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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 8, 2016

Steve Henson

San Antonio, Texas

LYNN HICKEY: We just want to have a great time this afternoon in introducing a really great new leader for our program. But thank you for being here and welcome. I want to say a special thank you to our students. Here we go. Runners up, show everybody. This is very cool. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

I hope that one of the things that you remember is as we talk about building a program, is that this is your program. That we're not doing this for Coach Henson or Lynn Hickey. We're doing this for our students. So thank you for being here.

Just very proud, even though this is not a secret, very proud to be able to officially introduce our new head men's basketball coach today. Had a very quick search process, but wasn't as crazy as what we went through with football, so we had some time to really do our research, and we spoke to a lot of really good coaches.

Brad Parrott, who is a senior member of our staff, did a great job of leading the search. As we started to narrow things down, we're able to make a recommendation to Dr. (Ricardo) Romo and Sam Gonzales, and we really appreciate them then confirming what our research had found and in helping us make the commitment to bring this gentleman on board.

So when people ask what did you look for? First thing, he's got to be able to coach basketball, so that was the first thing. But we have a great opportunity here. This place is a gold mine, and we need someone that can really stabilize our program, that can build relationships. So we needed a very strong person that has a great background as a coach, as a former student-athlete, as a professional player. All those pieces fit in well with Steve. Also just he's a really good, and I don't want to make this sound -- just a really, mature, solid person, and everybody I called around the country, everybody I called, said he is an outstanding person and an outstanding coach. That if you can get him to come to UTSA, then you will have made a tremendous selection.

He's got a great resume and he's had a tremendous mentor in Lon Kruger. And it was really fun. And Dr. Romo was at the Final Four to see our future coach standing on the sidelines in Houston. We had a lot of Roadrunner pride that night to think about our future coach already having that experience. So I don't want to put any pressure on Steve, but we are hosting the 2018 Final Four here. So is that appropriate? Okay.

COACH HENSON: Yeah, it's a good time to be talking about that.

LYNN HICKEY: I think one of the things that this is not an overnight deal. This is going to be building a program and we want Steve and his staff to do it the right way, and to really give our student-athletes a wonderful experience and to build relationships in the city and in this state. We know as an athletic department we have the responsibility to engage our students, our alumni, and our community fans. And quite honestly, I don't think we could have found a better person to do that than coach Steve Henson. So it is my honor and privilege to introduce you to your new head coach.

COACH HENSON: Thank you so much. Thanks everybody for being here. I am thrilled, excited, pumped up, humbled, honored to be here. This is a wonderful place. If we could take this right outside into the Paseo, I've been up and down that about 30 times the last three days. It's amazing out there. It's beautiful. It's a special place, and I'm excited to be here.

Thank you for all the students that are here. I need to see all of you as soon as possible and do a lot of connecting and a lot of wonderful things here. I appreciate you all for being here. Thanks to everyone else for being here as well.

Like to start out by saying thank you to Dr. Romo. I got a chance to spend some time with him when I was here on campus a little over a week ago, and I was just -- I just loved his passion, his vision, his commitment. He loves this university. He knows so much about this university. He's got a great vision, great leadership, and that just added to my excitement.

Sam Gonzales as well. I know we're going to do some special things. I enjoyed visiting with him. So when you get to meet those types of people that have that type of leadership, that just further, further drives my excitement.

I'm going to say quite a few thank yous here. But certainly Lynn Hickey has been terrific through this whole process. These things can get a little hectic, in this case we were trying to win a bunch of basketball games late in the year, and that was great. She respected our time and what we were trying to do with the University of Oklahoma, trying to go through the Final Four. She allowed me to continue to focus on OU, which I needed to do. We were able to go to the Final Four, and we were able to get this job lined up. I appreciate the way she handled all of that. She's been terrific with all of it. I know she's committed. I know she is going to work with us to do some special things.

