Gary Blair has a Hall of Fame resume, which is why he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last week. In his 37 years as a college head coach he only had 2 losing seasons and made 23 NCAA tourney appearances, including a Final 4 with Arkansas in 1998 and an NCAA title with Texas A&M in 2011. His 852 career wins are still in the top-15 all-time for D-1 women’s coaches and he is 1 of a handful of coaches to lead 3 different schools to the NCAA tourney. Earlier this week HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with Gary about winning a national title and making the Hall of Fame.
You played baseball at Texas Tech: how good a player were you back in the day, and how did you become a basketball coach? I was a walk-on at Texas Tech and was also an architecture major. I was a good player in high school and made the freshman team. I got into some scrimmages during the fall but in the spring I had to focus on my grades. Donny Anderson was playing 4 sports and I used to shag balls for him: he was 1 of the best athletes I have ever seen. I was 128 pounds and just ran out of ability. In high school I would walk or bunt my way on and wait for somebody to knock me in. I loved basketball but could not shoot worth a flip. I could run the point so I played intramurals at Texas Tech after my baseball/architecture careers ended.
In 1969 you enlisted in the Marines and spent 2 years in Okinawa: what impact did your military service have on you either on/off the court? I was drafted at age 23 and left Tech for a year to manage some restaurants in California and figure out what I wanted to do. I was supposed to report in 5 days and told them that I wanted to join the Marines: it was 1 of my best decisions ever. The 3rd Marine Division got pulled back from Vietnam 2 weeks before I arrived so I just spent the whole time in Okinawa. I got my early-out, sprinted back to Texas Tech to finish my final year of school, and became a high school coach/teacher. I was not a war hero or anything but I love my country and was proud to be a Marine. I was getting a good game plan to figure out what I was good at.
As coach at South Oak Cliff High School 2 of your players were Debra/Kim Rodman: how did you like playing ping pong with their brother Dennis, and could you have ever imagined that he would become a fellow Hall of Famer? I am super-proud of that. Dennis went on to do his thing but people do not realize that he was only 5’11” in my PE classes and was not even good enough to make our junior varsity team. South Oak Cliff was the Dallas Cowboys of high schools back then. We were a basketball/football power: Harvey Martin played there as well. Debra was a great player for us at Louisiana Tech: she was a great rebounder/defender, won a pair of NCAA titles, and was as funny as can be. I think that she got a lot of that from Dennis. Kim went to Stephen F. Austin, had some good seasons, and later worked at the Post Office. Dennis grew 8½” after high school and just kept getting better and better while playing at the rec center. He finally got the chance to join a college team and became a very good player. He did not get picked until the 2nd round by Detroit and became a “Bad Boy” as a teammate of guys like Bill Laimbeer/Joe Dumars. There should be a movie made about his life: he was the most ordinary kid and was so supportive of his sisters. His mother Shirley was a teacher’s aide who bowled with us in our faculty bowling league and raised those kids by herself.
In 1980 you were offered an assistant coaching job at Louisiana Tech by Sonja Hogg, initially rejected it, then accepted it and made 4 Final 4s during your 5 years under Coach Leon Barmore: what made you change your mind, and what was the most important thing that you ever learned from Leon? I had just won a state title after going 40-0 in 1980 and Debra was heading to Louisiana Tech. Leon called me on a Sunday morning to see if I would be interested in having an interview. I had worked at their camps in the past and I saw them play in the Wayland Baptist tourney. I took a 2-seater flight and had a good interview but I loved what I was doing and was fixing to win a state title again the following year. If we had won in 1979 then I probably would have turned down the job because I would have had a 116-game winning streak! The money was about the same and I already had my Masters’ degree, but all my friends persuaded me to not turn down the job. It took me 2 weeks to tell my kids that I was going to move on to Louisiana Tech. I regretted it the very 1st night because I was freezing in a rental house while sleeping on the floor with no furniture. Sonja was 1 of the best recruiters ever (and the best-dressed coach in our sport in the 1980s!) who brought Leon over from his job as coach at Ruston High School. That team was very special. Leon and Kim Mulkey are in both the Women’s Hall of Fame/Naismith Hall of Fame, while Sonja/Sue Donahoe are both in the Women’s Hall of Fame, and now I am in both Halls as well. I do not think that you can find another program (men’s or women’s) with their entire staff in the Hall of Fame. We used to call Leon the “Bobby Knight of women’s basketball”: he was organized and could coach/prepare. He had a huge heart and we just went around the country and played everywhere from USC out west to Madison Square Garden back east. In 1985 Sonja had gone through a divorce and was ready to move to Texas. Leon preferred to be a coach/teacher/mentor while Sonja and I were the 2 people on the recruiting trail. There was a quote I remember: “Leon hits the homeruns but Sonja gets to circle the bases”.
