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WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 14, 2010

Jeff Bzdelik

THE MODERATOR: Good morning. Thank you all for coming out this morning. Again we will be using a transcription service, the quotes will be typed up for easy access for you all when this is over with, so we do have a couple of microphones, we would like you to ask your questions into the microphone as our person is in a remote location. At this time it's my pleasure to introduce the director of athletics at Wake Forest, Mr. Ron Wellman.
RON WELLMAN: Thank you, Steve. Thank you for coming. We call you out at various times of the day, early morning, and so forth, and we do appreciate your attendance today.
It gives me great pleasure to introduce our new Wake Forest basketball coach, Mr. Jeff Bzdelik, from the University of Colorado. After a long review of various coaches who had interest in Wake Forest, and in whom we had interest, Jeff quickly rose to the top of that list for many, many reasons. First and foremost, I believe he understands Wake Forest.
If you look at his background, he was an assistant coach at Davidson College, he was an assistant coach at Northwestern University -- and the sprinkler systems are ready to go on we're all going to take a bath in a minute! He was the head coach at the Air Force Academy, three institutions that are similar to Wake Forest in terms of their approach and in terms of their athletics.
I didn't realize I had this affect upon the system but we'll get it straightened out here in a minute, but that background certainly did give him the understanding of what Wake Forest is looking for. If you look at his career, it's a storied career, I believe. If you look at what he did at Northwestern, which I had the opportunity to observe as a baseball coach there, and I observed it from afar, wasn't involved with the basketball program, obviously, but he was always very impressive about the way he went about his job, about the way he treated his players, about the dependence a head coach had upon a young assistant like Jeff Bzdelik.
When he went to UNBC as the head coach from Northwestern, he did a great job in transitioning that program from a Division II program to a Division I program. The year after Jeff left that program they were in a position to complete at a very, very high level in the Division I level after just transitioning to Division I.
He then went to the Washington Bullets, where he was an assistant for Wes Unseld, and he sings Jeff's praises, and after that he went to one of the best coaches maybe in NBA history, Pat Riley, and was his assistant for seven years, and Pat had a similar comment about Jeff and his preparedness, his ability to X and O, his ability to prepare a team, his relationship with the players.
After that Jeff went to the NBA, Denver Nuggets in various capacities but eventually climbed to become the head coach of the Nuggets. He was there for a little over two years and the experience led the Nuggets to one of the best turn-arounds in NBA history, when I think they won 17 games the year before, and then the next year led them to the playoffs with over 40 wins that particular year.
After leading the Denver Nuggets, he went to the Air Force Academy where he was 50-16. Unfortunately, I remember one of those 50 games when Wake Forest went out to play Air Force and we came back with a defeat.
Then he went to Colorado, and Colorado was a very difficult job. Anybody in college basketball will tell you about the challenges at that particular time at Colorado. He took a program that had many, many challenges to it, off the floor and on the floor, and he improved that program each and every year to the point where next year they have everyone coming back, they should be a contender for an NCAA Tournament birth, so he did an outstanding job at Colorado as well.
Jeff's uniqueness and attractiveness to me go way beyond what he has accomplished as a coach, and what he has accomplished as a coach is significant and impressive, I think not only to me but to our fan base as well, eventually, but it goes well beyond that. He is a person of integrity, he is a person of values. If you talk with his former players, they have a deep appreciate for what this man stands for and how he has treated them not only as a player but as a person. He develops a relationship with his players that very few coaches have the ability to do.
He loves his players. He treats his players as family. At the same time he has very, very high expectations of his players, both on and off the Court. He expects them to be gentlemen, he expects them to be tenacious competitors, he expects them to represent the University in the manner that we all want to be represented.
We have found a coach that will lead us to what we believe can be accomplished at Wake Forest University and it gives me great pleasure to introduce our new head basketball coach, Jeff Bzdelik. Jeff.
(Applause.)
JEFF BZDELIK: Thank you. Thank you very much. I can tell you this, it's an honor and privilege to be the new head basketball coach here at Wake Forest University. Heartfelt thank you out to Dr. Hatch, Ron Wellman, Jim Williams, our chairman of the board, for giving me this opportunity, and everyone else in the Wake Forest Community who has embraced my wife Nina and our children, Brett and Courtney.
The vision that I have for this program is simple, clear, we want to win, go to postseason play, advance in post-season play and do so without compromising the moral and academic integrity of this great university. It's plain, it's simple, it's clear.
I pledge you my unbridled effort in making sure this happens. I'm going to roll up my sleeves and do the very best job I can to see this vision through on a daily basis. Our style of play is going to be something I think our fans will really enjoy. We're going to be aggressive defensively, hopefully culminate those defensive possessions with defensive rebounds, get out and go, pass the ball, play team basketball.
We will be unselfish and play in a way that people will embrace this team because of their great effort on the court and also off the court, in the community with their citizenship, and the way they embrace the values set here at Wake Forest University in the classroom as well.
I'm excited about the staff. We can start with Lynne Heflin, who has been here for over 30 years, and she runs the place. I've actually offered her my office and I'll take hers, because she is "Ms. Wake Forest basketball!" We appreciate her staying on.
Of course in creating stability a couple of other people, Jeff Battle, he's been extremely loyal and a big part of Wake Forest basketball history here, and I've asked him to remain. I told him he's not going anywhere unless he wants to go somewhere and fortunately for me, and all of us, he is staying, so welcome, Jeff.
Rusty LaRue is another one that I -- second thing after talking to Jeff was to go see Rusty and say, "Hey, Rusty, I need you to stay." I heard they might change the name of Wake Forest University to Rusty LaRue University, because he means so much to this school, but he is going to stay and that's a welcome thing for me as well, Walt Corbean is another one who is going to remain on our staff.
We have created stability here, we want to move forward in the vision that I said that we would set here, and I am really looking forward to this challenge. My introduction to Wake goes back many years, 17, 18 years ago when I was first of all on the bench with the Washington Bullets. We had Frank Johnson and Muggsy Bogues, our two players that I was able to coach and have an opportunity to meet and develop a relationship with. Frank used to sit next to me on the bench because I was like the third assistant, and he was the sixth man, so we had a chance to interact quite frequently, and he would always talk about Wake Forest, and so would Muggsy.
My wife and I, family, we vacationed down here in North Carolina at the beach, and my son at the time 9, 10 years old, he's a golfer so we would travel to the state, play in these junior golf tournaments and we always came to the Winston-Salem area, and one time my wife said, "Hey, let's look at Wake Forest!" So we drove through the campus, and we immediately fell in love with Wake Forest, it's beauty, what it stood for, Winston-Salem, what a beautiful city, and my daughter who was just a couple of years younger than my son at the time, she got her introduction into Wake Forest, and she's a very intelligent gal, and low and behold, when it was time to choose a college she said, "I want to go to Wake Forest" and she's a student here right now.
So it goes full cycle and brings us home to a place we really want to be. This is my dream job and I'm looking forward to the challenge and I will embrace it with all I have. Questions?