I've worked very hard for this. I've been around the game my entire life. My father was a coach, my parents were young when I was born. I have memories of walking across the street from the elementary school to the junior high where my father was a coach. I was in the middle of seventh grade football practices when I was 10 years old. I was bouncing the ball in the middle of his junior high practices.

I've been around sports my whole life. My father was a coach, and I knew I wanted to coach. So I've worked very, very hard at this. I continue to pray and work and trust that some day the right opportunity would come around and it did here at UTSA.

Before I go any further, I wanted to introduce my family. So grateful for them and all that they have shared, the good times that we've shared together. But families have a tough deal sometimes. We're away a lot. We're dealing with other things a lot, and they've been terrific and supportive over all the years and the moves and the thing that's we've done.

My wife we've been married, we met at K-State, we've been married over 25 years now. My wife Cindy, my younger son, Pearson, he's a junior in high school right now at Norman High. It's the only place in Oklahoma in Norman, the Norman area where you can wear orange. Norman High they happen to be orange and black. The rest of it, Texas and Oklahoma State people we don't wear much orange around there. But he's a junior right now.

My other son (Quinton) is a freshman in college. He got the chance to walk around here today and loved it. We're getting ready to get him signed up as soon as possible because he loves it here. He's excited about the move. Because we moved to Oklahoma five years ago, and those five years he was unable to find a barber, so, we are going to have to look for a house for my wife, and a barber for my son.

LYNN HICKEY: That's really not fair, because he's had all the hair that Steve's ever wanted (laughing).

COACH HENSON: That's true. I really haven't fought him on that much because I know what's coming. I also want to introduce one new member of our staff, Scott Thompson, right back here. Yeah, he's got it. He's got it. He just got here. He was ripping and running this morning trying to get a few things done. Scott and I met years ago and finally had a chance to get him on our staff at Oklahoma five years ago, and he's going to do terrific things. One of the best people I've ever been around in my life. Talk about high character, his picture might be right next to that. He's terrific.

He talks kind of funny. He's from Mississippi, but he's going to be really, really good. I'm excited to have him on board.

Coach Kruger and Barb have been terrific to me. I don't want to go any further without saying thank you to them. I signed at K-State over 30 years or right at 30 years ago. They've been right there with me every step of the way. They've been terrific to me on and off the court, and I'm grateful to everything they did for me.

The people at Oklahoma, OU, Norman were terrific. We loved our five years there. We had a great time. Got to work with some terrific kids. Many of them you saw on TV this year. They were fantastic young men and we watched them grow up. That's one of the beauties of staying in one place for several years, you get to bring those young kids in and see them grow and become better basketball players but certainly become good young men and good citizens, and we had that the last several years at Oklahoma. Joe Castiglione's leadership at OU is terrific and I'm grateful for all they've done.

Just talk a little bit about what we're going to do, the way we're going to play. We're going to play fast. We're going to play up-tempo, push the ball, throw it ahead at every opportunity. Throw it ahead in the attack. Make plays for each other, be unselfish, shoot threes, the guys that can make threes, they're going to shoot threes and they'll figure that out this summer.

Those that can't are going to pass it to the guys that can. But really, we want to get up and down the floor. Our guys will have to be in great shape, great condition in order to play that way. It's a fun style, the way kids want to play. It's a style the fans want to watch.

Defensively we'll be mostly man-to-man. Be aggressive, switching man-to-man. Pick up the ball early, try to take in things away, be disruptive. Mix in a lot of run and jumps, lot of traps around mid-court, stir things up defensively. We don't want people to come down and be comfortable. We don't want them doing what they do every day in practice.

We'll be very flexible. We'll adapt and change to our personnel. We're going to recruit certain types of kids, and it's going to start with character. That's the way we've always done it. We're going to recruit high-character kids. We're going to recruit great teammates. Guys that we want to be in the foxhole with.

In college athletics, you spend a lot of time together, travel together, practice, meals, it's imperative that we have good kids. Guys that care about the guys they're sitting next to. We want winners. We want gym rats. We want shooters.

