Hi, my name is Gary Winston, sometimes known as The Barracuda. I'll keep my background information short, because there really isn't much to tell.
I was born in Nevada, but was raised by my mother in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I don't know anything at all about my father. My mother eventually told me that I was the product of a brief fling in Las Vegas, and that was that.
Was a starting guard on my high school basketball team my last 2 years, and we advanced to the state finals my senior year. After high school went to juco for a couple of years and played for them, although we didn't amount to much. I transfered to State to finish my degree, and was fortunate enough to make it as a walk-on for the Aggies. I think I played a total of 10 minutes in my 2 years there, but I loved being part of it. Coach always called me a great practice player because I was tenacious on defense and didn't back down. He liked my basketball knowledge enough he gave me a low-level job on his staff for a year after I graduated. After that I coached a high school team for a few years, and even won the state small school championship. When the head coaching job at my old Juco opened up, I was fortunate enough to be hired there and we've made a decent showing in the NJCAA tournament the last 2 years.
A couple of months ago my old college coach called me up and told me there was an opening for a head coach at Gardner-Webb. He said the AD was an old friend of his, and he had dropped my name and they seemed interested. I thanked him and decided to take a chance. Apparently they liked the way my interview went, and after all there wasn't a lot of interest in coaching at a school in NC surrounded by giants like Duke and North Carolina, so they hired me. I'm not intimidated by the big guys, and I have no problem with doing whatever it takes to make inroads against the old boy network.
My coaching style has always been to try to find some shooters and get off shots early in the offense and then badger the opposition into do the same or risk coughing up the basketball so we can get back to offense. I have to admit coaching defense has never been my forte, but my top assistant here Kevin Culoko is a defensive prodigy and recently introduced me to something called the Amoeba defense that he thinks will work well with my system. I have no idea where he came up with this, but I like it, and with Kevin's help I think we'll try incorporating it here.
Our system is going to take some time for players to learn and buy into it, but looking over the kids I've inherited, I was pleased to see they are a surprisingly athletic bunch capable of running up and down the floor. We've also got a bunch of guys that can shoot...convincing them to take the shot may be the hard part because they've been used to playing a deliberate offense here. Our best players are a trio of talented post players. If I can find a few perimeter guys who aren't afraid to shoot, they may do reasonably well. Expectations are definitely low here. The AD is just hoping the team doesn't finish last in the conference again and maybe, just maybe can manage to put up double digit wins for once. We'll see.
We definitely are going to try to put together a soft schedule this season, because there is going to be a high learning curve for these guys with our system, and I don't need them getting blown out and discouraged every night while they try to learn it.
We have about $55,000 for our recruiting budget, and since we only have two graduating seniors, that's a surprisingly ample amount, especially since It's doubtful we'll be travelling outside the region this year in our efforts to recruit. I'll probably splurge and buy the Gold Report for the region to give us the best chance at catching a big fish in our little net.
Oh, by the way, in case you are wondering, most people assume I got my nickname The Barracuda because of the aggressive way I used to play defense, but in reality it was a name given to me by my mother as a small child because of the way I always chewed the crap out of my security blanket. I still have that raggedy old thing, and even took it with me to the NJCAA tournament last year for good luck. During once particularly intense game I resorted to chomping down on the blanket to keep from yelling at the officials. We wound up winning the game, so I'll probably drag that thing with me to every game I coach from now on, at least til it completely falls apart.