Q. Welcome. I was wondering in terms of -- you talked about your style of play. Would you talk about your recruiting philosophy, what types of players you will be looking for and how you will get players to come to Wake Forest?
JEFF BZDELIK: First of all, if you find passionate, coachable, high basketball IQ players who have a skill set to be able to pass, dribble and shoot that care about their future as a student, school is a four to five-year investment in one's life, as we all know, Wake Forest is the perfect place.
The education that you'll receive, the opportunity to play ACC basketball, the highest level in the nation, and we will take those types of players and mold them into a team, and that's what's important to me. I want gym rats who are also high-quality students who care about their future in the classroom. When you have that combination, usually you have young men who are unselfish, willing to get out of themselves and into other people, and you can mold a really good team together with those characteristics, character traits.
The style of play is simple, like I said, tough defense, culminated with defensive rebounds, get out and go, attack the rim quickly in transition, you know, people -- I know I hear this stuff about the Princeton offense, well Princeton is in New Jersey; we're in North Carolina here, and I think if you investigate my background, my teams have always shot well and scored a lot of points.
When we were at Air Force, we had the most 30-plus point margin of victories out of anybody! We beat the University of Georgia by over 30, we beat Stanford by over 30, we beat Santa Clara by over 30, we beat Wake Forest by over 30.
We scored a lot of points. This past year at Colorado we were, I think, 23rd in the nation in field goal percentage, and we scored a lot of points. We scored more points on average than Wake did last year. If you take what we scored -- and we were in the Big 12, it's a high-level league itself -- but if you put us in the ACC, we would be second in the ACC in scoring.
So we will score points if we have a good skill set of players who can pass, dribble and shoot, have a high basketball IQ and, you know, share the basketball. We look to run.
Another example is when I was the head coach of the Denver Nuggets. We led the NBA in fast break points. Doesn't mean we're going to run and gun, we're going to run and attack and take the first good shot that we can get and then get our tails back on defense and dig in. To me that's how you play the game.

