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UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 11, 2011

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everybody. And welcome to a very, very special day here in the history of the University of Maryland and their basketball program. Thanks so much for being with us this afternoon as we welcome new head basketball coach Mark Turgeon to College Park from College Station, Texas to College Park, Maryland. Coach, welcome.
(Applause)
Our program today, very simple, we're going to have some remarks from Athletic Director Kevin Anderson. We'll have a question-and-answer series from the media after the coach talks a little bit, and then an opportunity for him to be available for one-on-ones with the media after this press conference is over.
Mark Turgeon has won everywhere he's played, everywhere he's coached. As all of you know, his basketball pedigree is really second to none.
It's not going to take long for Maryland student-athletes, alumni and fans and supporters to agree with Gary Williams and Roy Williams and Larry Brown, everybody else in the college basketball coaching world, in understanding just how fortunate we are to have attracted this man to lead Maryland basketball into the future.
Recently he has won back-to-back Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year honors at Texas A&M. In his four years at College Station in Texas, he directed the program to four consecutive NCAA tournaments.
And he has posted a 97-and-40 record winning over 70 percent of his games. Prior to his historic success at A&M, his seven remarkable years at Wichita State were highlighted by a run to the NCAA Sweet 16. That was back in 2006.
Like his predecessor, Mark was a very fiery point guard in college playing at Kansas from 1984 to '87 under legendary coach Larry Brown, where he played in the Final Four in 1986.
In 1988 he helped the Jayhawks to the Final Four and won that national championship as a coach on Larry Brown's staff.
Again, the bottom line is that Mark is a winner, on and off the court. He demands the same from his student-athletes.
With more on the transformation from College Park, College Station, College Park Athletic Director Kevin Anderson, Kevin.
KEVIN ANDERSON: Thanks. First and foremost, I want to thank Dr. Lowe for being supportive in this process and supporting with the athletic department. Thank you very much.
There's more than just Mark, and I want to introduce his better half, Ann, welcome to the Terp Nation. One thing I found about Ann, Ann was the first manager for the men's basketball team at Kansas. So she's set her own trend as well as Mark has.
I also want to welcome Will, Leo and Ella to the Terp team. We look forward to having them, with us, too, Mark.
(Applause)
As Yogi Berra said, this seems like deja vu all over again. I hope for a long time this is the last time we're announcing any coaches for a while.
(Applause)
My wife liked that too. I'd like to acknowledge her for being so supportive. First it was around Christmastime, so I missed most of Christmas with the family and she had a trip out to California recently, I was supposed to help her go do some things, well, I was busy doing something else. So I thank you for taking that on. So thanks.
But here we are, it's a great day to be a Terp, and it gives me all the pleasure to introduce another great coach in Maryland basketball history, and also for Maryland, period.
When I sat down and talked to Mark, I knew everything that he accomplished basketball-wise. But as we talked about before, he's a great man, a great leader and he wants everything that we stand for.
He wants our young people to be successful in the classroom. He wants them to be good as far as leaders in their community and they're going to be good basketball players.
We're going to compete. We're going to compete at the highest level, and we're going to compete for championships. There was no question about that. But I think what helped me determine, make my decision that he was the guy, that he looked me in the eye and he said: Kevin, I hate to lose.
So it's my pleasure to introduce the man who is not intimidated by anybody in college basketball, who will be able to look down at that sideline to the opponents and be able to look and say: I'm going to kick their ass. Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Turgeon.
(Applause)
COACH TURGEON: Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Wow. That was a crazy 48 hours, to say the least. And this is the only red tie I could find. I just hope it's Maryland red.
It's funny, because I've been in Wichita State, I had all these yellow ties. I've been at Texas A&M, and I have all these maroon ties. I was packing yesterday, hastily trying to get everything ready. When you've got three kids, it's not easy.
And I said: Ann, I hope this will do because we don't have time to get another one. Since I've hit the ground we've been doing some recruiting.
I can't tell you how excited I am to be here, phenomenal to be standing here as the head coach of Maryland basketball.
I grew up a basketball fan. I've loved basketball since I can remember, dribbling the ball at age two or three and following Maryland basketball.
