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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 23, 2011Billy GillispieKirby HocuttTHE MODERATOR: Good morning welcome to the United Spirit Arena here on the beautiful campus of Texas Tech University for a truly historic day in the history of the men's basketball program here at Texas Tech. Here in just a few minutes, we're going to give you the very first opportunity to hear from your new head coach, Mr. Billy Clyde Gillispie. When coach Gillispie is through with his remarks, we'll begin with a question-and-answer session with the members of our media who have gathered here today. Now it is my honor to introduce to you making his very first appearance as the director of athletics at Texas Tech University, please give a warm Texas Tech welcome to Kirby Hocutt. KIRBY HOCUTT: Thank you: Thank you very much. Please, I have not done anything to deserve this, but thank you very much. Thank you for being here. What a great turnout, an exciting morning and special occasion. But let's recognize and thank the band from Raider Land, the Saddle Tramps, the cheerleaders and pom squad for being here today and making this such a festive occasion. It's an exciting time to be a Texas Tech Red Raider. We're so excited and proud of our lady Raider basketball team and their recent appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Our baseball team has won seven of their last nine games and won the series from number 14 Baylor this past weekend. Our softball team, 35-1, wow. Men's golf beat No. 13 Georgia, and No. 2 UCLA in match play this past weekend. Both our men's and women's tennis teams are off to great starts. Our men's and women's track teams are both ranked in the top 25 in the country. Then, of course, Saturday at 1:00 o'clock, the spring football game. Look forward to seeing everybody there on Saturday. But today we celebrate the national resurgence of Texas Tech men's basketball, a program that has a proud tradition - a tradition of 17 conference championships, 13 NCAA Tournament appearances, and five NCAA Sweet 16 appearances. Many great players, student-athletes, many great coaches have been a part of this program. One of them just happens to be our all-time winningest basketball coach in our program's history. One of two players with his jersey retired, and just happens to be my predecessor, and that's Coach Gerald Myles. Coach is in Dallas today on university business, but wanted to extend his gratitude and excitement for the future of our basketball program and with Billy Clyde. He's very excited about it, couldn't help but stand in the tunnel. We were watching the video and March Madness this time of year you can't help but think back to Darvin Ham's and that backboard breaking dunk, beating North Carolina, sending the Red Raiders to the Sweet 16, so lots of good memories. And while my time here has been short I've heard many, many people talk about the old Coliseum, and the memories they have standing in line as students, waiting to get into the Coliseum, and the excitement and energy and atmosphere of those games. Here today we begin the process to recreate that environment, and that atmosphere around our men's basketball program. Get your tickets today. If you haven't gotten them yet. Get them today because they'll be popular items come the next basketball season. The process we've been through over the last two weeks has positioned us to take this program to a level it's never been before. A level back to where this time of year we'll be dancing; we'll be in the NCAA Tournament. And there are many pieces to that process. Each of you play a critical component to getting us back to that level. It starts at the top. It starts with the leadership at the top. Having the vision, providing the support for us to do what is necessary to get back to national prominence. I want to recognize our leaders and thank them for their support through this process. That is our president, Dr. Bailey. Thank you, Dr. Bailey, Of Course, our chancellor is with us. Chancellor Hance, thank you, Chancellor. I want to thank both of them for their trust and their confidence in me, not only to lead this athletics program, but their trust and confidence to lead this search in our journey to find the best man for Texas Tech basketball. And that has led us to finding one of the best coaches in college basketball today to come and lead us on our journey back to the top. I want to recognize two very important people that are with us this morning, two of our board of regent members. John Steinmetz is with us. John, thank you for being here. And Nanny Neal is with us. Nancy, thank you for being here. I'd also like to mention and thank three other individuals that provided council, support for me as we move through this process, Jerry Turner, the chair of the board of regents, Mickey Long, the vice chair of the board of regents, and board member John Scovell who were all supportive and provided great council and guidance to me as we work through this process. But let's celebrate the hiring of one of the best coaches in all of basketball today. He's a West Texas native. He's no stranger. This is coming home to him. He's a three-time national "Coach of the Year," five-time "Conference Coach of the Year." He's been a winner everywhere that he's been, and perhaps, perhaps no one in the history of this great game of college basketball has turned around basketball programs quicker than he has in his past. He's