Q. Had a chance to talk to the players yet, returning players and how did that meeting go? And what was your reaction to them and theirs to you?
JEFF BZDELIK: We met last night briefly, I'll met with them individually here as soon as I'm done with all of you. They seem very excited. I shared with them that I know it's been tough, I'll be honest with you, and one thing you'll know about me is I'm very straightforward. I will tell you the truth. So I said to them, I know it's been a real challenge here with probably more tough things happening to you than really -- it's almost unfair with Coach Prosser, Mrs. Battle, and a couple of the other assistants leaving, and Dino's situation.
So I know you've dealt with a lot of stuff that really is quite a lot for anybody, let alone a young man in college, I understand that. Life isn't always fair, but it's a lesson to be learned and that's the value of athletics, there are life lessons to be learned.
But with that there are expectations and responsibilities to go to class, to take care of your responsibilities there, to understand that this is your future and take advantage of a wonderful, wonderful opportunity here at Wake Forest, to prepare yourself for your future, and trust me, my 17-plus years in the NBA, I've seen All-ACC players and All-Big 12 players and All-Americans, including one time the player of the year in the nation, not complete their degree, and I don't think players understand how good you need to be to play at the highest level in the NBA, and even if you do, there are all sorts of variables about injuries and also with the fact that, you know, hey, at some point you can't play forever, so you need that degree.
I can't tell ya how many players I've seen that right now are in their '30s, early '40s that don't have a degree. They spent all their money and they really don't have anything. So your education is so important. Take advantage of it here. Get yourself a degree. Then we talk about what we're going to do in terms of working out, we're going to start on the court tomorrow, I'm looking forward to that and I've shared with them the vision that I have and they seemed very engaged.

Q. Coach, congratulations. My question goes hand-in-hand with the one asked. Have you spoken with Dino about the set-backs, in order to help you for next season in order to avoid those?
JEFF BZDELIK: I've spoken to Dino, and he's been absolutely awesome. We have a relationship, and I've never asked him anything about anything other than, "Hey, hello, how are you? I have tremendous respect for what you accomplished."
Listen, in this profession there are a lot of ups and downs and stuff happens, and I wanted him to know I'm here for him and reached out to him as I do with anybody, anybody, because we have a relationship, and it's a positive one, and Dino is an awesome, awesome man. That's it. We move forward.

Q. Coach, previous coaches that have been introduced here at Wake Forest were done so because the previous guy left or didn't succeed. You're succeeding a guy with a great record. Does that raise the bar in your mind?
JEFF BZDELIK: No. Nobody puts anymore pressure on me than I put on myself, period. Wake Forest -- I know I have a responsibility. This is a storied program. This is a great, great school. If someone said to me, Jeff Bzdelik, if you could pick one school in the country to go to, where would it be? To me it's Wake Forest, because I believe in everything it stands for.
Great academics, great integrity, great people, it's in the ACC on top of that. You compete and you're competitive in a great way in the ACC, I mean, what, 5 out of the last 10 national champs have come from this league? Yet I can't think of a better school that combines academic excellence, athletic excellence and with the people and the location and the tradition and the history, and throughout my NBA career, Frank Johnson, Muggsy, Tim Duncan, Josh Howard, Chris Mullin, and I know all these guys.
It's interesting the way they handle themselves, they distinguish themselves among -- above other NBA players by the way they handle themselves, what great representatives of this University. Believe me, when the University produces people like that on a consistent basis, that's a great testimony to the people here.

Q. In talking to Mr. Wellman -- (No microphone.)
JEFF BZDELIK: Listen, this is how I view it. I want my players to get better every day. Just get better every day, that's always been my philosophy, and I think if you look at my career I've taken a lot of programs like UNBC, they won 11 games in two straight years, six wins and five wins, Division II. They decided to go to Division I out of the clear blue sky and I got the job, probably because I was the only one brave enough to take it, and my first year we won 10 out of our last 12 Division I games. Our players got better, and that third year, the year that I wasn't there, when I left, they won 20 games.
When we were at Northwestern, I talked about that, our fourth year they had their best year they ever had. I think they won more games this year, but they also played more games. We went to postseason play and beat Digger Phelps, Notre Dame, in the first round.
We went to Air Force, we won 50 games in two years, got up to the top in the nation with a bunch of cadets. We beat Pac 10 teams, Big East teams, Big 12 teams, they got better, they improved.
At Colorado I inherited a team that won seven games. They had an APR in the 800s, a team GPA of 2.0. This past year attendance went up 40%, the APR is set to go to 920, we had freshman of the year in the Big 12, 6'6" player who led the Big 12 in field goal percentage, we won four out of our last 12 games. My point is about getting better every day. You need to ask yourself: What have I done to improve myself today and Wake Forest University for tomorrow, and if you answer something positive every day, that means you're building, and it's about getting better, and the winning and the losing will take care of it's itself.