The reason I'm here is because of its great tradition and all the things that this basketball program has accomplished over the years. It was going to take a great job for me to move. I've turned down a lot of jobs over the last four years, and it was going to take a special one for me to move my family. And Maryland's a special place and that's why I'm here.
(Applause)
I used to coach against Lefty, and you know what a character he is. I just thought he was the biggest jerk because before games he wouldn't even smile at me. His assistants were like: Hey, Lefty is all about winning, all about winning.
I left Jacksonville State and got the job at Wichita, as Lefty would do, he would put his arm around me and say: Son, you're one heck of a coach. I said: Lefty, I never thought you liked me. You never talked to me. And he said to me: You were the enemy. So I'm proud to be mentioned in the same breath with him.
Obviously I'm standing her also because of Gary Williams. Gary Williams was Maryland basketball for the last 22 years, brought it back to tremendous respectability, did an unbelievable job, won a national championship, Final Four, numerous Sweet 16s, which isn't easy to do in college basketball these days.
And he did it with class. He did it with dignity. He did it the right way. And I like to think that I have a lot of the same qualities that Gary has. So it should be an easy transition for the players, the former players and for the fans, as we go forward.
But I talked to Gary on Sunday during this process, and he has a lot to do with me being here today. He was very honest and open and answered some pretty direct questions and he gave me the confidence that I could come here and be successful. So I thank Gary for that.
I want all the former players out there, we have a few of them here today, guys that played for Lefty, Coach Wade, Coach Williams, guys that played before that, I haven't done my history to go back past that, but know it's your program.
I'm just the coach of your program, hopefully for a long time. My door's open. They're welcome. I hope to do some things this year to get former players back to introduce myself to them and let them know how much I appreciate them and what they've done before me to help my job be a lot easier as I move forward.
I've heard great things about the fans here at the Comcast Center, Maryland basketball fans. I'm excited to be in this building. This is a school that loves basketball. They value their basketball. I play -- I was lucky enough to play at the University of Kansas, and they were the same way. And I'm glad to be a part of something like that.
If you have tickets, keep them. If you don't have them, buy them.
(Applause)
Because we're going to do some great things here. And my style of play, I know it will get asked. My style of play is winning. Because as Kevin said I hate losing. We're going to have a fun style. We're going to play defense. We're going to get after it defensively. We're going to rebound. We're going to play with toughness, and we're going to do it the right way. We're going to build it the right way, not cut corners when it comes to that.
I was lucky enough to play with Larry Brown and coach with Roy Williams. I feel I have a pretty good background on the X and O side to be successful at any level. So I'm looking forward to working with these young men in the program right now and hopefully playing a very fun, exciting and winning style.
My values: I'm a family-first guy. My wife and my kids are the most important thing, bar none, in my life. The second most important thing will be my basketball team. I told the players that yesterday: Outside of my family they're the most important thing to me. And I'll do everything I can to be whatever they want me to be, a father, an uncle, a brother, a mentor, whatever it takes for them to be successful.
So I'm going to recruit character first. You win with character. I've done that. I've been lucky enough to be around guys that recruit character first, and I believe in character. Doesn't always have to be the best talent but you have to have the best character. If you have that mixed with talent you're going to go a long way.
I'm also really big on graduation. It's something that's very important to me. We're going to -- Natasha does a tremendous job here, APR is in great shape. And we're going to graduate all our seniors this year, and we're doing the same at Texas A&M, and they're here for an education. And I will have a foot in their tail if they're not doing that. And they know that. And they're here to get an education first.
So I'm going to recruit players to Maryland. They all think they're going to the NBA. I hope a whole lot of them do, like they have in the past. But they're here to get their degree from Maryland. The parents and the players will understand that.
Real quickly, I'm going to recruit like crazy. I'm already losing my voice. It's all I've done since I've landed. I'm going to do whatever I can to take advantage of this great area, high school basketball. And use all my connections around the country.
I've been a very blessed person. I've covered it all, from Kansas to Oregon to Philadelphia, to Alabama, back to Kansas, to Texas, and now to Maryland.
So I'm going to try to use my connections -- and my wife still loves me, how about that? Isn't that amazing. So we're going to do everything we can to recruit the best we can. And what I want is I want people fearing the turtle, all right? Thank you.
(Applause)
THE MODERATOR: We're going to have our question-and-answer period with the media now.

