Jeff Grant: The Journey of a College Basketball Coach

[mrtimn23]

It was April, 2018, and I had just finished the season at Florida State as Ivan Ward's 1st assistant. To give a little backstory, I had graduated from Florida St. and worked all the way up from graduate assistant to working directly under Ward as the Head of Scouting. It had been a good year, we finished 20-12 overall and made it to the NCAA tournament where we were outed in the first round. Despite the first round loss, the fans were happy, the players were happy, and the boosters were happy. It was a good time to be a Seminole and I had just verbally agreed on my exit interview with Ivan to renew my contract and come back for 2 more years as his #1. I had not taken into account what was about to happen next, my iPhone buzzed and I looked down at it. It was a number I didn't have with the words: KALAMAZOO, MI under the number.

"Hello, this is Jeff Grant."
"Jeff, This is Milo Underwood, I'm the Athletic Director over at Western Michigan. Listen, I've seen a little of what your career has been like and I'd like you to fly up to Kalamazoo this weekend to interview for our Head Coaching job. Whatt'ya say?"
"Absolutely!" I tried to contain the excitement in my voice and remain professional.
"Great! My assistant will contact you will travel plans later. I guess I'll see you this weekend."

I was in shock after the brief conversation was over. It had always been my dream to lead my own basketball program, preferably my alma mater Florida State, but I knew I had to prove myself before I could ever get the job. Ivan Ward was nothing but supportive and gave me several tips for the upcoming job interview. I was flown into Kalamazoo in a boosters private jet and wined and dined all weekend until Saturday night I was ushered into a conference room with around 5 people wearing WMU gear. The interview was pretty basic and I felt like I passed with flying colors. I flew back to Tallahassee feeling pretty good about myself. I was proved correct when I was flown back out the next weekend and offered a job on the spot. A 4 year contract worth $172,000 a year...I signed the contract on the spot. Milo Underwood then gave me filled me in on the current state of the program, I had taken a look at some film on the team but nothing in depth. Underwood made it clear that Western Michigan was a football school but the only way the basketball program could make money was by winning so he still expected the win column to fill up. He gave me goals of not finishing last in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and to win 10+ games. The next bit of news killed my joy a little but it was nothing I couldn't handle, the budget couldn't handle the payouts of firing the entire staff so I would have to take over the old coach Joe Ward's staff(no relation to Ivan). Joe Ward had been the head coach for only 2 years and went 17-39 with no post season appearances.

After a few weeks I got all the issues handled and I was officially the Head Coach of the Western Michigan Broncos. My first order of business was meeting my staff. My 1st assistant was 59 year old Eddie Felton, Eddie was a corny old guy but he knew the Michigan recruiting trails like the back of his hand. The 2nd assistant was Rashad Rush, the youngest assistant on the staff and he took care of the scouting department, my old job at FSU. The last assistant was Calvin Rawlings, a loud boisterous guy who was in charge of player development. I couldn't tell if there was some contempt there for taking their old friends job but they were more likely happier to not be unemployed so they were friendly enough.

[mrtimn23]

After all the formalities were over I could finally begin my job. The WMU roster wasn't in the greatest shape but it was something I could work with. The media had picked us to finish 8th out of 12th in MAC but I thought we might be able to go a little higher if we find something to make this team click. Micheal Alexander was by far the most talented player on the roster and he was only a freshman. 6'6 Big, Jamaal Ross was the team leader and a senior, and 6'8 sophomore Wes Williams finished out the frontcourt. I had decided to go small ball with freshman guard Adrian Brumm and sophomore guard Trent Murphy to round out the backcourt with Alexander. There was quite a good amount of young talent on the team and in the back of my mind, I thought that Joe Ward had the team moving in the right direction and Milo Underwood might have pulled the trigger on sacking Ward a little early. I mentally noted that and decided that I might have to make an immediate impact with this team so the same doesn't happen to me. I called up Underwood and requested a lot of home games leaning towards playing weaker teams. I thought that putting up higher numbers in the win column might help make recruits and boosters happy even if our RPI and SOS sucked.

I then planned out the recruiting process with Eddie Felton. Due to our low budget the majority of the players on the roster were from Michigan and I had no plans to change that. We decided to go after athletic players who played hard nosed defense, these types of players weren't flashy but they won games. By the time October rolled around we had filled all 5 of our scholarships and I was pretty happy with the haul. Our highest ranked player was #448 Reginald Jones out of a private school about 2 hours east of KZoo. Felton and I really hoped he could end up being our centerpiece that we built around for the next few years. Next was Tim Brown, a 6'9 center ranked in the 800's, we found him in inner city Detroit and loved gritty style of basketball he played. We found guard Mike Williamson an hour and a half north in Whitehall. He was ranked around #1100 by some some scouting service but we loved the way he could fill up the bucket without giving anything up on defense. Rob Hunter was another 6'8 big man and Jesse Belin was a 6'2 shooter. They were both also ranked around the #1100-1200's. All 5 players were Michigan natives I felt all would complement the young foundation that we already have. I was optimistic and pretty satisfied about the state of the program.