(Editor's Note: This was inspired by a comment in one of the threads, I think by Bryan Swartz, regarding starting with a coach with ratings of zero across the board.)

Total Sports Magazine
May 1, 2013
“The Son” by Wright Page

This continuing series of articles will feature Jess Wynn, brand new head coach of South Dakota State University. It’s an unbelievable story.

Jess Wynn was the youngest child of Will Wynn, the most successful college basketball coach in history with 15 national titles and more than 1,000 wins in his 39 year career. He was a surprise, born when dad was 49 and mom was 42.

Jess never played basketball- ever. At 6’6” it would have been the perfect sport for him but he was a soccer player, playing from pee wee leagues through high school. He did not play in college.

In his sophomore year at the University of Connecticut, where his famous dad coached at the time, he began to be interested in hoops when his dad asked him to help with a spreadsheet he wanted to run. Jess was a statistics major, loving anything and everything to do with numbers and data. The spreadsheet awoke the interest he had evaded throughout his life, probably as a result of his father’s enormous success in the field. From that point on Jess plied his father with endless questions, went to every practice he could fit into his schedule, and sat on the bench during games as a student manager, traveling with the team whenever possible, and learning about the game.

Jess, being extremely single minded and focused, soon came to know an enormous amount about his new found love, basketball- offensive and defensive sets, strategies, the transition game- and everything else imaginable. He picked his dad's brain over and over again.

By the time of his graduation, last May, he truly did have a great deal of knowledge. Of course there had never been any application of this knowledge at all.

And yet when South Dakota State University went looking for a coach their A. D., Charles, “Truck” Ford, called his old friend Will Wynn and asked if Will had any suggestions. Will suggested Jess, explaining the positives and the negatives of going with a completely untested but highly knowledgeable quantity.

Certainly only because he was the son of such a famous coach, Jess was offered a two year contract at $80,000 per.

This reporter is disgusted. With so many fine assistants available, men who have labored in obscurity for years, sometimes decades, honing their skills, it is an outrage that this young man should be given his chance ahead of all of them.

Our magazine, which has the largest circulation of any sports magazine in the country, would not ordinarily pay any attention to a school like SDSU, in its first year in Div. I, but I will be spending the year in lovely Brookings, South Dakota, watching this fiasco unfold.

Wynn is 22, as stated. His ratings as a coach are zero- clear across the board. He knows we’ll be following him this year, and knows we are essentially hostile, and yet he has welcomed us and assures us we will have a great deal of access to what happens during the Jackrabbits season.

Wynn’s tendencies and preferences: He tells us he is highly ambitious and hopes to eventually coach at one of the elite schools (maybe in 100 years). He believes in strong academics (at a school that requires only an 800 SAT score for admission). He beliefs in strong but not excessive discipline, and he tells us he keeps his temper tightly reined in (He has yet to confront his first referee.).

He wants to play lots of players, will go with 55-60% man to man and 40-45% 2-3 zone, wants strong rebounders, won’t press often, and will run Princeton about 60-65% and Shuffle about 35-40%. His strengths, if he has any, will most likely be X’s and O’s, and “playing the percentages.” He could well be good at scouting since he clearly has an extremely analytical mind. He may also be a good game coach for the same reason. How will he be as a recruiter, a motivator? Hard to say but numbers guys are not usually people guys. His greatest strength will undoubtedly be his mentor and father, newly retired. Can we expect Wynn the elder to venture out here to Brookings? Too soon to tell.

Wynn has hired three brand new assistant coaches. His #1, Andy Gray will recruit. He did that at a Div. II school very successfully and seems ready to move up. He signed for only one year as he feels he can move to a better school. Wynn accepted that, feeling that he’ll be in a stronger position to hire next year.

Mel Davis, the new #2, will scout. He and Jess clicked from the first minute as he has the same sort of analytical mind that Wynn does. He signed for three years and will likely move up to #1 next year.