Q. Coach, I wanted to ask about your recruiting style. Imagine I'm a 6'9" power forward instead of a 5'10" sports writer. What would you tell me about, not about Maryland, because I think we know about Maryland's attributes, but what would you tell me about yourself and how you would treat me as a player at Maryland to convince me to come here?
COACH TURGEON: Well, there's a lot of things. I would talk about what I've done in my career as a player and a coach. I would talk about my philosophy as a coach, which is how we're going to play, how I'm going to use them, style of play.
I'm an adaptive coach. I was lucky enough to coach with Larry Brown, who I think is one of the greatest coaches of all time. And each year he coached the team a little differently.
So depending on personnel, that's how I'll do it. And I'll give each player throughout my teaching the best opportunity to be the best player he can within our system.
I'm also big on individual work. I think one thing that my program has always done, and it was the year -- I was lucky enough to spend a year in the NBA with the 76ers, all I did was individual work. We'll improve our players at a tremendous rate.
You'll come in at one level, we'll take you to another one. And I'm a fair -- I'm brutally honest. You'll find out. I'm almost too honest. They say it's a fault of mine with the media, but you guys will like that. I'll be completely honest, completely fair, but I'm tremendously demanding.
And I'm not going to say I don't scream and yell. I do. But I'm not going to curse them. I'm not going to disrespect them. I have kids of my own. I don't want a grown man yelling at my kids like that.
So that's my style. I think I'm a great -- a good person and one that puts the players first. And they understand -- my players will understand that it's about winning and losing to keep your job, but they'll always know that they come first with me.

Q. Can you walk us a little bit through the interview process and when you knew this was the right fit, what kinds of things you heard that you knew that this was the job for you?
COACH TURGEON: Well, you know in today's world things leak out. And so I actually got a call Thursday morning from someone saying, hey, something big's going to happen today or tomorrow, would you be interested?
And right away I was excited. And we were packing for a trip last weekend. I went in and told my wife, I said: This is serious, I want you to think about this. University of Maryland might open and we might have a shot at being the coach there. I want you to think serious about it.
She knew I was serious at the time. Because I don't do that a lot. I've had plenty of offers. And I say so and so-called and I told them no. So we thought about it.
That was Thursday morning. I went on a camping trip, and my wife's from Pittsburgh. We went to the mountains of Pennsylvania, and I had no cell service starting Friday at 1:00 until Sunday at 1:00.
And so I could drive up to the top of a mountain and use my cousin -- I'll give her some pub -- Carolyn's cell, but I couldn't get ahold of anybody. Meantime I get a flat tire in our mini van driving up this mountain. So under morning I'm changing a tire out in the middle of nowhere, with some help from relatives, and about 1:00 I got cell service.
I called a couple of people. An hour, 30 minutes later, Kevin called. And made the mistake, I said: I'm in Pittsburgh. He said: I'm driving to meet you, right away. I had my three kids in the back. It was a long weekend.
And I didn't know I was going to be interviewing for Maryland. And I hadn't shaved. It takes me a while to grow anything on my face. And I said, Kevin, I said: All I have is sweats, shorts and Texas A&M shorts, are you okay with that? He said: Yeah, I'm fine. I'll come in jeans and a sweater. I got a hotel room in Pittsburgh. We met Sunday night.
I actually found a Kansas City Chiefs shirt. I have to be careful because the Ravens and Redskins up here. I put it over my Texas A&M shirt so he didn't have to look at Texas A&M gear during the interview.
We interviewed Sunday night. When he left the meeting, I knew it was my job to take or leave. And then Monday was, when you're talking about moving family. It was a tough decision.
So my wife picked me up -- can I elaborate? My wife picks me up in Houston on Monday -- Sunday -- what day was it? Monday. We talk and we were leaning this direction hard. And the hardest part for me if you know anything about me was having to tell my players I wasn't coming back.

