‘I just want to make an impact.’ UK basketball great wants to give back through coaching.
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We Meet Again
The Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com are publishing a series of stories catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes. Click here to read all of the installments published previously.
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Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series in which the Herald-Leader is catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes.
Kentucky basketball great Wayne Turner wants to give back to the game that gave him so much, including two national championships.
“I just want to coach,” said Turner, who was part of the 1996 Untouchables and the 1998 Comeback Cats, UK squads that both won NCAA titles. “I just want to make an impact. I’m a competitor. It doesn’t feel right when I’m away from the game.”
Last year, that meant working as an assistant at Seneca High School in Louisville. After the coronavirus pandemic is over, expect to see Turner back on the sidelines somewhere this winter.
“I just love the fact that I can make an impact on a kid’s life,” Turner said. “I (also) love doing private training … you get to work mentally as well as physically and just teach them the game. I love teaching the game.”
Hall of Famer
Turner, 44, was recently announced as part of the latest University of Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame class. With his list of accomplishments, it’s easy to imagine his No. 5 hanging from the Rupp Arena rafters one day.
In addition to being part of two NCAA champions and three straight national finals teams, Turner is UK’s all-time leader in steals with 238. He’s tied for the record for most steals in a game with eight. He scored 1,170 points in his career and had 494 assists, fourth on the all-time list behind Dirk Minniefield, Anthony Epps and Roger Harden.
No Wildcat has been part of more UK wins (132) and only one UK player (Darius Miller) has played more games (151).
A McDonald’s All-American out of Boston, Turner came off the bench as a freshman for, perhaps, the greatest UK team ever in 1996 and became the point man for Tubby Smith’s first team two years later. He relishes the pressure of playing for Kentucky.
“It was almost like we had to be perfect, but I got it right away, that I was under a microscope, you know, just by the culture,” Turner said. “I loved it. I loved the fact that we had to go out and perform and if we didn’t perform, our fans might boo us. I loved it, because we didn’t want (the boos), so it actually made us play harder.”
Post-Kentucky
After college, Turner embarked on a nine-year pro career, briefly signing with the Boston Celtics after going undrafted and then playing in various domestic and foreign leagues. He participated in one tour with the Harlem Globetrotters in 2000 and was part of the Dakota Wizards’ CBA championship team in 2002.
In 2010, Turner returned to Lexington to finish his degree at UK and became an undergraduate assistant for Coach John Calipari’s second Kentucky team.
“I love going back to Lexington. It’s home. It feels like home,” Turner said. “Everywhere I go, people know who I am, you know, they show their respect and appreciate me coming to Kentucky all the way from Massachusetts and helping the program build on this tradition.”
Degree in hand, Turner returned to his home state to work with a friend’s private basketball academy, but soon yearned for more and called his old coach, Rick Pitino at Louisville.
Turner began his Louisville career right after the Cardinals’ now-vacated 2013 national title season. He worked his way up from graduate assistant to director of player development at the time of Pitino’s dismissal in 2017. He stayed on in that role for interim coach David Padgett, but was not retained when Chris Mack took over.
“After coaching at Louisville, I was trying to stay at the coaching ranks and everything and, you know, just wasn’t working out,” Turner said. “I haven’t given up. I know how it goes. It’s a journey.”
Turner coached the Bluegrass Boys, a Kentucky alumni team in The Basketball Tournament during its Lexington regional last summer and then assisted Miquel Coleman’s boys’ team at Seneca. He’s not yet able to announce where he might coach next season, but has options and optimism, he said.
Q&A
What do you remember most about Coach Tubby Smith?
(Turner, who played for Rick Pitino and Smith chose Smith for this response)
Coach Tubby Smith turned a routine curfew check into a night Turner will never forget. Smith became incensed upon seeing an overflowing trash can at Wildcat Lodge. Turner had never seen anything like it.
“I remember him screaming at the top of his lungs telling everybody get out here in the hallway,” Tuner recalled. “I remember that like yesterday, I’m thinking, ‘Man. I’m 22 years old. I’m a grown man. Coach, come on, man you’re making us take the trash out?’”
