Davidson coach Bob McKillop gets on the bus like a general preparing to lead his troops into battle. He takes his seat on the front row to the right of the driver, and when he sits it’s the signal for the driver to shut the door and get moving.
This is the way it is for Davidson basketball on road trips. Bus leaves at 6:40. It’s best to be aboard by 6:30, because the Wildcats operate on MST – McKillop Standard Time.
Once the bus rolls, silence prevails. It’s time to focus, reflect, get ready to play. As McKillop likes to say to his players at breakfast the morning of a road game, “It’s Game Day, baby.”
This time things were different, significantly so. It was March 30, 2008, and while the calendar said it was spring the brisk Michigan air said otherwise. It was cold and snow lay on the ground. The team bus was preparing to leave the Dearborn Inn and head over to Ford Field in Detroit, ordinarily a ride of 30 to 35 minutes depending on traffic.
Not this day, though.
A Detroit policeman stood next to the Davidson bus, and once the driver said, “We’re ready,” the officer barked his own orders. Five Detroit police cars sprung into action, emergency lights swirling and sirens blaring. Working with as much coordination as synchronized swimmers the officers raced down Oakwood Blvd., clearing a path for the bus by stopping traffic and shooing it aside. Police cars in front of the bus, beside it, behind it, one racing ahead to clear a path.
The bus moved rapidly behind a flying wedge of black and whites. Down Oakwood Blvd. past the Ford plant to I-94, four lanes, traffic being whisked to a stop. The police caravan cleared the way for a high-speed transition to I-96 East and then onto Fisher Street past the beautiful St. John’s Episcopal church. A right onto Rush Street, a left on St. Automotive, a right on Beacon and finally down a ramp into the players’ entrance at Ford Field.
The trip took 15 minutes. It was no ordinary trip from Dearborn into Detroit. It was more magic than routine. It was a ride that took the Wildcats to the site of the NCAA Elite Eight, the finals of the Midwest Regionals.
Davidson was on the Broadway stage, all right. The Wildcats of Bob McKillop against the mighty Kansas Jayhawks, steeped in a rich basketball tradition. The dome hosted 57,563 fans for this game while millions more watched on television around the world. They saw a great game, a fierce tug of war that saw neither side blink, neither team willing to concede an inch. College basketball at its best. Kansas ended the 40-minute battle with two more points than Davidson and went on to become national champions.
All was not lost for the ‘Cats, though. They proved that dreams do come true, that David and Goliath can be replayed in the 21st century, and that pride in a basketball program and the way it goes about its business can bring more goodwill and recognition to a great liberal arts college than could $20 million in the hands of a New York advertising agency.
Inside Ford Field, “Sweet Caroline,” the adopted theme song of the Wildcats, was never louder or delivered with more pride than on this Sunday afternoon.
McKillop had lost a game but the body of their work had captured a nation’s basketball heart. It was real life
Hoosiers. All the hard work paid off.
Each morning when McKillop enters his office in Davidson’s Baker Sports Complex, he passes a December 1968 Sports Illustrated magazine that is displayed prominently, one that has a cover picturing North Carolina’s Charlie Scott, Kentucky’s Mike Casey and Davidson’s Mike Maloy, under a headline that reads, “Challengers to UCLA.”
While others might have doubted Davidson’s ability to again achieve such a lofty place among basketball’s elite, McKillop never did. He
knew his Wildcats – with dedication and hard work – could reach the pinnacle, too. Davidson won 27 games in 1969, the second most in school history, finished the season ranked third in the nation, and fought powerful North Carolina to the final second before falling 87-85 in the NCAA Elite Eight. One step from the Final Four. Lefty Driesell, the coach at the time, said it was most likely the best team he ever had at Davidson.
To even suggest that Davidson basketball might reach those heights again caused some people to scoff. Not McKillop. He knew it could be accomplished. It was in his heart and soul, so sure was he. If he hadn’t allowed himself this dream, hadn’t had such faith, he wouldn’t have stayed at Davidson for 20 years as its head basketball coach. He would have sought another rainbow where maybe dreams do come true.
Now in his 21st season, he knows now that nothing is impossible for Davidson basketball. Hey, if he tells his players to latch onto large dreams, why should he be different? Coming off five consecutive postseason appearances, he believes now more than ever. Believing should not be confused with complacency, however. He remains fired up and hungry. He signed a contract extension with Davidson that will keep him with the school at least through 2016. Davidson is his home. He wants more banners, championship banners.