Q. You're replacing a legend here Gary Williams, obviously. How did that influence your decision? Were you excited about the opportunity to carry on what he did, or were you perhaps a little apprehensive about replacing someone that meant so much to this school basketball-wise?
COACH TURGEON: If I was apprehensive, I wouldn't be standing here. And I had a great conversation with Gary. And he made me feel comfortable. And I know Gary is not going to try to sabotage Maryland basketball.
(Applause)
I saw him yesterday. He came in the office, and he told me he was going to get his office cleaned for me
He hadn't done that yet. My wife was in there cleaning it up this morning. As I said "his office," I haven't said it's mine yet.
And I think Gary's going to be a big ally for me. I think he'll help me tremendously, because Gary Williams was Maryland basketball. And I hope 15 years from now, 20 years, however long this lasts, that you're going to say Mark Turgeon was Maryland basketball. But I plan on using Gary a lot whether he wants to or not. I asked him yesterday: Are you sure you want to come back in the office? I was getting ready to go do some meetings and all that kind of stuff. He said it's all yours, Turg. But he's been a good friend. So I'll use him.
I followed a local legend in Texas in Billy Gillispie. He was loved like no coach I've ever been around. I fought through that. And it was much more difficult than this transition's ever going to be. Because I know Maryland fans love basketball and they want to win, and they're going to support me from day one.

Q. Mark, I don't know if you've had the chance to talk to any of your new players, but how has that gone and what's your take on the roster you're inheriting here?
COACH TURGEON: I talked to the team yesterday, starting at 2:30, as a group. We had a dinner last night for them. And I spoke to them a little bit individually out there. I didn't have much time. They've kept me pretty busy.
And starting 2:30 today I'm doing meetings with each individual player. I've talked to a couple of parents. By the end of the day -- and I told the guys yesterday: Just relax, everything's going to be fine. I'm a good guy and we're going to be fine. I know it's tough on them.
So I had a great response from the players. I expect the same thing with my individual meetings. I'll get into more about what I'm asking of them. I'll be honest with you, I didn't watch Maryland play basketball one time on TV this year.
I did see them, probably one of their best nights of the year, I watched them play against Florida State as we prepared for Florida State in the NCAA Tournament, and that was a great night for Maryland basketball, and beat a heck of a Florida State team.
So I am not -- I know some of the players, Sean, Sean Mosley, Pe'Shon, I watched him -- recruited him a little bit out of high school. Terrell I recruited a little bit out of high school. So I know those three pretty well. The rest of them, my knowledge is not great.
But it will be as time goes on. And I don't like to -- I do think Gary and I are really similar. We wear our emotions on our sleeve. He wore them a little bit more than I do. I try to hide it. I try to hide it a little bit better.
But I think we're similar. But I don't want to watch a lot of film from last year and judge them on the way they were playing. I want to judge them the way I'm going to coach them.
So unfortunately I'm not going to be able to coach them until August. So I'll watch a little bit of film between now and then and just to me over the next three or four months is just building relationships, building confidence in these young men and telling them we had a young man go pro on us and we're going to be a little bit thin inside from what I can see on the roster, and just building confidence and roles are going to have to change this year, and we're just going to have to stick together and do the best we can.

