NKU assistant coach’s career advice: ‘It’s all about who you know’
David Harris, an assistant coach at Northern Kentucky, had not heard about John Calipari proposing an internship program for minority students in Kentucky’s athletics department. The UK coach said this spring that such a program could help minorities gain greater access to opportunities in athletics administration.
Contacts made as an intern can help launch a person on a career path. In this way Calipari, who said he would take the lead in funding the program, could contribute to addressing systemic racism in this country.
Harris can serve as an example of how getting a metaphorical foot in the door can produce life-changing benefits.
“I think that would be great,” Harris said of Calipari’s proposal, which the UK coach envisions including all facets of athletics administration.
Of the coaching profession, Harris added, “This isn’t the type of job where you can submit an application online and get a call back. It’s all about who you know. And even more importantly, how well those people know you.”
Harris, who was recently included on the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ list of the top 30 coaches under the age of 30, has a résumé filled with knowing-somebody advantages. After graduating from Wyoming High School in Cincinnati in 2008, he attended Florida and worked as a student manager in Billy Donovan’s program.
How did he get that opportunity? His father, Ronald Harris, was the first recruit signed by then Cleveland State assistant Larry Shyatt, who by 2008 was a coach on Donovan’s Florida staff.
After two years at Florida, Harris transferred to Ashland University because he wanted to play.
After graduating cum laude from Ashland with a degree in finance, Harris got a graduate assistant’s job at Virginia Commonwealth. The head coach, Shaka Smart, had been an assistant at Florida when Harris was a manager.
Harris followed Smart to Texas, where he worked for three years as a video coordinator. During that time, one of Smart’s assistants was the present Northern Kentucky coach, Darrin Horn.
“I got to work around him every day and see he’s incredibly smart,” Horn said of Harris. “He’s great with the players. He knows basketball. He’s a great teammate. All those things, how do you know that if they’re not in those positions?”
Becoming Northern Kentucky coach in 2019 was something of a homecoming for Horn, a Lexington native and Tates Creek High School graduate.
The same applied even more so for Harris, who pointed out that the NKU campus is only seven miles from downtown Cincinnati.
Of the job offer he received from Horn, Harris said, “He didn’t give me any details. He just said, do you want to come? And I said, ‘absolutely.’ He could have told me I was living in the gym. I would have come.”
Harris, 29, said he envisions NKU having the potential to become “Gonzaga of the East.” The Norse had a 23-9 record this past season and won the Horizon League’s postseason tournament.
When asked why he wanted to be a coach, Harris cited the example his father set. The elder Harris coached his son on the AAU level.
“Even when I was young and stupid and thought I could play in the NBA, I knew at some point I wanted to get into coaching,” Harris said.
As for his future ambitions, Harris said he has learned to be flexible.
“When I was in high school, I used to always say if I can’t play D-I basketball, I don’t want to play,” he said. “Then, I ended up playing at a D-II school.”
As a manager at Florida, Harris initially didn’t like the idea of working with video.
“I’d see video guys pretty much being miserable because they were stuck in a closet pretty much all day doing video,” he said. “I used to tell them, man, I never want to do video.
“So I think it changes.”
Like Calipari’s internship idea helping people get started on a career path, Harris hopes being on the NABC’s list of top young coaches can inspire.
“Hopefully, I can be a motivation for younger African American males that are interested in getting into coaching who might be a little discouraged,” he said. “It’s not impossible.”
Acceptance
Former Oregon player and later coach Ernie Kent found Saudi Arabians more accepting of his interracial marriage than Americans.
In the 1980s, Kent spent seven years coaching the Al-Khaleej Club in Saudi Arabia. He said he and his wife lived in a Shiite Muslim village.
“They treated you like royalty,” said Kent, who attributed this acceptance to “the fact that you were in their country coaching and doing something to benefit their people.”
Kent recalled neighbors knocking on his door to ask if he needed anything.
“You could come back to the States and feel that uncomfortable feeling again traveling with the wife and three kids,” he said.
Kent said that disapproval was made vividly clear one day in Florida.
“This lady came up to my wife in a grocery store standing in line waiting to check out,” he said. “And put the question to her: why would she do that?”
Puzzled, Kent’s wife asked the woman to repeat the question.
“Why would you marry a black man and have those kids?” the woman said.
Said Kent: “That was in 1986 (or) ‘87 that question was put to her. And it’s just stuff like that you’re just shocked when you hear it.”
Budget crunch
The expected budget crunch caused by the coronavirus pandemic led Louisville to announce earlier this year that each head coach and senior staff members in the athletics department voluntarily took a 10-percent pay reduction. Other staffers had smaller pay cuts.
Also Athletics Director Vince Tyra said he would not take bonuses totaling $150,000 earned in the 2019-20 academic year and, if applicable, the 2020-21 year.
At least three SEC schools announced salary cuts in the athletics department.
Ole Miss said it will enact a temporary salary reduction for the highest-paid employees in its athletics department starting Oct. 1. The school expects the cuts to save about $2.3 million.
South Carolina announced a 10-percent pay cut for its athletics director, plus head coaches in men’s and women’s basketball. The school will also furlough the top 25 percent of wage earners for no more than four weeks.
Georgia followed guidelines set by the state’s Board of Regents for the University System by requiring those making the highest base salaries to take 16 furlough days (the equivalent of a 6.2-percent pay reduction).
When contacted, seven SEC schools said they did not plan to reduce salaries: Kentucky, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Florida, Arkansas and Auburn.
UK’s budget
Kentucky’s Board of Trustees recently approved an athletics department budget for 2020-21 that includes a 17-percent reduction in expenses. Those reduced expenses did not include salaries and benefits, scholarships, and other contractual expenses.
Those reductions are intended to offset a projected $7.9 million decrease in revenue in 2020-21.
However, salaries in Kentucky’s athletics department are projected to slightly increase: from $56,687,173 in 2019-20 to $57,116,409 in 2020-21.
According to UK records, John Calipari’s contract called for compensation totaling $7.6 million in 2019-20 and again in 2020-21. Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart’s contract called for a total salary of $975,000 in 2019-20, plus a “retention incentive” of $75,000 if he remains in the job through Tuesday. His contract calls for a salary totaling $1,025,000 in 2020-21, plus a retention incentive of $100,000 if he remains in the job through June 30, 2021.
Chicago players
Mock drafts compiled by ESPN and The Athletic do not project Kahlil Whitney being selected in this year’s NBA Draft, which is expected to be held in mid-October. Mike Irvin, who coached Whitney on the AAU level, dismissed the idea that Whitney might regret ending his college career after a half season for Kentucky.
“He’s from Chicago,” Whitney said. “Chicago players don’t approach the game like that. (They) keep looking forward. That’s a great way of looking at it.”
Happy birthday
To Brandon Stockton. He turned 36 on Thursday. … To former UK athletics director Larry Ivy. He turned 77 on Friday. … To Dominique Hawkins. He turned 26 on Saturday. … To former Duke guard Bobby Hurley. He turns 49 on Sunday (today). … To Davion Mintz. He turns 22 on Tuesday. … To former Kentucky coach Tubby Smith. He turns 69 on Tuesday. … To Tom Parker. He turns 70 on Wednesday.