a winner, and there is no doubt, no doubt in my mind that the Texas Tech Red Raiders are going to be dancing on a consistent basis in March this time of year. So without further delay, I want to ask that you join me in welcoming your new head basketball coach at Texas Tech Billy Clyde Gillispie. COACH GILLISPIE: Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll probably get emotional today, so I'm going to get my notes out like Kirby did. Well, maybe I don't have any notes, maybe I'll just shoot from the hip. But that's the way I've always been able to do it is shoot from the hip and speak from the heart. I'm very, very honored and blessed and lucky to have become the 14th head basketball coach here at Texas Tech University. It does feel like it's coming home to me. It seems like I know everybody here. It seems like as soon as the job came open they were saying, hey, I know this board of regent, I know this guy, I know this guy. There is this hot athletic director that just took over; I think you two guys would be a great fit. This president is something else. This chancellor is Mark Twain reincarnated. I mean, there are just so many things that were -- it just seemed like a perfect fit to me. I do appreciate, Dr. Bailey, thank you very much. I do appreciate Chancellor Hance, thank you very much. And I do believe you have the best athletic director in the country because he chose me, so thank you very much, Kirby Hocutt. I'll keep it brief. I'd love to thank every single person for taking time out. I know there are probably a few students here, and obviously you didn't have a 10:00 o'clock class, so I appreciate, and I see the work force in Lubbock is probably suffering a little bit because some people called in sick. I do appreciate you making that effort. I see a lot of friends that made a great effort to come here from Ft. Wayne, that means a lot to me. You can hear me getting emotional right now. I have a former player here that I coached at Ellison high school a few years ago. Jenay Cooper, I'd like for him to stand up if he would. Real short story about Jenay. When I first took over at Killeen Ellison High School, and he's going to kill me for saying this. But when I went in there he said this guy's got a little talent. He was a freshman. He weighed a little less than he does now. He was a little skinny kid. But they said, coach, he's got a bad attitude. He'll never graduate and won't go to class. But have you finished your doctorate degree? He completes his doctorate degree in December, and an assistant principal here in Lubbock, Texas. And one of the greatest success stories because he has great heart, great compassion, determination, and drive. Those relationships are what I'm all about. It's all about family. It makes me happy to see the success he's had. I'm really looking forward to having many, many relationships with all of the fans here. This is a great turnout. But the first time we play next year, I don't want to see any red unless you're wearing it on your shirt. There's not going to be any empty seats. We're going to fill this place up and get all the fans out there that we can. We're going to get all the students out there. You have a great tradition here in basketball. You have unbelievable coaches. You have great fans that want to support us some, and we'll have great players that you're going to enjoy watching. So I appreciate everyone being here. I do appreciate you guys making the decision to let me lead your program, and I guarantee you I'm not going to let you down. Q. You mentioned it there, but you've had a couple of days to digest this whole thing. Talk about getting another chance and doing it in West Texas? COACH GILLISPIE: It means everything to me to get another chance, but only if it was going to be the right spot. This is definitely the right spot. Again, the tradition, the passion, the community. I've been around here when I coached at South Plains College just down the road. Just the State of Texas and this conference, there are so many positive things here, so many great facilities here. You can recruit really good players here. The returning players that we have I'm excited about. I'm excited about the incoming players and we'll add to that as we go. As you can tell, I do shoot from the hip. But I get excited when I talk about having an opportunity to lead this basketball program. I'm not one of those guys that has a five-year plan. I have a one-day plan. And when tomorrow's over, we'll start another one-day plan, and that's what we'll try to do. One of the things I was asked to do when I was a high school coach here in Texas, I had a couple of stops as a high school coach, and they assigned me cross country one time. I didn't know anything about cross country, so I went and talked to some people that were good cross country coaches, and they said you need to talk to Corky Ogilsby because he's done a little bit of everything. So I called Corky up, and they told me Corky, I have to coach cross country. Can you give me some ideas about it? He said, yeah, tell them to start out as fast as they can, and gradually increase their speed. So that's what I did, and that's been pretty good to me in ensuring our success in the basketball program. That's exactly what we plan on doing as of today, thank you. Q. Two years away from it, how much did you miss it? COACH GILLISPIE: I tell you, I missed it a lot. I've been given some -- everything is a blessing if we allow it to be. I've had some time