Q. For you to feel successful in four or five years, what will Maryland have accomplished in men's basketball?
COACH TURGEON: Well, if you lived in my house, you would never think I felt successful at anything. I don't know what it's going to take -- I don't want to sit up here, say we're going to do this and do that, because it's not fair to anyone. But I think realistically is just building a top program in the country.
I think the one thing that my teams have been over the years have been consistent. You look at our last few years, Wichita. My last year at Wichita, we had a lot of injuries. We lost the last five games all my guards were hurt. We were consistent, 24, 25 wins at A&M. Hopefully we'll have the same consistency, but at a tremendously high level.
I played in Final Fours, coached in national championships. That's what I want to do as the head coach at Maryland. I'm not going to say that's what's going to make us successful or not out here, but that's what we plan on doing.
(Applause)

Q. You mentioned your discussion with Gary on Sunday. Just curious, what kind of questions you had for him and if you feel comfortable, what were his responses?
COACH TURGEON: I said: Gary, how's your golf game? He said it's going to get a lot better. No, that's private stuff. I'll keep that between me and Gary. But I'll tell you what, he loves this place. And I had to feel comfortable that he was going to accept me as the next coach, and he has. And that's real important.
And I wanted to leave -- every time you leave somewhere, I follow every Wichita State score. It means a lot to me Wichita State had a tremendous year this year. They have a great coach.
And I'm going to follow A&M. It's important what I left behind. And Gary feels the same way about Maryland. He wants to make sure Maryland stays great, stays relevant. He asked some pointed questions, and he did a great job with it.

Q. If you could, give us a little bit of background on I guess any background you have in this area specifically, and then how important is that in building your staff moving forward?
COACH TURGEON: Well, actually, we do have a little bit of -- we've signed a young man from DeMatha at Texas A&M. Recruited this area before.
Actually, I have really good relationships with the people in the area. I felt comfortable. If I didn't, I wouldn't have taken the job. I feel like I've been on the phone with a lot of people, not all of them yet, but relationships through Kansas.
I've been a lot of places, so you develop relationships. And I felt very comfortable with that. As far as staff goes, I've had to make some unbelievably tough decisions, things I didn't want to do.
That said, I know I need to have a staff that has ties in this area up and down the East Coast. And I have enough ties in the Midwest that I'll still be able to do some things back in that area.
So I don't know where I am with my staff. I do know they're going to have ties to this area.

Q. Talk about what play in the ACC means, what your history with the ACC has been and coaching against all the legends or some of the legends that are in the ACC.
COACH TURGEON: Well, I've coached against a lot of legends, whether it's Eddie Sutton, Lefty, even though he didn't like me at the time. You get fired up for those games.
I know Gary put a lot of emphasis on the Duke game. He really got fired up for that one. And we'll get fired up for all of them. I'm excited about -- I've been around Larry Brown, Roy Williams, I've been around great coaches.
So I know there's great -- to make it in this business, you have to know how to coach. There's too many good coaches these days. So there's going to be great coaches in our league. It's a tremendous league. Great fan support, which I'm looking forward to.
You know, Big 12 was not chopped liver. So it was a great conference. And we're the No. 1 league two years ago. We were No. 3 this year. Year before that we were No. 2. Playing great competition every night. So I wasn't scared of it. I like all the media attention we're going to get in this league. I think that's huge for us.
Coach Williams, Roy Williams, I guess I have to clarify that, he's never pushed me for a job. He's always: Turg you do what you want to do. He pushed me hard for this job.
And I have a ton of respect for Roy Williams and what he's done, but I'm looking forward to coaching against him. (Laughter).
And he's got -- he's got a nice team right now. He convinced all those kids to come back. The one place I fear Coach Williams is on the golf course. He's a good golfer, too, like Gary. But looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead.