1 of your freshmen in 1980 was Kim Mulkey, who last weekend became the 1st women’s coach to ever win titles at multiple schools (Baylor/LSU): what was she like as a player, and how proud are you of all that she has accomplished as a coach? I was very proud of Kim winning another title. Her team at LSU used a lot of Louisiana Tech stuff: overloading 1 side of the floor, shooting the 3 from the corner, finding the post player down low, etc. During her 1st year we already had future Hall of Famer Janice Lawrence and several other great freshmen. We were America’s darlings: our school president would come to our games even though Karl Malone was on the men’s team! Kim came off the bench as a freshman and played a lot of minutes. Jennifer White was our PG but we moved her to the 2-guard because we were such a loaded team. I saw Cheryl Miller last night up in the suite. We recruited Miller very hard but she was from the big city and made the right decision: we lost to USC in the 1983 title game and 1984 Final 4. I have learned from some of the greatest high school/college coaches. I could not be as intense as Leon but I could manage a lineup and learned how to recruit. I learned to not be afraid of hiring people who might be better than me in certain areas. I have 9 former assistants who are currently college coaches. I have only been turned down for 1 job in my life: at North Texas State in the late-1970s because the AD was not going to hire a man. Vic Schaefer was with me for 15 years and is 1 hell of a coach at Texas.
Your recruiting philosophy was to find good offensive players and then teach them how to play defense: what is the key to playing good defense? You need to buy into it. Some of them were better defensive players: Christy Smith took us to the Final 4 in 1998: the state of Indiana was very good to me. At SFA it was hard to beat Texas because Jody Conradt was so good, but I edged her out on 2 kids who ended up becoming All-Americans and taking us to the next level. At Arkansas I brought in Tom Collen as a national recruiter, and at Texas A&M I brought in Vic. At the time we were the worst program in the Big 12 so we surrounded ourselves with people who knew the state. I do not want someone who is an exact copy of me or only a friend: I want them to sell me on the kid while recruiting people who want to play pressure defense: MTM (make them miss), not HTM (hope they miss). It was easy to sell Texas A&M because back then there were not portals or NIL money: we just told them how they could use their degree after college. It was the best place that I ever lived in my life and I never miss a basketball/football game. I am a total sports nerd and learn from the other coaches at age 77: how do they handle press conferences, losing, etc. I feel I am a better coach today than when I retired a year ago…but no way do I want to get back into it! I saw a list in the paper of how much NIL money the men’s Final 4 players are making: how can I look my players in the eye and tell them they were just born at the wrong time? We have lost so many great coaches recently because we want to remember how our legacy was built: on kids who loved the game and stayed in school at least 3 years. I am not old-school…but how can you tell me that Mike Trout is better than Willie Mays? Why do we need an asterisk by someone’s name from a different era? 90% of kids transfer for playing time. Coaches need to focus on what is good for the student-athlete and teach kids how to stick with something through adversity. I just hope it does not filter down to high schools as quickly as it did to colleges. Last weekend I got to visit with Dirk Nowitzki/Dwayne Wade/Tony Parker/Pau Gasol/Becky Hammon: I was like a kid in a candy store due to how they handle themselves now. I wish that every 1 of my fans could see how genuinely excited they are to represent the sport even though they have made millions of dollars. The most mind-boggling thing is that they all still look like they could play 20 minutes/game! It really made my weekend: Gene Bess received as much attention as everyone else. You need an ego to coach in this game but you better remember what this game did for you. Our program at South Oak Cliff basically was a result of Title IX. I was waiting around for a baseball job but that is how I got started, and when we won state in 1977 they asked me to become the head baseball coach but I turned it down to stay with the women. I owe a lot to Sonja/Leon/Kim/Janice/all those kids: it has been a tremendous ride.
