Boy, things are really slow on this site . . . so I thought I'd share a story. Back in 1996, UMKC was looking for a new basketball coach. For "political" reasons, they formed a search committee. The committee of 24 had nothing to do with the selection, but it made a good cover. I was on the committee. We interviewed the three finalists: Mark Turgeon, Mike Anderson (who went on to head coach at Arkansas) and Bob Sundvold. Sundvold was the choice of the AD, probably because he had coached under Norm Stewart at Misery and had "taken the fall" for Norm over NCAA violations.
The interview with Turgeon was memorable. I asked what I thought was a great question: "You've been an assistant to three great coaches. What did you learn from each of them?" Turgeon responded as though he had prepared for my question. "Coach Brown is the greatest in-game coach in the game. After almost every timeout, he'd come down to me as ask, 'Turg, what would you have done?' Coach Williams is exceptionally well organized. He taught me how to organize my day; how to organize practices. And Coach Green taught me how to deal with the media." Turgeon was well prepared and had a great interview.
The other great question during that interview was "Coach Turgeon, what kind of players will you recruit?" Turgeon answered, "I'll recruit players who can shoot. I can teach them my offense, and I can teach them how to play defense. But I can't teach them how to shoot."
Very memorable.