Q. What's going to be the biggest hurdle in your opinion to succeed here and build that program where you want it to be?
COACH TURGEON: The biggest hurdle is getting my family out here, without question. Just not being around my kids. And just getting -- just knowing -- moving is not easy, and just getting them out here, and what I'm going to put my wife through the next three months, that's the biggest hurdle. I've done this, I've moved.
I can't wait. It might not be great right away but we're going to make it great. The biggest hurdle is getting the family out here, getting them in the right school, the right house, the big test hurdle -- it was almost the deal clincher, I said: Kevin, I've got one problem with this deal, it might be a deal clincher for me not to come, I said I hate traffic. (Laughter) So I get mad when I miss a red light. So I'm going to have to become a lot more patient.

Q. When do you hope to have your staff in place? And it sounds like there's some recruits out there ready to commit. When do you expect your first commitment as a Terp?
COACH TURGEON: Oh, are there? Can you tell me who they are? (Laughter) Yeah, I don't want to get into too much of it right now. I think guys know where I am. There's a lot of guys on the current staff here that I haven't sat down and talked to. And they've been tremendous. Rob and Bino, trying to help me with this transition, keeping them up, and I'm all over them. And we haven't sat down to talk about whether they're going to be here or not.
There's some guys back at A&M that are trying to hold that fort down, make sure those players are doing what they need to do and then will join us here soon.
I haven't really had a chance to talk to Kevin about what I want to do with my staff. And I'm hoping that I can, by the end of the day, calendar's pretty full today, but I'm hoping by the end of the day I can look at that and sometime tomorrow morning talk to Kevin about what I want to do and where I want to go and how much money I might need from him to get it done, because I want to have great assistants.
I want guys that will do everything they can to get the best players they can here and be great role models for the players that are here.

Q. You talked about meeting with members of the current team, but have you had an opportunity to reach out to the incoming recruits of the next class, and do you feel like you're going to be able to keep that recruiting class intact?
COACH TURGEON: Yeah, I've talked to all three of them. I've talked to family members and coaches and all around them, and that's the plans. The plan is to keep them intact. We have a meeting set up tonight hopefully with another one of them, and that's the plans. And if it doesn't happen with them, it will be a mutual agreement on things.
But right now, as I talk to you, we plan on having everybody here. But things change.

Q. I actually followed you and talked to you when you left Jacksonville State because I applied for the job there, and Michael got it. I'm curious in terms of your development of big men. You had Brent Haram worked out, the guy from Nebraska. What are you going to do as far as that element of your coaching style is concerned since you were a point guard in Kansas?
COACH TURGEON: Yeah, you know how it is. Every big guy wants to be a little guy and every little guy wants to be a big guy, right? I was fortunate when I was a young coach at Kansas, Coach Williams let me work with the big guys. He's a tremendous big man coach. And I learned a lot in those four years.
Obviously coaching point guards is easy for me, and I take tremendous pride in what we do with our bigs and their improvement.
And I don't worry about that. I can sell that. And I know guys that will look at me 6'9", they're like how are you going to be able to coach that? They'll see. We've had tremendous success. The MVP in the valley was Paul Miller. No one really recruited him. I was the only one that gave him a scholarship. He's made a lot of money. We developed him. What I tell post guys is every drill I do with the guards I do with our posts guys too. I'm a big individual work guy. So I expect our big guys to be really. Not all will be that way. There will be guys that we recruited as shot blockers and rebounders, defenders and screeners. But we're going to develop them. So I want them to have an inside/outside game and be able to pass and catch and dribble. So we'll put a lot of emphasis on that.

Q. Do you hope to add any other recruits to this incoming class, be it transfers, JUCOs, late signees, I know you can't talk specifically, but do you hope to add anyone?
COACH TURGEON: I'll never say never. So if the right one comes along, yeah, we'll definitely do that. And we're in the early process here of what we're doing. I'm trying to digest everything.
But if a player can come in and help us win three or four more games next year, or two or three more games, or even one more game, help us win a lot more down the road, we'll definitely do that. So some of the things that we've talked about already with the staff.
So I'm not going to sign a person just to sign a body. It's got to be someone that's going to help us be successful. I'd rather wait and get after hard the 2012 class.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. Thanks so much for coming.

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