“He put us right in our place. He was like, ‘Take this trash out right now!’ We’re like, ‘That’s the janitor’s job’ and Coach was like, ‘No, that’s not just his job. You guys are making a mess. Clean it up.’”
Looking back on it now, Turner appreciates what Smith was trying to do, even if it was a shock.
“It was disciplining us, you know, and life areas. Not just basketball stuff,” Turner said. “He did a lot of life lessons teaching to us and that’s something I’ll always remember.”
Was there ever a time when you questioned picking UK?
“Yeah, I think my freshman year when I got there, you know, I thought it was tough,” Turner said. “I mean, I was warned. … It wasn’t like Coach Pitino didn’t tell me it was going to be tough. I just think that it being tough and then me being away from my family made it tougher.
“Going from playing and then not playing, you know, high school All-American, McDonald’s All-American and then go sit on the bench at Kentucky? It was kind of hard for me to deal with. But I understood I had experienced players, just as good or better players ahead of me. I’m actually happy that I didn’t punk out and leave.”
If you hadn’t picked UK, which college would you have gone to?
If it weren’t Kentucky, if might have been UMass, but …
“I didn’t think Coach Cal was going to be there that long,” Turner confessed (Calipari jumped to the NBA’s New Jersey Nets a year later). “That was the overall decision with UMass. I liked him a lot. I thought he was definitely a great recruiter. I liked his assistant coaches. … UMass was definitely high on my list.”
What was your favorite on-court memory at UK?
Turner acknowledges the 1998 Duke game ranks high, “but the most memorable game for me was the game we went to Tennessee that year and played them at home,” he said. “I think it was probably the best floor game and the best scoring game that I had in my career overall. Just the whole overall game on the road.”
Trailing 17-16 a little under midway through the first half in front of more than 23,000 at Thompson-Boling Arena that day, Kentucky stunned the Volunteers with a 20-0 run over the next five minutes to virtually seal it. Turner and teammate Jeff Sheppard each scored 17 points to lead the team and Turner added 11 assists and three steals in the 85-67 win.
What’s the most recent UK sporting event you attended?
“The last event was Big Blue Madness (last season). … I actually did the Blue Carpet which was kind of cool.”
Who’s been your favorite UK player to watch during the last couple seasons?
“There’s two guys who I was rooting for this year. And that was Nick Richards and Immanuel Quickley. I’ve always been a fan of Quickley and I kept telling people it’s gonna click. … He finally grew up, and I know he was going to come along once his shot got going. And then Nick, I felt like once he felt like the team depended on him is when he was going to step up and he did.”
Who was your sports idol growing up?
“Isaiah Thomas. I just liked his story growing up. We had a lot of similar similarities and background. I just kind of just followed that guy, especially since his story came out about his mom (Mary Thomas was the subject of a 1989 TV movie titled “A Mother’s Courage” starring Alfre Woodard about her fight to keep her sons safe in Chicago’s West Side) and the things he had to deal with growing up. I felt like I was in that same boat as him and so I kind of tried to follow his footsteps.”
What do you wish someone had told you before you began your college sports career?
“I know it had been mentioned, but you’ve got to have a plan B. You’ve got to have it. You’ve got to get your degree. I know all that stuff was mentioned, but I wish someone would have said, ‘OK, you know, start talking about a business to start after (basketball).’ You know what I mean? Instead of just doing ‘something’ after basketball, (think about) starting a business or even starting a foundation or starting a program. Start working on it while you’re in school or after on the side in your spare time. I think that would help a lot of kids even today.”
What is your biggest regret from your time at Kentucky?
“I enjoyed every moment at UK.”
Which of your former UK teammates do you stay in contact with the most?
“Probably Heshimu Evans, Ron Mercer, Jamaal Magloire and Myron Anthony the most, but also Allen Edwards, Antoine Walker and “TD” Tony Delk. We’re all kind of still connected.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 7:32 AM.