Basketball coaches around the nation have long known how talented McKillop is. But when a coach labors just out of the national spotlight it sometimes takes a little longer for others to discover and recognize his good works. Now the world knows about Davidson basketball and its head coach. McKillop was named 2008 National Coach of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. He received the Coach Clair Bee Award. He was named the Southern Conference Coach of the Year for the seventh time. Davidson has won 10 of the last 14 Southern Conference Division championships, seven of the last eight and three of the last four league tournament titles.
Every basketball fan in America knows about Davidson now. The dream-maker has spun some magic.
“Many times you only hear about the coaches in the power conferences being great coaches,” says John Beilein, the highly successful University of Michigan coach. “Bob McKillop is equal or better than any other coach that I know, and I’ve coached against most of the best in the country in my 17 years in Division I.”
Like many outstanding coaches, McKillop cloaks himself in mystery, lest he dare become predictable, a trait coaches aren’t allowed. His resume tells an interesting story, one of dedication, discipline, preparation, competitiveness and humility.
He was a successful baseball and basketball player at Chaminade High School in the New York City High School Catholic League, where one of his fellow students in homeroom for four years was Bill O’Reilly of the O’Reilly Factor on FOX News. Jack Curran, the coach at rival Archbishop Molloy High, helped him get a basketball scholarship to East Carolina. His last game at East Carolina was in the old Charlotte Coliseum in the 1969 Southern Conference tournament championship game, a 102-76 loss to Davidson, a game that stuck in his mind and later would have major consequences in his life.
Homesick and ready to do something about it, he left East Carolina for Hofstra University where he became the team’s MVP and later was inducted into the Hofstra Basketball Hall of Fame. After graduation in 1972, he signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia 76ers but was cut. The 76ers went 9-72 that season.
“I was cut from the worst team in NBA history,” McKillop jokes. Humility surfaces in strange ways, sometimes humorously.
Reluctantly accepting the fact that his playing career was over, he took a job teaching history and coaching basketball at Holy Trinity High in Long Island in 1972. After a sparkling 86-25 record as coach, in 1978 McKillop was offered assistant coaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Davidson where Eddie Biedenbach had just been named head coach. In making his decision, McKillop recalled his last game for East Carolina, the loss to Davidson, the way the fans celebrated the championship. In making his decision between Penn and Davidson, he visited the Davidson campus in North Mecklenburg, was stricken with its beauty and charm, as well as the mission of the college, and the uniqueness of the village. “Davidson, here I come!” The Wildcats went 8-19 that season. Penn went to the NCAA Final Four. Oh, well.
After one year on the Davidson staff, a great high school opportunity beckoned at Long Island Lutheran High School. McKillop went there as head basketball coach, director of summer programs, and for two years served as interim headmaster. He compiled a record there of 182-51. In his high school coaching career, he won five New York State championships, coached five high school All-Americas, one of whom was Matt Doherty, former head coach at North Carolina and now in the same position at SMU.
“Bob McKillop is easily one of the nation’s best coaches,” Doherty says. “What he has done at Davidson is truly remarkable. He recruits top-flight students for one of the country’s top liberal arts colleges and competes in the demanding Southern Conference along with a ridiculously tough non-conference schedule.”
McKillop accepted the challenge of rebuilding Davidson basketball and became its head coach in 1989. He proceeded cautiously at first, as he learned to mesh what fit at Davidson with his personal philosophy. “Davidson is a special place, a unique place,” McKillop says. “In recruiting and staffing, we must have the right fit, otherwise it could lead to frustration and immediate failure.”
Davidson has a special blend of academics, social life and athletics. Not all good players with excellent grades are a fit. McKillop’s ability to put the proper people in place has been a leading reason that he has succeeded at such a high level at Davidson.
One of McKillop’s former Davidson players, Martin Ides, now in his seventh season of playing professional basketball in Europe, says: “There are many things that set Coach McKillop apart from all the coaches I’ve had…However, what I appreciate most is what Coach calls our Davidson ‘basketball family.’ I stay in contact with many of our guys…I would love to be on an all-Davidson team again with Coach McKillop leading the way.”
McKillop’s players talk about his leadership, teaching, and confidence.
“Coach McKillop is the best at preparing his team,” says Logan Kosmalski, who was an All-Southern Conference player in 2005 and now plays professionally in Germany. “His knowledge and attention to detail made us feel like we could win against any opponent.”
Now 59 years old, McKillop loves history, politics, Italian cuisine, nice clothes, good books and movies that teach him life’s lessons. A frequent lecturer, he has as many basketball friends in Europe as he does in the United State. He once dreamed of being a U.S. Senator from New York, a notion that has since subsided. His reading preferences lean toward history, politics, leadership, coaching stories, and not much fiction. Four movies rank as his favorites:
Life is Beautiful, Michael Collins, Godfather, and
Schindler’s List.