We're going to recruit the right guys, the right fit. We'll turn down some guys that maybe are a higher level that we don't think are the right fit for us and we don't think they're going to do things the way we want them to do it. We may miss out on some guys. But we're confident we're going to find the right guys and surround them with attention, love and time and help them get better, help them grow as young men and help them develop their skills and become better players.

We're going to get out in the community. Again, we're going to seek out student leaders. We're going to seek out people in the community. Our staff will be very engaged in the community, on campus. We're going to get our players out every chance we get, get them to the elementary schools, have them read and connect.

We'll have open practices when the rules allow. Once we get started, we'll have open practices and invite groups to come to practice. That allows us to connect better with the groups that attend. It's good for our guys. Forces them to stay locked in during practice if people are coming in and out of practice. It's been something that we feel really, really strongly about.

Had a chance to meet our team. I felt like I've been here for five or six days and hadn't met my team yet, when in reality I had only been here ten hours. I met the volleyball team before I met my own team. And they were really good, so that was good. I was excited about that.

We put together a little meeting the other night down in the locker room, and I just shared my expectations with them, and I told them I was hired here to turn this program around, and we're going to turn it around and we're not going to have any doubt about that. As I looked at each one of them I said, but you guys are going to determine how quickly we turn it around. You guys determine how drastically the turnaround is.

It's their program. We're going to work like crazy and do things together. But my mission, my charge is to create an environment where they look forward to coming to practice everybody single day. Where they look forward to being around our staff. Where they look forward to coming through the office and sitting down and talk. Not watch film, not talk about X's and O's, but just come through and be comfortable. We need that. That's vital to our program.

When we had that meeting, I guess that was Wednesday night and we decided to have a little workout on Thursday morning. I said if any of you want to hit the snooze button tomorrow, just do it. Just hit it, and then hit it again, and come see me in the afternoon. Because if you're not looking forward to getting up and playing basketball, then something's not right, and we'll create that environment. They'll look forward to coming to work every day.

We want them to be great students. Obviously academics are going to come first, but these young guys love playing basketball. If we're not having some fun on the court, I'm not doing my job right. I look forward to connecting with people, look forward to meeting people. This is maybe in addition to the hiring process and the Final Four and the NCAA tournament and all the things that are going on, we're also in the midst of our most busy, chaotic recruiting calendar. We're in a recruiting period right now, and then a dead period for four days and we can go watch non-scholastic activities the following weekend. So a lot going on with that.

But I do look forward to getting out and meeting people, connecting with the local coaches, the fans, the students, the alumni. I look forward to the new challenges and the new UTSA family, and Birds Up.

Q. Coach, welcome to San Antonio. You're widely considered one of the better assistant coaches in the nation. I wonder why San Antonio, why UTSA, why now? What were some of the things that stood out about this university to you?
COACH HENSON: I was pumped. When I found out there was an opportunity I didn't hesitate for a second. I jumped all over it. I was thrilled. I think there is just a ton of potential here. It's a great city. I think there is a great buzz going around campus right now. The Conference USA connection, I think is terrific. The excitement around the football program. I think Frank (Wilson) will do a terrific job. I got a chance to meet him. Interacted with his staff. I like the way those guys are going about things.

I think there are just a lot of exciting things going on here. The talent in the state is terrific. People come from all over the country to recruit the state of Texas. We're going to be in the state of Texas recruiting the state of Texas. There are so many things. I can just go right down the list, and I'm telling you, just walking around this campus it's got a great feel for the students. I think it's a wonderful place.

My family got in here late last night, and I wanted to give them the full tour late at night last night. It's a pretty special place.

