When UCLA Basketball Went Away – An Oral History of 2008

Basketball Futures Committee

GUERRERO: Yeah, the Basketball Futures Committee, we called it. Innocuous enough, right? Ben had come to me in early January and told me he was tired. He told me he feared the game – not the game play and tactics and such, but the whole package of running a modern D-I basketball program – he thought it was passing him by. He said he wanted to retire at the end of the season.

HOWLAND: Like I said, though at that time I wasn’t as sure as I was when the tournament started, I thought this was our best chance for a title, so the timing seemed fitting. But yeah. I’d faced up to some harsh realities for me: first, the rise of the AAU circuit meant I needed to have twice the networking and relationship-building than when it was just high schools, and anyone that knows me knows that’s not my strong suit.

GARY FRANKLIN, SR. (Founder/Executive Director of California Supreme Basketball): No kidding.

HOWLAND: The last thing I wanted was to get in over my head and find myself embarrassing the school and becoming a disgrace like Tim Floyd across town. Can you even imagine? Handing over an actual bag of cash to a recruit?

TIM FLOYD (USC Head Coach, 2005-2009): [Sighs.] Not that it makes a difference, but it was a manila envelope, not a paper bag, and it was to a go-between, not directly to OJ [Mayo]. But, yeah…I did do that.

HOWLAND: Second, the one-and-done thing was going to sink me since the style of basketball I run requires training and commitment to a system. You could see that in Kevin’s case. Is he a phenomenal player? Of course, a special talent. But I think any honest observer would have told you at the end of that ’08 season that he needed more work on his defensive game, on playing strong inside. But where’s the incentive structure for that in the one-and-done system? There is none.

Third, I don’t coach the kind of ball that the super talented kids and the best athletes want to play. They want to run. They want to showcase their drives, their handle, their footwork. They want to score. That’s just not how I know to coach; that’s not the game that gives us the best chance to be successful as a team, as I see it. I don’t mean that to be a philosophical statement about basketball, just an observation about my own strengths and limits as a coach.

But before, those kids were going straight to the NBA, and the best ones remaining were the ones that were perfect for how I wanted to play. After the rule change? Well, it meant I’d be facing a talent deficit against lot of Derrick Roses and other phenoms.

I had wanted this job for as long as I could remember. And here was my chance to accomplish something big and then walk away before I became a liability. I figured my successor would be better placed to succeed in tomorrow’s landscape.

GUERRERO: Successor…Yeah, look, it’s no secret that I’m not great at hiring coaches. I do two things really well, if I may say so. I raise money, and I keep this program clean. No Mike Garrett nonsense is going down on my watch; I assure you. But when it comes to coaches, I’ve either gotten lucky with guys like Jim [Mora] or Ben – eminently qualified individuals who sought me out because they wanted the job – or I’ve completely botched it.

I mean, I thought Karl Dorrell was ready to step in and lead a nationally ranked football program because…hell, I couldn’t even tell you why. Yeah, Jim Mora has worked out, but remember, I thought Rick Neuheisel was a better candidate than Jim in 2007. Hoo, boy. The less said about that the better.

Yeah, look, it’s no secret that I’m not great at hiring coaches.

— Dan Guerrero

Hell, if I had to hire a new basketball coach – I haven’t established relationships in the industry like that. My go to move is to throw money at a hot name out of the blue and hope he takes it. It — well, it’s not really worked yet. So, yeah. When Ben said he was going to retire, I immediately despaired at having to play Russian roulette with another coaching search.

But I got to thinking about what Ben said, and a lot of what he said about the changing landscape of the game rang true to me. Not to make a moral statement about chasing one-and-dones and cuddling up to AAU promoters, but it’s at the least inconsistent with the legacy established here by John Wooden. It’s a Rick Pitino and John Calipari game now, and that’s just not a cultural fit with how UCLA Basketball had defined itself.

WALTON: …the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, most ably and admirably represented today by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. These lineages reach deep back into the mists of history, renewed with the periodic death and rebirth of the occupants. The brave young candidates, or yangsi, are put through rigorous tests to determine the legitimacy of their claim to…

MUEHLHAUSEN: Dad was hard to read on this. I mean, he spent all but the last three years of his career in an era where freshmen weren’t eligible, so he obviously found it hard to come to terms with freshmen coming in for one year and being the star player. He understood, of course, that times change and that UCLA would not be able to remain successful without evolving from the program he left in 1975, but I could tell he was uncomfortable with the direction of the game. When Dan Guerrero met with him and discussed the possibility of walking away, I think Dad was in a frame of mind to entertain the idea.

HOWLAND: Dan had the idea of creating a committee of people who’d been involved with the program in different eras and ways, to kind of talk about the future of the program and come to a decision that reflected the broadest possible representation of UCLA Basketball. So it was me, and Dan. Also from the athletic department was Ross Bjork, the external relations guy at the time. We looped in Casey Wasserman as a representative of the donor base. Coach was represented in meetings by his daughter Nancy Anne. We brought in Denny Crum, who could balance the inside perspective with an outsider’s take. And then there were players, past and present: Gail Goodrich, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Ed O’Bannon, and Darren [Collison]. Someone noted that the eleven of us made a fitting match for the eleven titles. Sure, I guess.

COLLISON: One of the things about playing a team sport that you might not realize from the outside is just how much the unity and bonds with your teammates mean to you. I mean, I love basektball, and I enjoy pushing myself to perform at an elite level. But, without a doubt, the most important thing about this experience, the one that I will value more than anything, is the trust and accountability I have with my teammates.

Being asked to be on that committee – well, it was weird enough just to think about cutting men’s basketball. But the fact that I had to keep it a secret from my teammates? That might be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I won’t lie; it kept me up at night.

GUERRERO: Did we loop in Chancellor Block? [Laughs.] Um…no. We didn’t think that would be necessary.

GENE BLOCK (UCLA Chancellor, 2007-present): Wait, we have athletics!? Why is this the first I’m hearing about this? Dawn, get Norman Abrams on the phone!

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