“Those movies teach great lessons about life, family, struggles and leadership,” he says. In his view, movies should do more than entertain; they should also teach life’s lessons.
McKillop cherishes each moment and treats it as gold. Whether it’s on the bus with his team to a road game or waiting for a flight in an airport terminal, he always has work at hand. When a friend was late to a breakfast meeting last summer, McKillop waved it off, saying as he surveyed papers on the table in front of him, “No problem. I had plenty of work to do.” He carries his office with him.
He grew up on Long Island and had a fascination with sports for as long as he can remember. He loved Army football and the legacy of the Black Knights of the Hudson. The first college basketball game that he saw in person was at Alumni Hall, St. John’s vs. NYU. He loved going to games at Alumni Hall and Madison Square Garden and dreamed of playing for NYU, a powerhouse at the time. Although he’s been in North Carolina for 20 years, he hasn’t lost the sharp edges of his New York brogue. His phone mail message begins, “How ya doin’?” His metaphors, which he often uses, speak of “Broadway stages,” and “magical carpet rides.”
His coaching career at Davidson has been scintillating by any barometer: 367-233, the longest tenure of any Davidson basketball coach, more victories than any coach in school history, and his 209 Southern Conference wins –including three undefeated seasons in league play — are more than any coach in league history. He’s won 10 Southern Conference division titles, five SoCon tournament championships, and taken his team to five NCAA tournaments and four postseason NITs. All this winning hasn’t come at any academic sacrifice, as all of his Davidson seniors have graduated.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski calls McKillop “a sensational coach.” Texas coach Rick Barnes says, “There are some great coaches out there who deserve recognition, and Bob is at the very top of that list.”
McKillop derived his basketball philosophy from many sources: Lou Carnesecca, Al and Frank McGuire, Jack Curran, Frank Morris, Paul Lynner, Dean Smith, John Wooden, Red Auerbach, Ettore Messina and others. He’s studied the winning ways of former college football coaches Ara Parseghian, Bud Wilkinson and Knute Rockne. “I’ve stolen from the best,” he says, laughing.
McKillop’s demanding practices are planned to the second. He stresses fundamentals, is a disciplinarian as well as a stickler for details, but his players always know he cares.
Jouni Eho, one of McKillop’s former players now playing overseas, was married in the summer of 2005. McKillop attended the ceremony – in Finland. “That was very special to me,” Eho says.
Terrell Ivory, now Davidson’s director of basketball operations, often was present when McKillop was recruiting his brother, Titus, who eventually chose Penn State over Davidson. “Even though Titus didn’t go to Davidson, when my father died, Coach McKillop was at the funeral,” Terrell said. “I said then that I wanted to play for this man. He’s like a second father to me.”
McKillop runs several miles most days, never gains an ounce, and as his assistants can attest, often gets so lost in his work that he can go a full day without eating. Sweets are a weakness, though, and he attacks a bag of chocolate chip cookies the way a woodpecker works on a sugar maple. Maybe even adds chocolate syrup on top of a chocolate brownie.
McKillop and his wife Cathy, a knowledgeable basketball person in her own right, have three children – Kerrin Heil, 29, a 2002 Davidson graduate who married Henry Heil, another Davidson alum in August of 2008, Matthew, 26, who graduated from Davidson three years ago after playing for his father for four years, and came back in the summer of 2008 to join the Davidson coaching staff as an assistant, and Brendan, 21, a junior on this year’s Davidson team.
“Davidson College is a special place,” Coach McKillop says. “One reason our teams have been so united and close is because we reflect the total Davidson philosophy. Our players remain close long after they leave Davidson.”
When McKillop thinks back to playing against Davidson in 1969, he reflects on the job Lefty Driesell did in putting the Wildcats in the nation’s Top 10 and twice taking them to the NCAA Elite Eight. “What Lefty Driesell and his players did is one of the greatest stories in college basketball history,” McKillop says.
With Lefty in attendance for two of the NCAA games, the story was repeated by the 2008 Wildcats. Back to the Elite Eight, a ranking of ninth in the nation in the final 2008 college basketball poll, a two-time All-America selection and NBA lottery pick, Stephen Curry.
Davidson basketball returned to the “Broadway stage.” A great season that produced a pleasant, life-long memory, but it’s the past. That’s the way McKillop views it.
For the 21st time at Davidson, the scoreboard for his program reads 0-0, ready to turn the page and start a new chapter.
The dream is still alive, burning brightly.
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