Q. Welcome, Coach. You have a class of fine recruits and a transfer student. Do you anticipate they will all be coming despite the change?
JEFF BZDELIK: I wasn't able to call the recruits yet until this press conference is over. So as soon as all these questions are over, I can answer your question, because I want to get on the phone and talk to the recruits and their parents and I'm anxious to do that. And Jeff and Rusty have done a great job of stabilizing everybody and holding the fort, and I'm anxious to get on the phone and talk to them and once we do that everything will be fine.

Q. Most of your recent career has been out west; you're not a household name to this area. Are you prepared for the reaction of the fans and that kind of thing and having to win these people over? How do you do that?
JEFF BZDELIK: How do I do that? Just being me and getting out there and working. First of all, Wake Forest is an easy sell, that's number one, and I think anyone who looks at my background knows, number one, hey, 17 years in the NBA, I've been around the greatest players in the game.
I can't say I've been at X amount of Final Fours, but there is nobody that can say they've been to the NBA playoffs nine times as an assistant and as a head coach. I separate myself in a positive way from a lot of people in that regard, so if a player wants to get a great education and he wants to develop and get better as a player and have an opportunity for me to impart my knowledge that I learned from the greatest names in this game, here is the opportunity.
To do it in the ACC is even better! So I don't worry about that; people do their homework, they'll know. And you know what? I've been around all over, too. It's not like I haven't been on the east coast here. I was at Davidson and, hey, I was just telling Ron the other day, we talked about how you stay in touch with players. Sidney Lowe and when Derrek Whittenburg played at Dartmouth, they had a guy I know, John Caroll on that team, and he's a dentist out in the Maryland area, and there are a lot of players that I coached with the Washington Bullets that are coaching on the east coast.
Michael Adams, for example, we were together in the NBA, and I just got a text from him this morning, he's a high school coach in Washington, D.C. and he said, "Coach, give me a call!"
John Caroll, who used to coach the Celtics, he called me this morning as well and he's up in Boston, Massachusetts, he coaches his son's AAU team, and he's talking to me about players already. Wake Forest is a national institution that has a great, great name that you can go anywhere in this nation, and I can too, because I've been all over the place.

Q. Two things: The origin of your name, can you tell me about that? I'm sure it's something of a curiosity, how to pronounce it, and the other thing you mentioned, learning from coaches. What did you learn from Pat Riley?
JEFF BZDELIK: First of all, Bzdelik is Slovak; my wife is Lithuanian and Polish, so we have a melting pot of heritage.
What did I learn from Pat Riley? I learned a great deal from him. Attention to detail, teaching, excellent, excellent teacher of the game, very detailed.
I did every game plan for him for every game for seven years, and believe me, that seven years seemed like 21 years to be honest with you, because he is so detailed. The game plans consisted of our opposition, the personnel tendencies, the keys to the game offensively and defensively. I would have to do a practice plan, what we would have to do in order to practice for our preparation for the team offensively and defensively, I would make those suggestions, I would work closely with Stan Van Gundy on that, but it was my responsibility to give Pat all the preparation information they needed.
In addition to individual development with players. Jamal Mashburn, Bruce Bowen, P.J. Brown, we would spend a lot of time with him before practice, the list goes on and on and on. Pat's attention to detail, his teaching ability, ideals, you see the greased back hair and the Armani suits, but he's a grunt guy, he is a worker. Trust me. Many, many, many hours. Wes Unseld, professionalism, Wes is a great teacher in rebounding and setting screens.
I draw upon -- I will call these gentlemen to get their ideas about things, but you learn a little bit from everybody, and I was fortunate to have that opportunity to be around great coaches, Coach Popovich played at the Air Force Academy and he coached there, and I would have him come and speak to my Air Force teams, and I have spent a lot of time talking to Coach, and I've spent a couple of weeks with him, following him around, the way he approaches the game, teaches the game, I mean, there are so many things that you can draw upon and use. And, again, to talk in the home of recruits, who else can do that? So it's an edge in a positive way for me when I go into homes.

Q. What sense are you getting about the recruit class incoming? How confident are you that all five will be here?
JEFF BZDELIK: I'm very confident. I'm anxious to get on the phone, and once we sit down and visit and I explain -- everybody's anxious. These kind of situations are not comfortable; they're uncomfortable for everybody. For everybody, including my family. We've got to pick up and move, it's uncomfortable, so everybody is anxious. I just need to get in front of them and calm everybody down and let 'em know who I am, and I think everybody will be fine, and I'm anxious to do that. Any other questions?

