The Riverhawks are having a great season with 25 wins so far and a spot in the America East semifinals on Tuesday night. 1 of the coaches who paved the way for Pat Duquette was Ken Barer, who was hired in 2001 and won 28 games in his 2nd year on the sideline. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with Ken about turning down Coach K and playing pro basketball. Today marks the 35th anniversary of the final game of Ken’s playing career in college on March 5, 1988, so we take this time to remember his remarkable accomplishments.
You played basketball at GW: what made you choose the Colonials? The final 3 schools in the mix were GW/Stanford/Duke. Duke came on late and said that they were interested but their top choice was a player from North Carolina and they were going to wait for him even if he did not sign a national letter of intent. I told Coach Mike Krzyzewski, “Thanks but no thanks.” I did not want to wait and wait and then have that player choose Duke after I no longer had the offers from GW/Stanford. That is what actually happened: he finally ended up signing with Duke. When it came down to GW/Stanford (I did take a visit to Palo Alto!) my high school coach said something important to me. He said that God forbid, if I got hurt, would I want to go to that school for 4 years? I was/am very close with my older brother and felt that going across the country was too far. However, I will admit that if I had to do it all over again I may have chosen Princeton. Coach Pete Carril really wanted me to go there and is 1 of the greatest coaches of all time. I loved going to school in DC as well as being around my teammates…but I was not in love with my head coaches.
1 of your teammates was Mike Brown, who later spent a decade in the NBA: could you tell at the time that he was going to make it to the next level? I absolutely knew that Mike would play at the next level. He was a hard worker, knew how to use his size, and was very smart. He was also one of the nicest guys I have ever known. He ended up playing with Michael Jordan as well as John Stockton/Karl Malone, which made for some great stories!
Your coach was John Kuester, who was 1977 ACC tourney MVP at UNC under Dean Smith and later an assistant to Rick Pitino at BU: how much of an advantage is it to play/work for a pair of Hall of Famers? To be honest I do not feel it was an advantage at all: it may have even been a disadvantage. I had a lot of respect for how tough Coach Kuester was as a player: my issue was that I am not sure if he was ready to be a head coach at that level. What I mean is that he tried to make us play as if we were North Carolina even though we clearly were not: we did not have guys up front who were 6’10”/6’11”/7’ tall. I think that he would have been better off taking his knowledge and creating his own style.
After graduating you played pro basketball in France for several years: what was the biggest difference between basketball in the US vs. basketball overseas? There were several significant differences in the basketball played in France vs. what I was used to in the US. One of the biggest differences I noticed was that the practices were not nearly as intense and the French players were not as schooled in the fundamentals. Remember I am talking about France: I am sure that it was different in some other countries. For the most part the French players were not as physically tough as the Americans so they would not be used to a more physical game (for the most part). I was a point guard in the pros (after playing off-guard in college) because I saw right away that there were some intricacies of the game that I had been taught that the other players were lacking and I was able to use that to control the game. Being bilingual was a bonus, especially for a point guard!
As a member of team USA at the 1993 Maccabiah Games in Israel you won a silver medal and were named MVP: how close did you come to winning the gold, and what did it mean to you to be named MVP? The first time I played in the Maccabiah Games was in 1985, which was the summer after my freshman year of college. We had a phenomenal team and won the gold medal. Representing the US in Israel was very special. I played in the Maccabiah Games again in 1989 but this time with the French team. Since I have dual citizenship and was playing there at the time I thought that it would be fun to do. Unfortunately, they were not as serious about it as I wanted, so I said to myself that if I was still playing in 4 years then I would try out for the US team again. In 1993 I had just “retired” at age 27 but was still in the best shape of my life. We all had poor games in the finals but still had a chance to win at the end: it was disappointing. I can honestly say that though it was an honor to be named MVP of the Games I would have gladly traded it for a gold medal.
You later served as an assistant coach at LIU/Wright State: what made you want to become a coach? I did not grow up wanting to become a coach: as a matter of fact it was quite the opposite. Aside from my freshman/varsity high school coaches I had not been coached by guys who I particularly liked. What I did learn along the way were some very important things that would become a major part of my coaching philosophy: things I knew that I would not want to do if I coached! While in college and during my time as a professional, I would come home over the summer and work at the Five Star Basketball Camp run by the late Howard Garfinkel. It was there that I was exposed to some of the greatest coaches I have ever been around. Near the end of my time in France I began to realize that I really enjoyed the idea of coaching and basketball was my passion. I wanted to give back and make a positive impact on the lives of young players. My best friend Ed Schilling (who I met at Five Star the summer before our senior years in high school) was a high school coach in Indiana (he is currently an assistant at GCU). I became his JV coach/varsity assistant coach and he was a great mentor to me. It was from there that I went on to coach high school basketball in Connecticut for 3 years before rejoining him at Wright State as his assistant.
You were hired as head coach at D-2 UMass-Lowell in 2001: why did you take the job, and what is the biggest difference between D-2 and D-1? The reason I took the job at UMass-Lowell was simple: I wanted to be a head coach. When I came back from France I had a couple of offers to be a “restricted earnings” assistant (that is what they used to call the coaches who could not coach on the floor but were still part of the staff) at two different major D-1 programs…but I wanted to learn how to coach, design my own practices, and call my own timeouts. Getting the job at UMass-Lowell was great for me. The biggest difference between D-1 and D-2 was size. The guard play at the D-2 level was excellent: the difference was that there were 6’1”/6’2” guards at the D-2 level while D-1 had 6’5”/6’6” guards who were bigger/stronger/quicker. It was also rare to find an inside player with size who was very good because those types of players would almost always find a home at the D-1 level. However, there were some very good undersized interior players.
In 2003 your team went 28-5 and broke the school record for wins in a season: do you think that anyone will ever break your record? That team was very special. We actually won 28 games the next year as well and returned to the Elite 8 for the second straight season. It will be hard to break that record at this point because the school is now D-1 so it will be a very hard number to reach.
You won back-to-back regular season and conference tourney titles in 2003/2004: what made you such a good coach? Hahahaha! “Good coach”? Having great players helped a great deal! I was fortunate to have had a team full of ultra-competitive players who were unselfish and wanted to win. They bought into the system and sacrificed any individual goals for the greater good of the team. My assistants were fantastic, which allowed me to really focus my efforts on what I felt was most important at any given time. It was really a total team effort.
You currently work as Athletics Director of the Mohawk Day Camp & Country Day School: how do you like the job, and what do you hope to do in the future? Right now I am part owner/Associate Director/Athletic Director at Mohawk Day Camp. It allows me to take advantage of my skill set to do outreach and the “recruiting” of families to come to the camp. Over the summer I wear the hat of Athletic Director and run the athletic programs. It has been a great job and has allowed me the flexibility to coach my kids in AAU basketball, which I might add was just as fun and rewarding as coaching at the college level. As part owner of the camp I see this being my job for the rest of my career…barring a winning lottery ticket!