Q. I wanted to ask, I was reading a little bit about your dad. Long time coach in Kansas, and just kind of how it shaped you to grow up in the home of a high school basketball coach?
COACH HENSON: Thank you, yeah. Like I said, I've been around sports and basketball my entire life. My father coached freshmen basketball for about 12 years. He got the head job first in high school when I was a sophomore. I got to play for him for three years there. He taught me a lot about the game. I love the way he approached it. Lot of things I learned from him and then things I learned from Coach Kruger. There are some similarities there.

Neither one of them are the kind that are going to yell and scream and rant and rave and curse. I will not rant and rave or yell, unless we don't box out. But just the way they treated people and those two guys are the type of guys. There have been a lot of others.

I was so fortunate in my playing career. In my playing career we bounced around a little bit. Cindy, did we bounce around a little bit? Yeah, we did. It wasn't the ideal way I would have envisioned my playing career to go, but it allowed me to be around a lot of other terrific coaches and being in training camp with, I don't want to start listing them because I'll forget some terrific guys. But I happened to bump into one at the Final Four, Doug Collins. I got to spend time around him in training camp. Here I am starting down that list.

Went to training camp with Don Nelson one year with Golden State. You watch the way people are playing basketball right now, that's the way Don Nelson was trying to play in 1992, smaller big guys, fast, shoot it, run-and-gun, and fly around and not worry about mismatches. Just switch everything and pass the ball. Don Nelson was probably he had a great big smile on his face and about watching the way the entire world is playing the game right now.

So I just tried to take bits and pieces from every coach that I had the good fortune to be around. Coaches have an identity and just tried to steal it. I'm not going to create the game. I'm just going to try to take what I've learned and steal bits and pieces and formulate my own way of going about it. My dad and Coach Kruger meant a lot to me overall.

Q. Welcome to you and your family. I'm going to ask you about the beautiful city as you very well know, beautiful campus, great university, dynamic leadership and all. But I'm going to ask you about the elephant in the room that nobody likes to talk about. I know you've been around for a while and seen a lot of different places. How much of a challenge is it going to be to you do you think to recruit players for this great university given the facility you play? The home arena that's lacking, that's inadequate. I think any basketball fan or fan in town would say that?
COACH HENSON: I don't anticipate that being an issue at all. I anticipate us finding the right guys. We're going to talk about people. We're going to have good people in our program. That's the thing that really got my attention when I was here is the leadership on campus, the people in the department. That's what we sell is the people, our commitment to the players, our skill development. We're going to surround our guys with attention and help them get better.

When there's a bunch of students over there making a bunch of noise, it's going to be a terrific environment, and that's not a concern to me at all.

Q. What do you take away from this year's Final Four run that you can apply as a head coach here?
COACH HENSON: There are so many things. I think there's been a lot written about the group that we recruited that many of them were seniors on this team this year at Oklahoma. We recruited some terrific people, some good players. But we didn't have a good group of five-star guys. At the high major level you need some five-star guys and some McDonald's All-Americans. At least that's what people think. Well, we didn't have that.

We recruited guys we thought fit, guys that were going to be around and work and get better, and they did it. And all we did was help facilitate a little bit and help create that environment, and the players jumped in and made it theirs.

The message, one of the messages I sent with the players the other night was our OU team went to the Final Four, but they did that because of their investment. We just helped them. They wanted to be in the gym. They wanted to be at practice, they wanted to be around us. And they spent hours and hours, beyond description how much time they put in, and that's how you take a group that maybe was ranked a little lower than some of our opponents and just have terrific success.

They cared about each other, they loved each other, they played for each other and they worked and worked and worked, and that's the perfect model, I think.

Q. You talk about sharing a love for the program and sharing a common history with the connection to Kansas State. What is it about that program and what did you take away from there that's influenced your careers since and how will you apply those things to this program here?
LYNN HICKEY: Well, yes, I think I was in the Hall of Fame before he was at K-State. Not for sure.

COACH HENSON: Set the bar high.