to take a deep breath. I've had some time to spend with my mother who recently passed away in January. I wouldn't trade that time off for anything because of my mother. But I love this game. I love this game, the people in it, I love forming a family. I like forming a family with the fans and with the players. Those are special relationships that mean everything to me. That's what I'm into coaching for is because of the relationships and the daily grind that leads to building those relationships, I've missed that dearly. I'd definitely look forward to getting it going again. Q. Two years away from Kentucky, do you look back and think you made mistakes there? How has that changed you as a coach now, if you think you have? COACH GILLISPIE: You must think I have because you brought it up. I thought you said she wasn't going to be here (laughing). Hey, we all make mistakes. Mistakes aren't what determine what we are. The things you do after the mistakes is what determines how we are. I've made plenty of mistakes when we were winning all our games at Texas A&M. I made plenty of mistakes at UTEP. I made plenty of mistakes when I was a high school coach. The wife that I used to have she told me I made plenty of mistakes on a daily basis. But I never worry about those mistakes. You try to learn from them and not repeat them. But those things don't determine us. It's what we do in the future that does. I think we learned -- by the way, if she's watching, I didn't mean that bad. She's a great gal. Whatever I have to say, Randy, you're an attorney. What do I need to say to cover that up (laughing)? Q. I know you had a team meeting with your guys last night. Can you talk about what your message was to those guys, the returning players? COACH GILLISPIE: Thank you. We did have a team meeting. I just got into town yesterday afternoon. I was excited. I was talking to the guys on the phone, as well as the incoming recruits and those kind of things. But we had a meeting last night. It was a very good meeting. The first meetings are always you never know, kind of anxious, kind of uneasy. They don't know you, you don't know them. But I've seen many of those guys play coming up in the recruiting situation, also saw them play on TV. I'm encouraged by those guys. I hope they're as encouraged by me as I am by them. You always want the best absolute roster that you can, and we'll try to provide that. The only thing I saw missing last night was we had too many guys this tall. So we're going to try to get some real tall guys the thing about that is I'm very pleased. When you get a chance to go into a new situation when there is a coaching change, usually it's a mess. And there are so many things here that are not a mess. There are so many foundation stones that are in place, and you have to give credit to Coach Knight and his staff for putting a lot of those foundation stones in place to where you can hit the ground running, get the roster going. There are so many things here that have been successful and will continue to be successful, so I'm grateful to step into a situation like that. Q. We know you've already started talking to some former Red Raiders and starting to plan your staff. Can you assess or talk to us about what you're looking for to join you on your staff? COACH GILLISPIE: Yeah, I will. I'm looking forward to putting a staff together. That's part of our family. You'll hear me say family a hundred times today probably if we stay that long. But I love putting a family together. I have a special ability to put a team together and form that family so that we all care about each other more than we care about ourselves. I think that's the whole nature of trying to win. We'll do the same thing with our staff. I think John Wooden said it a long time ago, he said be quick, but don't hurry. I'm not going to jump into a situation as far as hurrying. But I'm going to try to be quick and give us the best staff that we can to represent the community well, represent the state well, represent the Big 12 well. On top of all of that, recruit like crazy. And that's what we're going to do. We'll be very aggressive in that. I'll talk to some of the guys and plan to talk to some of the guys that have been here before. I know those guys a little bit. Plan on talking to those guys. I've had some guys that have worked with me in the past that have expressed some interest that are currently at other schools. I'll talk to those guys when the timing is right. And there are some people that I haven't worked with or are not working here that I'll talk to as well to complete our staff. It will take a little time. I have some definite ideas about it, but nothing that's been formalized as of yet. Q. Can you just talk about how quick do you think this turn around can happen from what you've seen on TV and of this team? You talk about the NCAA Tournament, is that realistic in the next year or two years? COACH GILLISPIE: Well, if you asked that question of Kirby, he would say today. Dr. Bailey, you didn't tell me he was going to be like this. You didn't say that. You said this is the nicest guy you've ever seen. He's the hottest athletic director in the country. He's a young guy. But you didn't say he was going to demand that you win every game. You didn't tell me that. No, that's what I want to do. I have no idea. I think the only way I know how to do it is you put yourself in a position where you surround yourself with the best people you can. The staff, the administration, the