Hey, I’m Omar McDade. I’ve known Coach Aura since he was a very young 3rd assistant coach at Bowling Green where I was the 1st assistant. He says he looks up to me as his mentor, but I think that makes me sound even older than my 65 years. When he got the head coaching job at Towson, he released the 1st assistant coach who had been the interim coach for the last part of the season. He felt that that coach would be upset not to have be selected for the permanent head coach. After doing that he called me and asked if I would fill the first assistant position. I retired a couple years ago from the 1st assistant job at Louisville, so at first I demurred, but Frederick (well I normally call him “Crash” which was his nickname from he collegiate days due to the way he crashed the boards) was persistent and I finally agreed. He’s going to have me handle recruiting, something I’ve done in the past.
He kept on the other two assistant coaches. Michael Snoddy is our 2nd assistant. He’s 51 and is great at player development. His philosophies regarding are not completely in tune with Coach Aura so the two will need to iron that out soon. Coach Aura mentioned that he made an attempt to hire a coach who is a scouting wiz, but the guy didn’t want to be a 3rd assistant. So he kept 42 year old Harry Iacona in the same 3rd assistant position he filled last season. Although he doesn’t have much experience, Harry will be our scout. This is going to be a big challenge for Harry and he needs to produce or this could be his last year at Towson.
I imagine you would like to know what Coach Aura is like. He’s a hard worker who places a lot of importance on recruiting so he’s going to expect me to really go hard after recruits. Crash wants his players to do well academically so none of them better let their grades slip or he’ll be all over their ass. As a coach I think he’s stronger defensively than offensively so I expect the team to play defense with a high level of intensity. He’ll use man-to-man more than a zone. Offensively he likes a quick pace. And of course Crash likes his guys to crash the boards and try to create fast breaks. He wants the best guys on the floor as much as possible and it doesn’t hesitate using freshmen or sophomores. He likes keeping fresh legs on the floor so plays a pretty deep bench which tends to keep everybody on the team involved and happy.
Because I’m in my mid-60’s, I’m here to help him for a season or two and help Crash find a guy to replace me after that. I have grand-babies I want to play with, so have to get back to retirement as soon as I can. And a couple of my grandsons will be entering high school soon, and I want to be able to watch them play on their high school teams.
Today Coach Aura and I discussed what scouting reports we’d purchase and if we were going to attend any of the camps. We don’t have much of a recruiting budget and we have to fill 4 scholarships and figure that it may take all season to fill all 4, so need to be pretty frugal. We decide to purchase the Atlantic East Regional Basic Report but not attend any camps. That’s disappointing and will be a disadvantage for us, but as they say, money don’t grow on trees.