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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: KANSAS CITYMarch 18, 2009Rogers BarnesJermaine BoldenTodd BozemanReggie HolmesMarquise KatelyKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI KEVIN KLINTWORTH: We are being joined in the interview room by Morgan State University athletes, Jermaine "Itchy" Bolden, Rogers Barnes, Reggie Holmes and Marquise Kately. Q. I'll ask it. Where does the name "Itchy" come from? JERMAINE BOLDEN: Well, my mom told me the other day it came from my brother, you know, before he passed. He always wanted a family, give his nickname. He just came up with that. Q. Say that again. JERMAINE BOLDEN: My mom told me recently it was my brother that came up with the nickname "Itchy" from the cartoon The Simpsons and my brother gave me that. Q. No reason, though? JERMAINE BOLDEN: Not that I know of. Q. For Rogers and Jermaine, how come or why does the schedule you guys played, will that give you guys confidence as far as playing Oklahoma. Lot of people say you won't be intimidated. Are you guys confident? JERMAINE BOLDEN: Well, we won't be intimidated because we always play hard. We don't overlook anybody. We play to the best of our abilities, and our practice is so intense like the game, it just comes with the flow. ROGERS BARNES: We're always confident no matter who we play, practice real hard, go into the game real hard. Like the coach also said, it's two baskets and a ball, let's do it. Q. Jermaine "Itchy," what happened to your brother? JERMAINE BOLDEN: He was killed in an argument, like I say, about a couple blocks away from our home. Q. Recently? JERMAINE BOLDEN: It's been a few years now. Q. Reggie and Marquise, that are your thoughts on Blake Griffin? REGGIE HOLMES: Personally, he's a great player. MARQUISE KATELY: I feel he's a beast down there. He's a great rebounder and defender, and he can score with the ball. He's a good all-around player. Q. Marquise, you and Todd were both there. Tell me how you and Todd came together? MARQUISE KATELY: It's been a long road. I've been at Morgan State. I feel like it was the best thing for me. You know, Coach Todd Bozeman, he pretty much -- he had a vision, and I seen what he saw. So, you know, we got it done. Q. Were you looking at other schools, or did he just sell you on that school and -- it's all the way to the other coast. So how much talking did he have to do to get you to come to the other side? MARQUISE KATELY: I mean, you know, it was different. But I've been on the East Coast before. I stayed out there. I went to prep school at MCI. So, you know, I just knew -- I know he was a great coach, and I just believed in him, in what he was saying. Q. I just wonder if you guys have played against some strong inside players like Griffin and how you have to defend somebody like that and keep them from dominating on the boards, also. MARQUISE KATELY: You know, actually we have played against some pretty good low post players, but I think to help slow down Griffin, we're going to have to help side defense, keep a body on him and be physical. Q. Marquise, Oklahoma has lost four of their last six, as I'm sure you guys are aware. Does that give you any confidence that they're not invincible? MARQUISE KATELY: Well, you know, like my man Rogers said, we come to play the game. We really don't think -- well, how would I say it? We don't think that any team in the whole tournament -- you know, that they're not invincible, so we just go out and play. KEVIN KLINTWORTH: More questions? Q. This is for any of you. What do you think Coach Todd Bozeman's best attribute is, as a tactitioner, a motivator, or as a teacher? ROGERS BARNES: He has great energy all the time. No matter what time practice is, whether it's early in the morning, late at night, he always comes in the gym with the same enthusiasm about the game. He's a great motivator. Sometimes he feels like he has to motivate us a little bit more, and he does that, and you can tell that his energy is way up. So we got to pick our energy way up. So, I mean, that's a great attribute for him right there is energy. MARQUISE KATELY: And also, you know, his knowledge of the game. You know, he taught me a lot, just him knowing the game and being able to get it through to us. Like, you know what I'm saying, what it takes and what we have to do to get to where we need to go. Q. Marquise, what specifically did he teach you that maybe you didn't know before or hadn't really been fully instructed on? What did you learn from him that you didn't already have? MARQUISE KATELY: Really, you know, a few defensive principles. Just, for example, like help side, little things like that. Q. Reggie, can you talk a little bit about the discipline that Coach Bozeman brought in when he first got there and, you know, how tough it was and what were some of the things that he made you guys do or those kind of things, rules? REGGIE HOLMES: He was very disciplined till this day, since I was a freshman. I'm a junior now. He's been on me since day one. My freshman year I told him I like it. It's going to make me better in the long run, and I improved every year. Q. How did he get on you? REGGIE HOLMES: In my face, everything. He ain't let me get away with nothing. If I missed a layup, he yelled at me in my face, body language, shot selection. Q. Rogers, what do you think Oklahoma's weakness is that you need to exploit