fans, and everyone has a responsibility in that, and most importantly the players. The players are the biggest part of the family. They have to do all the hardest work. They get a lot of the adulation that comes with it and those kind of things. But our goal is to win every time we get on the court. I don't care who we're playing or what the circumstances may be. I can't guarantee every single game is going to be a win. I can guarantee there is not anybody that's going to come into this place and play harder than us or better together than us. Paragraph I'll guarantee that to happen. When you have those things happening, you have the talent and those things usually turn into being winners. Did I evade your question as much as I could to satisfy you? I try to evade as much as I can. No, no, I want to win. I've always been very lucky in and inherited very good players in the places I've been. But we usually can make an immediate impact, and I don't see why this is any different. Q. You made a quick rise up the coaching ladder. As a result you've moved around quite a bit and never stayed anywhere longer than three years. You've only been here a couple of days, but is it your plan to be here quite a while? COACH GILLISPIE: You getting rid of me already? Q. No, no, no way. COACH GILLISPIE: My plan is I plan to -- I've had the opportunity, and I think every single situation has been a move that would probably make some sense. I loved every single place. People say where is the most favorite place you've ever lived? And I say my favorite place is where I live right now. I'm sincere about that. I've had great times at every stop and great people at every single stop. I never intended to move. I always thought every situation was going to be my last. But I'm 35 now, so I'm probably -- I probably need to put down some roots. I plan on buying a home here if I can find a good deal. No, I plan on buying a home here, and I intend on that to be the last home I ever buy. Q. Can you talk to us a little bit about some specifics that you're going to do to make this turn around happen, first of all? And when did you first learn about the Facebook page that was pushing your hiring here and what did you think about it? COACH GILLISPIE: You're giving me way too much credit. That's like two questions, and I'll try to get to one of them. By the way, your text messages are the sweetest text messages I've ever seen. You talk about people can't put a tone on text messaging, they need to talk to you, because you can. And I do appreciate your kindness and your sympathy in your text messages, even though I still didn't return them, I didn't return them only because I couldn't. Look forward to having a great relationship with you, and thank you for your sympathy on those kind of things. But the most important thing in any kind of turnaround is you can have the greatest facilities. You can have so many things going your way, the best administration, a great coach, all these great fans. You can have all these things that are present here. But the most important thing is players. We have to get the right players and continue to develop the guys that are going to be returning. We have to continue to make sure that we recruit the right guys and get them here on campus. The most important thing in winning games is players. Now having good players alone will not do it. Everyone has a responsibility. I definitely have my responsibility. The fans have their responsibilities as well. But the way that I -- the only way I know how to do it is to put your feet to the pavement. Go out there and work and give your best effort every day and enlist others to do the same thing. That's the way we've always been able to do it, and it's proven pretty successful. Oh, the Facebook. For obvious reasons I probably haven't watched the computer a whole lot in the last couple of years. But it's very nice. Definitely I think that was probably started by students or whatever. I didn't know about it until a couple of days ago, actually people started bringing it to my attention. I'm not a Facebook person yet. I may become one. But I am appreciative of all of the support. I definitely am going to connect with the students as soon as I get the opportunity. I think they have unbelievable students here, and I think that the student population needs to be residing in the USA. That's what we need and that's what we hope. I've always been able to do that as well. So all the Facebook, however strong it was, it will be stronger. I didn't know much about it, but thank you for bringing it up again. Q. Would you talk about the style of play offensively and defensively that you want your team to play? COACH GILLISPIE: Winning, the winning style. Q. More points on the left-hand side? COACH GILLISPIE: Exactly. Whatever it takes. The things that we've always done. I think you've got the all-time winningest coach that coached here. I had nightmares trying to play against Coach and one of the greatest families. And 14 great coaches or 13 great coaches here. Hopefully say 14 in about 15 years after they get the next one. But great basketball coaches here. I think the greatest basketball coaches always have a staple. I think defense has been our staple. Every team that comes in to play us, it's like going to the dentist's office. No offense to dentists. But going to the dentist's office, I don't think a lot of people look forward to that. And that's the way we're going to make it. We're going to be