Q. Ron described some of your best and difficult situations. How does Wake Forest rank in that regard, is it a difficult job?
JEFF BZDELIK: You know what? Every job is difficult in so many ways, some are more challenging than others. I embrace challenges, I know that -- I have both eyes open, we're in the ACC, Dino did a wonderful job in getting this team to win games. Every job is difficult, we're in the ACC, great coaches, great programs, great players. As we discussed, 50% of the national championships have come in the last decade from the ACC.
I embrace those challenges and that's why I took the Colorado job, a job that had very little tradition at all and the poor facility, and they're in a great place right now, they're in a great place.
You talk about player development, for example, maybe this is an opportunity to talk about that. We took a player, Alec Burks, who was not a 5-star guy or a 4-star guy, and in one year became freshman of the year in the Big 12 over some great, great high school All-Americans. Led the Big 12 in field goal percentage. So you talk about development, I really enjoy teaching the game. There are a lot of young players in this program, and I'm anxious to get on the court and get workin' with them so they can get better on a daily basis.

Q. Coach, which game of the season are you most excited about? Is there one that stands out?
JEFF BZDELIK: The first game because that's the first game on the list. It's just like possessions in a basketball game, I want my players to play fearless, I don't want them looking over their shoulder, you play through mistakes, as long as they're playing hard and giving me their best effort I know you can't be perfect. My point is this: You make a mistake, play through it, most important thing is the next thing you do, so what's the most important game? Their first game, and after that the next game, whatever it may be, so every day let's just get better.
That's me, it's just every day let's get better in a positive way, and it's like a snowball starting at the top of the mountain and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, you know, as it picks up steam. That's the way I view it.

Q. Will Walt Corbean be promoted, and if not who do you have in mind?
JEFF BZDELIK: You know, I just got here and I'm just -- I'm trying to get my feet on the ground. Walt is not going anywhere, I have to assess everything and there are some people that I haven't -- Mike, for example, I haven't even had a chance to really say anything other than a hello to, and other people on the staff. So I just -- once we get through with this I'm going to -- I've got to get to the recruits, and I want to get to the players, and I haven't even talked to the players that are leaving and I want to do that. I feel bad that I haven't reached out to them yet.
That's another thing that I want to do today is to make sure that they know, as with any player who has ever played here, I want to get on the phone and somehow communicate through letter or note or on the phone to everybody that's ever played here that my door is always open, that we play for the name on the front of the chest and not for the name on the back.
Again, we play and wear that uniform with great pride about the tradition that's been here. So we just, through time, will reach out to everybody.

Q. There are three opponents on the schedule because of the nature of basketball, North Carolina, UNC, Duke and N.C. State, are those more special or just another game, or have you had a chance to think about that yet?
JEFF BZDELIK: No, I mean, it's just like Colorado or Air Force, when we played Navy, hey, you know what? That was a big game. I know that! Colorado, we play Nebraska or Kansas, that's a big game, and I know Carolina, Duke, N.C. State, those are big games, and those games will come in due time. When we come to those games we know they're big games, there is no question about it.
I would be lying to you if I said they're just another game, no they're not; we know that. We all know that. It means so much to so many people for a variety of reasons and we all know those reasons. We embrace that challenge. To me that's the beauty of what we're in this business for, the competitiveness.

Q. Coach you had success at the college and pro levels, how would you describe the difference between the two?
JEFF BZDELIK: I don't think there is a whole lot of difference. To me it's about bringing the best in people, developing your players individually and collectively and having a team concept.
If you go watch any great college coach who has had great success, or you go watch Coach Popovich or Coach Sloan, who has been another mentor of mine, Coach Riley, why do those people always have success? It's the relationship they have with their players, it's the way they develop their players individually to get better and the way they collectively mold those players together in a system that works for them. And to keep them motivated and moving forward in a team way is a skill set.
The skill set might be a little bit different because in the NBA you have more players that are more skilled and more experienced, but to me it comes down to the relationship you have with your player. As Pat Riley would say, there is always an ongoing tension between you and the player, and you always work on that edge right there. If you don't push hard enough they don't get better, if you push too hard then it fractures, so you've got to work the edge and keep it positive and keep them motivated and keep them gettin' better. Keep 'em fresh. Now in college you have that -- the other part of it, which I enjoy very much, different than the pro's, and that is to help mentor them as a young person off the court as well in creating opportunities for them.

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