#3 is Jim Carney, who was the practice coach at a Div. II school last year. He comes highly recommended, and as with Davis, he and Wynn are on the same wave length. Carney signed for one year.

All three assistants are in their 40’s or 50’s and will be able to mentor the young head coach.

Wynn says he has great tutors and academic advisors in place- he’ll need them.

I don't think it was my comment, but have fun. It's enough for me to keep one dynasty going

Hm, well someone gave me this idea. C'mon, whoever you are, confess!

Wynn chose to buy both the Great Plains Gold and the National Basic report, the latter probably a mistake, since it will only leave him with $38,000 for recruiting.

6/25: Wynn informed Truck that he’d like a balanced schedule, not too many games either at home or away. Every single player on the team is enrolled in summer school and will need extra tutoring. Grades are a huge issue.

The staff can’t afford to go to any camps. They will run two weeks of kid camps in July. Attendance will undoubtedly be small, at least at first, but this gives staff and players a little extra money and allows staff to take an early look at the team.

6/26: Recruiting begins, although much of this school’s recruiting will probably take place after 1/29, when some players do not hit the SAT score of the school they hoped to attend, leaving places like SDSU, who will take anyone who hits an 800, as a last resort.

Coach Wynn has 5 slots to fill and needs whatever he can get. He may well drop some current players if he feels he can pick up more than 5 since more than a few on the roster have little to no talent.

Wynn feels he can arrange hardship scholarships for several of these. But that is for a later date. He’s looking at 14 players early on. The list will expand in late January.

7/11: Kid camps begin.

7/25: Camps were fun. 57 kids the first week, 45 the second. Nobody with any talent but mostly nice kids. I enjoyed watching the interactions. The SDSU staff was good with the kids. Coach Wynn acted like a head coach and the kids bought his act.

Same held true for his team. They looked at him as the boss and did what they were told to do. He used them in scrimmages, teaching the slight changes he had made to the existing system and clearly putting them in as many different situations as he could to see what they could and could not do.

There was a fair amount of the latter but Coach Wynn dealt with that patiently, saying things like, “We’ll teach that in the Fall, practice on your own until then.”

There was a little talent evident on the team. Jr. SF Time Clercq is the best player. He could wind up playing any of the five spots. The Seniors are the next best. Then there’s one Jr. and one Soph. who may help. There isn’t much else though.

If this team wins 8 games it will amaze me. Again though, I saw more than I would have expected from the young coach.

Nobody, I mean NOBODY, on the recruit list is talking to Coach Wynn. He can only hope they are speaking with Coach Gray.

8/14: Next week Wynn finds out if any recruits at all are interested.

The only goal Truck Ford gave Wynn was to not finish last in conference. That might be a challenge, this year, next year, and for who knows how long. It’s a HUGE step up to move to Div. I.

8/21: And there is no interest at all. Wynn decides to offer to all of the high school seniors since their grades are so low. Nothing lost I suppose, he isn’t actually spending money doing that. Speaking of money he has $31,060 left, not bad. The kid isn’t stupid, he just doesn’t know anything.

8/28: Six members of the team have moved their grades up into safe territory. The rest still have work to do. Some will clearly be ineligible for Fall semester.

Wynn had better hope lots of recruits don’t hit the SAT score they hope for. He sure isn’t getting any response from any recruits at all.

9/4: The staff decides they will visit four guys next week but they won’t make second visits unless there are some positive signs. They’ll offer all of them playing time, a promise that shouldn’t be hard to keep.

9/11: One of our guys commits to Temple. He’ll never hit their score so we keep him on our watch list.

9/18: Knight commits to Mich. ST. Again, he’ll never hit the score so we keep watching.

One recruit, Pat Thurm, #44 SG, shoots us up to #1. The staff decide they’ll visit again.

They add 3 to the recruit list.

The schedule is in. Wynn told Truck to give him as weak a schedule as possible. He felt wins might tip a recruit or two. Good strategy.