LYNN HICKEY: No, I think the great thing about Kansas State is that it was -- and I think you have to be very careful using this word because it can be overused. It was very much a family. From the community to the campus and to the engagement with everyone that it was really a good place to live and to play and to coach. But it was taking care of people and in the right way to help them maximize their potential and dreams were built there.

We were in this rather small community in Kansas that wasn't as big and fancy as some of the schools at that time when I was coaching there in the Big Eight. But they believed in us, and we were able to attract really good student-athletes there because of that family feel that maybe would have gone somewhere else, but we were able to build a program that way.

So I think bringing that concept here fits really well with just the culture in San Antonio and what the students here want. So I think there are some parallels. The biggest thing I've seen from Steve is his work ethic. At the Final Four last Thursday evening we opened the Final Fours with what they called a salute event where Jim Nantz gets on stage and introduces all the teams and there is a big reception afterwards for all the NCAA people and the committees and all that kind of stuff. There was one coach that was missing that night from the festivities, and that was Steve Henson.

So I called him and I said, "You're not going to be at the big event?" Because I was going to try to touch base with him, and we were still negotiating contract at that time. And he said, "No, I have the next game. I'm doing my film work," and then I found out later he was interviewing potential assistant coaches.

So I think when you put together someone that has his background as a coach's kid and coming from a collegiate atmosphere that was very much family, and he has been in a situation where he's helped resurrect two programs, UNLV and Oklahoma, and you're saying, oh, my gosh, that's so different from UTSA. They were programs that had to be resurrected. He's had that experience, and he's been mentored by, in my mind, the best coach in America at K-State, who was another K-Stater. I think that that will play very well here on this campus.

COACH HENSON: You thought I was watching film and interviewing coaches? That's great. I was sitting there negotiating with my agent the whole time, wow.

LYNN HICKEY: Figures.

COACH HENSON: No, I don't have a whole lot to add to that. The K-State people are passionate about it. It was easy to connect with people there, and I just think one of the things that I took away from that was how exciting things can be for the student body. When people all come together and students come together, right now I know there is some buzz with the football and Conference USA and other sports. I want our guys to connect and go watch the other sporting events. I'll be there of course. Our family will be there when we can.

This campus is becoming more of a true, whatever the opposite of a commuter campus is.

LYNN HICKEY: Residential.

COACH HENSON: There we go, a residential campus. You see those things and you have a chance to talk to people who were here before and talked about when you walked around campus and saw a lot of other schools, shirts and T-shirts. Now you walk around and see a lot of Roadrunners, lot of UTSA shirts. I think a lot of people have that school spirit and pride that comes along with the things that are happening right now. So I think it's an exciting time to be here.

Q. Two part question for you, Coach, I know you want to hit the ground running, so just give us your anticipation of how quick you'll be putting out your staff and the qualities you're looking for in the rest of your staff? And the second part, some people may agree or disagree, but the last couple years there's been a disconnect with the local high school programs here in San Antonio. Talk about what your plans are as far as resurrecting that connection to the community?
COACH HENSON: Yeah, first part of the staff, said Scott Thompson, he's ready to go, he's ready to roll and he's excited. I told him we're going to try to get out the door at 6:00 o'clock this morning. At 5:30 he was texting me wanting to know where I was at and was ready to go. Scott's on board. We're real close with another staff member.

Got a guy that's going to come, we're just not ready to announce it yet. Absolutely thrilled. Home run hire in my opinion. He's a star. He'll come in here and do some great things for us. We want to make sure we get the right guy. We need guys that will get out and work and hustle, and recruit the state, recruit the local kids.

There is huge talent right down the road in Houston. Obviously, the Houston, Dallas are areas that people need to hammer away on, and we do too.

Second part with the local guys, we're going to work very hard with the local guys. I've reached out to a few of them. Wish I would have had time to reach a few more of them. We'll have clinics and get guys on campus. If we have Saturday morning workouts, we'll find great opportunities to get coaches here. Maybe have a little chalk talk before practice, after practice.