very, very physical. We're going to be very, very intense. We're going to attack that basket and protect the basket on the other end and run it down there as fast as we can to get good opportunities. As far as how that looks, we'll take great shots and rebound the basketball. How it looks as far as technique and where the guys are stationed, I don't know. Those are the kind of things that will give us the best opportunity to win. Q. Talk about you said it's been a blessing you being out of coaching the last two years. Have you been able to look at other coaches and programs and been able to pick up on things? Maybe be a better coach in turn because of those two years off? COACH GILLISPIE: Yeah, I think so. One of the things that you don't get a chance to do when you have your own team is you don't get a chance to go around and go to practice for a week and watch a guy like Bill Self or Rick Barnes or anybody across the country, Tom Izzo, Coach K, any of those guys. You don't get a chance to go visit those kind of guys. So I've been able to do that. I've watched a ton of NBA games, and we'll institute a lot of thing that's I've learned from that that you don't normally get a chance to see. I've seen a ton of practice and games. I've watched a lot of marketing things that happened in NBA games, and they did the absolute best thing we'll try to bring here as well. But it does give you another opportunity. I think we've done very well in the past, but we're going to get better. I think you can only get better by studying, and understanding that you're never a finished product. The most important thing in life as far as really is what you learn after you know it all that really counts. And I never thought that I knew anything. But when you think about it, it's what we learn after we know it all that counts. That is a pretty good way to assess what I've been able to do watching in the last two years. Q. You've obviously dealt with recruits a lot and are known for recruiting. How do you plan to bring these new recruits or Pat Knight's and mold them into your system? COACH GILLISPIE: That's a good question. I think recruiting is all about trust. I mean life is all about trust when you get right down to it, and being able to build those relationships. We're going to try our hardest. We've already started with the incoming recruits and with their parents and letting them get to know us. Any time there is change, there are anxious times for all of us. I mean, when things aren't status quo or whatever, you understand that there are going to be some anxious times. We'll try our hardest to develop a relationship in a very short amount of time. Like I said, I'm excited about those guys coming. I'm excited about the guys returning. We'll add a couple of other guys, I don't know exactly the number, but we'll add some more to make this roster the best we can. Like a said a while ago, we're going to get the tallest, best guys that we can. I want some guys over there that can touch the rim without jumping. I've got nothing against short guys, but believe me, I want some guys that are tall, and that's what we're going to target now. Q. Do all your point guards know you talk like that? COACH GILLISPIE: Well, let's not tell them. It will be our secret (laughing). No, no, hey, I want a tall point guard at his position too. Believe me, there is nothing better than having a great point guard or quarterback in those kind of things. We won't bring in players that are tall for tall sake. We'll bring in tall players that can really play. I think it's a big advantage. When you watch the teams that are playing in March Madness right now continuing to play, and that's where we want to be as soon as we can get there. Size usually becomes an issue, and those teams usually have a an opportunity to advance, and we want to be one of those teams. Q. You say you want the students to reside at USA. How do you plan to get that to happen? COACH GILLISPIE: You get that to happen only by letting them know you. And there is a great student population here at Texas Tech University. There's been great student populations at other places I've been. I promise you this, they're going to know me. I'm going to be out on campus at the baseball games, at the football games. They're going to get to know me. I'm going to spend a great deal of time with them. They're going to feel like, hey, we know this guy. We're going to pull for this guy and help his teams win. Fans are one of the most important things in developing. When you have a home-court advantage, next year when you play conference games there's going to be a five-minute period in each game that's going to determine the outcome of the game. The home-court advantage gives you a great opportunity to go your way instead of losing if you don't have the home-court advantage. I've never been to a place that is any more passionate than my last trip over here. I hated this place the last time I came in here. First of all you all brought in all kinds of farm animals when Texas A&M came in here. I thought the circus was in town or something. I said have they got a rodeo, a circus? What is the deal? I didn't know they were making fun of my school. Later on after you rushed the court, I got run over by two sheep (laughing). THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, the head coach of your Red Raiders, Billy Clyde Gillispie. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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