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Determined Terrier

After 21 years sitting on the Wofford bench, Mike Young has finally made the NCAA Tournament. But don’t expect the bright lights to change him.

He’s still the same wisecracking, snappy-dressing, fiercely loyal gym rat who came to the tiny campus in Spartanburg, S.C., in 1989. he has spent almost half his life building to a couple of hours on Friday, when the 13th-seeded Terriers make their NCAA Tournament debut against No. 4 seed Wisconsin in Jacksonville, Fla.

“Make the big time where you are. This is as big as it gets for me. This is home,” Young said.

In a profession where coaching resumes go for pages, Young’s resume is short—especially for a coach who has been a part of 11 losing seasons in his 22 years in Division I basketball. He spent two years as an assistant at Division III Emory & Henry College in the mountains of Virginia; one year as an assistant at Radford; 21 years as an assistant and head coach at Wofford.

But the Terriers are loyal. Football coach Mike Ayers has been there for 22 years. And when basketball coach Richard Johnson, who shepherded the team through its transition from Division II to Division I, decided to step aside in 2001 to become the school’s athletic director, the search for his replacement was as simple as looking left down the bench at Young.

It hasn’t been all “peaches and balloons,” to use one of the coach’s favorite phrases. Even with this year’s 26-8 record, Young still has lost more games than he has won as head coach. But he had faith that his plan was going to work.

“You wake up one day and you’ve hit on a bunch of great people that are really good players. And lo and behold, we’re going to Jacksonville to play in the greatest tournament on earth,” Young said.

Young’s coaching career began at his alma mater, Emory & Henry, where he coached for two years under Bob Johnson, a Vietnam veteran who was one of the biggest influences in his life.

At first glance, the aggressive running style Johnson taught didn’t appear to rub off on Young, whose Terriers like a slow, halfcourt game. But Johnson, who died from cancer last August, stressed teamwork, leadership and using college to develop as a person.

At Wofford, Young stresses his guys are students first, then athletes. The team will take a bus to games and return the same night whenever possible so the players don’t miss a day of classes. Young’s graduation rate at the liberal arts school with 1,500 students is perfect.

“Every one of these guys is going to graduate. They’re going to go on as doctors, lawyers, teachers, ministers,” Young said.

Even though he has spent most of his career in one place, Young has a cadre of friends in coaching. Clemson coach Oliver Purnell worked with Young for just once season in Radford, right before Young moved on to Wofford.

But the two talk all the time. Sometimes it’s basketball, but sometimes it’s family. And few people were more pleased to see Young’s team win the Southern Conference tournament than Purnell.

“To me, he’s a guy that just perseveres and hangs in there and has just gotten better year after year,” Purnell said.

Young is about the fine details too. Just look at how he dresses. Even after his team nearly blew an 18 point lead in the SoCon final by going scoreless for nearly 10 minutes, Young’s sleeves were neatly rolled up just below his elbow and his tie was in a perfect knot, the tip hanging right at his belt buckle as he cut down the nets last week. Before then, perhaps Young’s favorite title was winning the “Fashionable 4” in 2001 as fellow coaches voted him the best dressed assistant in the country.

And he doesn’t keep his players on a short leash. After being paired with Wisconsin, players Cam Rundles and Noah Dahlman were calling it a dream matchup and discussing how well they matched up with the Badgers.

Young called them crazy and chalked up the talk to youthful exuberance.

“Kids being kids. They’re not going to say we expect to get our ahh,” Young said, pausing briefly to find a more family friendly word, “tails whipped by those guys when we go down there and compete. And that’s OK.”

Whenever this crazy trip ends, Young will come back to the tiny campus in Spartanburg where the children and grandchildren of coaches play in the cubicles of the athletics building and keep trying to build a program that wins championships, but more importantly develops men who will become the pillars of their own communities.

“I know we’re going to play well. I know we’re going to play hard. And at the end of the day, what more could you ask for?” Young said. “It’s the best place in the universe.”