We'll just invite the local guys up. One of the things we did in Norman is just invited Norman High coaches, Norman North coaches, Westmoore, all the surrounding communities and had an informal chalk talk. We grabbed a cooler, filled it up with sodas and Gatorade, sat around the table and had a dry erase board and talked X's and O's.

Quinton was part of that, my son and some of his buddies came by who are young coaches, just things like that. Just connecting, simple gestures. But we've got to work at it as well. There is no question. We've got to work and we've got to be the one to reach out. They don't need to reach out to us. We need to reach out to them.

Q. Coach, congratulations on the hire today. Tell me about the relationship that you have with R.C. Buford, and how much of a Spurs influence you have as far as your coaching philosophy is concerned?
COACH HENSON: Yeah, we've known R.C. Buford for years. That goes way, way back. R.C. had a pretty good run there before he hit the Spurs. He made a couple stops and he was on Coach Kruger's staff at The University of Florida, then went to the Final Four that year. And he was at Kansas for a year when they won the National Championship, and he tends to find success.

But R.C. and the entire Spurs organization is kind of a model for teams. I think that stems from, again, the way they treat people, kind of the model for treating NBA players the right way. I think they seek out the right fit. They don't take chances on many guys. They don't feel like they have to take guys with a lot of baggage. They take guys who are going to fit their program.

I know several of their staff members over there. They've been great to us over the years. I look forward to connecting with them as soon as possible. Hopefully we'll get over there, see a practice, and visit with those guys as soon as possible. It's a class organization, and love the way they do things.

Q. What do you think is the biggest challenge in the short term trying to get the team competitive again?
COACH HENSON: It's always a strange period when there is a coaching change. We've gone a few weeks here now without a head coach. We've just got to connect with them. I want to spend as much time with those guys as we can. That's why I wanted to meet them as soon as possible, the first real day I was here, we were able to get them together, Coach Luster rallied them together and we visited with them. We had a workout yesterday morning, and that wasn't as much about basketball as it was a chance to get around, be together for an hour and on the court in their element. Just want to show them how committed we're going to be to them, let them feel good, let them see how we're going to do things.

It's a tough time for them. I think they're excited now to have somebody in place, and I think they're excited about the way we're going to do things.

Q. Speaking about recruiting, is just the plus of UTSA obviously being in San Antonio. There are a lot of fans here who love college basketball think this city here could be a gold mine. There is a lot of great basketball going on in this country. Talk about what kind of trump card that would be for you to be able to say, hey, you know, we haven't done real well lately, but we're building, we're going somewhere. We're in a great city, the Spurs play there. Can you tell me what that's going to be like recruiting for this great city?
COACH HENSON: Absolutely. I think there are a lot of factors that are going to be appealing to kids. The Spurs are a model organization. They're going to make a great run this year. No question about that. They've got everything in place to make a deep run into the playoffs. There are a lot of exciting things here, and to come in and be a part of the rebuild, that appeals.

Some kids want to go somewhere where everything's already in place and they slide in and fit in. Some kids want to be a big part of making the change. They want to join us and lock arms with us and make a big statement and make a big rebuild.

Q. There is no time to crawl or jog (Indiscernible). What is your mindset going to be on scheduling? Is it something that's completely wide open, we're going to play whoever, whenever? Are you interested in possibly seeing teams maybe come down to the (Indiscernible). Have you even had a chance to think about scheduling yet?
COACH HENSON: Yeah, Coach Kruger did a lot to help me over the years. We need to get Oklahoma down here. Can we get him on the phone?

LYNN HICKEY: He actually said he might do that.

COACH HENSON: No, we've got to be really smart with that. We want to play exciting opponents. We want to play exciting games. It's important to the kids that we play the right schedule. It's important to the fans. We need some momentum. We need to work really hard at it. That's something that we can't -- we've just got to be really, really smart and do a terrific job at that. We need to nail it. It's vital to our program that we nail the scheduling portion.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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