SDSU start with 4 on the road, then home for 3, back on the road for 2, then the conference- with the first game on the road. Balance, yeah, but I guess Truck never heard of the negative effects of long road trips.

There are eight ½ star teams and 1 one star in the preconference schedule.
9/25: Down to five players with low grades, only 1 below 2.0. The tutors and advisors are working on it. No commitments but no more losses of players. Down to $23,590.

10/2: Not much new on the recruiting front. First day of practice. It looks like everyone is eligible (no one greyed out) so Wynn is proceeding under that assumption although it seems as if the guy at 1.9 can’t be eligible. Since he’s the only PG on squad who understands that when you push the ball toward the floor it actually comes back up to your hand…

Wow! The only source that actually predicts for the Summit Conference picks Oral Roberts to win and SDSU to finish second. This has got to be the world’s weakest conf.!

10/9: Just standing pat for now with recruiting.

10/23: Down to 2 players with grade problems, 1 at 2.3, 1 at 2.0.

11/6: Still zero luck with recruits. Two have SDSU at #1 but they aren't committing.

11/8: First exhibition is against Winston-Salem State. 34-18 at the half. Better than I thought we’d be. Clerq has 12 and 2. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, 60-64.

-16, +11, 44-42%. Fouls- 14-16.

Clerq had a great 1st half and disappeared in the 2nd. No one else stood out at all, and no one stepped up.

Coach Wynn agreed to an interview for our magazine. Here it is:

Page: Coach, your thoughts about this game?

Wynn: Well, I certainly wasn’t happy with the way we blew a 20 point lead. It’s like we stopped playing, never came out for the 2nd half.

Page: Fatigue?

Wynn: Not at all. No one played more than 16 minutes and my guys, if nothing else, are in shape. We just stopped making shots and pretty much stopped playing D. They got 46 in the 2nd half. That’s inexcusable and we’ll certainly address it in practice.

Page: Well, first year in Div. I, first game with a new coach and a new system. There are bound to be things to fix. What went right?

Wynn: The first half, particularly the first half defense. It was just the way we designed it and just the way we run it in practice. Clerq had a great first half offensively. I liked what I saw from Holden at PF. I thought Robin looked good at the Point. Price showed glimmers here and there. I’m hoping we can straighten out a few things and do better in the rematch.

Page: Thanks Coach Wynn.

11/11: 2nd exhibition is against Winston-Salem State. 33-31 at the half. Now to see if we can play a better 2nd half than last game! Matt Moon kinda went crazy in the 1st half. 62-60. We BARELY hung on, almost blew a 7 point lead in the last minute. They had the chance to tie or win.

-2, +2, 36-38%. Fouls were 14-22. Clerq and Moon had the big games.

Wynn’s staff had some difficult decisions to make after the exhibition games. Holden needed to play more, probably needed to start or at least get starter’s minutes. Smid needed more minutes as well, as did Fox. Moon had overachieved and needed to be seen in action more. Camel, who had shown absolutely nothing in practice, also needed to be seen more. Robin presented a real dilemma, he put points up but was awful with the ball. His minutes would need to be at the 2 slot.

The staff finally decided that at least for the first games minutes would be spread out more widely. In the end Clerq and Bick would get major minutes, some of Clerq’s being at PG. Price would also get lots of minutes due to his D and RB skills. Holden and Moon would start.

The rest of the minutes would be divided among Root, Pohl, Smid, Evans and Fox. Robin, Joel, More and Camel would get minutes when possible but probably not often. Lepore was completely out of the equation. Of course the expectation was that all of this would change as time passed.

I confess, it wasn't me. I"m not that big of a masochist.

lol

Let's see how it goes!

I put you on a national title in year 5!

Not likely! Jess is ambitious though. He doesn't plan to stay at SDSU any longer than necessary. No idea how quickly his rating swill go up so who knows how quickly he'll progress. I sort of hoped that by year 20 or so he'd be at a primo school. This is NOT going to be a quick rise, not with zero ratings across the board!