any ground. The final is 60-73.
+6 in RBs but 17 TOs to 16. Still way too many. I knew PG would be a weakness and I’m not at all deep there, but we need to do better in this area.
20, 4, 3 for Clerq, 12, 3, 1 for Holden. 8, 4, 4 for Bick but 7 TOs. Still not getting much from the bench. Root was awful. He avoided eye contact after the game. I won’t kick a man when he’s down though.
Dad had lots of good advice but he twice said that we just didn’t have it tonight and there probably wasn’t a lot I could have done. But, I was quick to note that we let them shoot 57.4%. That won’t win you many games.
Bad to worse, Doug Pohl sprained an ankle and is out about a week. Fortunately I’m deep up front.
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by CoachC » Sun Apr 21, 2013 12:57 am
Gary Winston texts back again: You know he was coaching in the desert the year I was born there? Ma recently told me she thought my dad was a big shot basketball coach...one of the best ever. Can't help but think you might be my little brother. Best of luck with your season!
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