In the 1998 NCAA tourney as head coach at Arkansas you led an unranked team to the Final 4 before losing to eventual champion Tennessee: where does that 39-0 Lady Vols team rank among the greatest in the history of the sport? We were a Cinderella as a 6’1”-and-under team before losing to the 3 Meeks (Chamique Holdsclaw/Semeka Randall/Tamika Catchings) and Kellie Jolly Harper on the best team that Pat Summit ever had. They are definitely in the top-5 along with some teams from Stanford/UConn/Texas. Louisiana Tech in 1982 was pretty damn good too, as well as when they won it with Teresa Weatherspoon in 1988. All these names come back to me. There are different eras but who knows what Babe Ruth would do today. It is a 12-month commitment whether you are a pro/college/high school player because the rewards are mind-boggling. Look at the door that Becky Hammon has opened up: I think she is good enough to become the 1st women’s coach in the NBA and she is already filling seats in the WNBA.
In 2006 you became the 4th coach in NCAA history to take 3 different schools to the NCAA Tournament: how were you able to have so much success at so many different schools? It all started with the blueprint when I started the South Oak Cliff program from scratch. At Louisiana Tech I was just 1 piece of the puzzle but learned how to compete. The hardest game that Leon and I ever had was on the golf course: if he lost then you would have to play an emergency 9 holes until he got his money back! If they offered me the Texas Rangers 3rd base coaching job today then I would be out the door because I love the sport. Pat’s 1998 team was her best BY FAR, even better than her championship teams with Candace Parker in 2007/2008.
In the 2011 NCAA tourney title game as coach at Texas A&M you had a 6-PT win over Notre Dame: what did it mean to you to win a title, and what was the feeling like in your locker room afterward? The best team we played that year was Baylor: we lost to Kim/Brittney Griner by single-digits each time. We finally beat them in the Elite 8 and I was sitting behind Rebecca Lobo: Kim has definitely upgraded her outfit! When we beat Stanford in the semifinals we felt like we had beaten the best team remaining after trailing by double-digits with 5 minutes left in the game. We were not named UConn/Tennessee/Stanford: we were the new kid on the block and I felt an obligation to all of the other coaches out there to play great under pressure. The following year every team in the country felt they could be Texas A&M because we were not the blue-blood. We kept going to NCAA tourneys but never won it again. We felt that we were better inside than Notre Dame but had to prove it on the court. We were down by 4 PTS at halftime and Sydney Colson was in foul trouble. Before we let ESPN into the locker room I asked them to give me 4 minutes. I told Sydney to stop trying to steal the ball and told Danielle Adams that we were coming to her inside. The most mind-boggling thing was after the game ended. There was blue/green/gold confetti falling from the rafters: we did not care so we just did snow angels on the court! I have yet to receive an apology from the NCAA: it should have been generic-colored confetti and they have not made that mistake again. Our fans scooped up handfuls of the confetti and we sold it at our charity golf tourney! Holly Rowe asked me how it felt and my players told me to do the Dougie: that is how happy I was. Every morning on Sports Center for the next year they showed it as an example of “White Men Can’t Dance”! We were not lucky, we were good…but it was good for women’s basketball to have someone win it who was not a blue-blood. We need more Texas A&Ms/Marylands to break through: it was good that LSU finally won it last weekend to get someone else in there. We can all build off that and recruit off that…or “portal” off that.
In 2013 you were inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, last year you became the 3rd coach (along with Pat Summitt/Kay Yow) to have a basketball court named after them, and last week it was announced that you will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame: where do these rank among the highlights of your career? The 1st state title in high school in 1977 was the best: we were the 1st school to win both the men/women win titles. South Oak Cliff gave me my start/confidence and I am in the Dallas Independent School District Athletic Hall of Fame as well. You go back to your roots. I am proud to share it with a bunch of other A&M coaches but I do not want us to wait another 8 decades until we win a national title. We have a great track team as well as a great women’s golf team, and Buzz Williams/Jimbo Fisher are great coaches. Bill Byrne hired me when he was athletic director, and now his son Greg is athletic director at Alabama. I must have taken 300 pictures last weekend: former players, officials, etc. It meant the world to me that they could still remember me. It is not just about winning and losing: it is about how you treat people and build programs. You will eventually see a female president, a female coach in the NBA, etc. Do not think that you have earned it or that you have been held back: make it happen and teach your kids how to be difference-makers in life. Michael Jordan has meant a lot to all of us…but it can also be someone like Caitlin Clark/Aliyah Boston/Angel Reese. We are creating our own set of heroes and I am very proud of that, but let’s do it the right way: we do not need any controversy. At the Friday night Hall of Fame dinner they had John Calipari/Elvin Hayes/Bill Walton talk: we were more nervous as the new inductees but it was so special. I wish they had taped that: none of us knew that we were going to talk so we just each said a few words.