tomorrow? ROGERS BARNES: We've got to go in there and play hard. We got to hang with them, no matter what they do. Don't let them -- like they get a big dunk or crowd, get into it. Got to keep playing no matter what happens. I'm not going to say there's a weakness we're going to try to exploit. We're going to try to play our game. Q. Marquise, Coach Bozeman talked to you about the circumstances that he went through at Cal lead to him being out of the game for so long. How do you guys look back at this? Make him more human? How do you -- how do you view the circumstances of him leaving Cal and ultimately winding up in Morgan? MARQUISE KATELY: Really, you know, I just know he's a great man. He's a great coach, great person. He just -- you know, I just feel -- I don't really -- like I said, pretty much, he's just a great person. I don't really have nothing to say about that. Q. Is it ever anything he talks about with y'all? MARQUISE KATELY: I mean, you know, he let us know the situation, but, you know, for the most part, you know, we don't talk -- we don't, you know -- KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Any more questions for the Morgan State student athletes? Okay. Thank you, guys. Here we go with the Coach. Coach Todd Bozeman, Morgan State. Coach, if you wouldn't mind giving us just a brief opening statement, and then we'll open it up for questions. COACH TODD BOZEMAN: First of all, I told those guys to tell you guys that my best attribute, that I was the best looking coach out here. They messed that up. So I'll be in Reggie's face after this. No. We're obviously excited about being in the tournament. You know, I told those guys when we were on the brink of it that it's a very special time, very special event, one of the true great events in all of sports in that not every college basketball player gets a chance to participate in the NCAA Tournament and that they should really cherish the opportunity. I want them to soak it up, to live in the moment and enjoy it. We obviously have work to do, a lot of work to do, but I really want them to enjoy it because it's something that's not guaranteed to everybody. I played Division I basketball, but I never played in the NCAA Tournament. I've only had the experience as a coach. It's a great feeling as a coach, so I can only imagine as a player what it's like. So we're just happy to be here and not in terms of just happy to be here, meaning we're just here, that's it. We're obviously competing and preparing ourselves to play. But it truly is a great experience. I'm really happy for the guys, happy for the Morgan State community and for Dr. Richardson for giving me the opportunity to get back into college basketball as a head coach. And he's retiring in December of '09, and that's one of the things that when he hired me, I told him I wanted to do was get him an NCAA banner so that he can add it to his wall. He's been the president at Morgan for over 27 years and never been to an NCAA Tournament. So it was definitely a goal of mine, and I'm really happy that we're able to fulfill that for him. What's up, Coach? Q. Coach, when you saw the bracket come up and you saw you were coming here to Kansas City and realized that obviously they're in a different bracket but Cal is here, too, that were your thoughts? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: Well, I can't say that I didn't raise my eyebrow. I smiled because I know that although the circumstances of me leaving Cal weren't necessarily the greatest, I know that I still have a lot of family and friends out there and, you know, we kind of call them "framily" friends that are like family. There's probably more that think positive of me than think negative. I'm not saying there isn't any negative. I'm sure there's no more positive. I've gotten tons of text messages today even on -- I was on Gary "Radus" show this morning and then on ESPN as well. So I got a lot of text messages from the West Coast from a lot of people. I thought I would see Monty Pool and these guys out here. So I was looking forward to that. Q. Todd, with all that you've been through, why -- how are you a better coach now than you were when you were 35? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: Well, I think that any coach, you know, ten years later would be a better coach. So I don't -- I just think it's a natural progression. I would say some things that probably helped me along the way was the fact I spent the time in the NBA as an advance scout. When you're sitting on the sidelines and got to read Flip Saunders lips and Pat Riley and try to get play calls but also have the plays down and make sure you do the scouting report, then going back home to the D.C. area, you know, I wanted to make sure -- I wanted to try to get back to the community and help the basketball in that area. So I was coaching 9 and under, 10 and under, all the way up to 16 and under. I kind of went back to the roots and was teaching basketball from the very basics and I was running my camp the whole time. I still kept involved with the game. So, sometimes when you go back to basics, it kind of helps you a little bit and it slowed me down a little bit and it took away -- I obviously didn't have to recruit. I only had to focus on basketball. And then, you know, guys like Larry Brown inviting me to training camp and other college coaches inviting me out to their practices and things like that, getting a chance to talk to people and probably more assuring myself that what I was doing or the direction I was going in was the right direction. So, a lot of that, it had a lot to do with that as well. Q. Considering the circumstances when you left Cal, when you see recruiting violations on the road, when you get -- you see somebody bending the rules, what's your reaction, and do you ever pull aside a young coach and say "Don't do anything, don't do this, this"? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: That's a two-part question. If I see anything, that's not my business. So I don't have an opinion on it one way or the other. Just like when I left Cal and NCAA asked me to talk about things and give them information, I wouldn't do it because it's not my place. But I have had young coaches, and I've talked to them and ask me about different things or maybe asking me in terms of how to recruit somebody or telling me a situation, and I definitely have told them it's not worth it, guys, it's not worth it. When I was out, I said, listen, I'm not. My plan is to get back in. I have people telling me it would never happen and I wouldn't believe that, but I also told them it's not worth it for their careers and guys are involved with really big time recruits and getting down to the nitty-gritty. I say, "Listen, whatever you do, keep it on a on the straight and narrow because it's not worth it for one player." And Roy Kramer, who used to be in the Southeastern Conference when I was walking out of the committee on infractions when the last meeting we had there, he put his arm around me and said, "Son, you know, sometimes the ones you want the most, you have to do so much for, they end up not being worth it. But the ones that you just kind of, you know, fall upon or you don't work as hard for, they end up doing more for you." I always remembered that. He said it's just not worth it. I do share that information with a lot of young coaches for sure. I've done that a lot over the years, and since I've been back in, I even tell my own staff, guys, "Listen I work just as hard as anybody, and I feel like I'm relentless, but no player is big enough for us to break the rules for us. We're going to do it right and keep going forward." Q. Coach, Oklahoma has lost four of their last six. From looking at film, does it seem to you like maybe they kind of got out of rhythm or got out of kilter when Blake was gone for those two games? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: You just asked my guys that question. I heard it in the back. We're not going to give them any bulletin board material whatsoever, but maybe that was an aberration. They're a great ball club and Blake Griffin is consensus Player of the Year. Arguably the number one pick in the draft. People have been asking me, "How do you stop him?" I've been looking for kryptonite and been in all the different stores and trying to get it. He's an outstanding athlete and player. They go to him an awful lot. The offense runs through him. His brother, Taylor, is a great player, the kid, Warren is an outstanding player as well, and they're very well coached. People lose games. That's the reason why you play the games. You can't just win it on paper, and that's the reason why my guys also are not intimidated either. I heard a question about have we played against post guys like that. We played against University of Washington, who has a physical front line, and I can tell you that they play extremely hard and I thought our guys did a good job against those guys. We lost by maybe 12, something like that, but five-point ballgame midway through the second half, and they have a great front line, and they won the PAC-10. Q. Todd, you talked about Blake Griffin's status nationally and NBA prospects. Fifteen years ago you had a dominate future, superstar? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: Who was that? Q. You know him better than I do. But can you talk about how important it is when you do have a player like that, how much of an edge that can give a team trying to advance deep into the NCAA Tournament? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: Well, it definitely can give you an edge, but, you know, remember that a lot of times, you know, the great players don't make it as far. You know, you can think of Tim Duncan. He never played in a Final Four. Steve Francis was All-American at Maryland and Maryland after he was there even looking at Stanford, Brevin Knight, when he left there, and sometimes that happens. When you have a great player like that and you hit those walls sometimes in games, they can kind of pick you up and carry you. That's a tremendous asset to have, because those guys can just go and get a basket and they also garner a lot of attention. So it also can open up things for other players. Blake Griffin, you have to really be concerned about doubling him because you allow Warren and Crocker to take rhythm shots and that causes issues. You have to really think about your game plan when you go in to plan. Q. After y'all won the automatic bid or since then, have you had a chance the reflect on getting back after 16 years? And also when you were out of college coaching, did you have any real low point where you thought this just isn't going to happen again? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: First of all, I never thought that I wouldn't get back in. I just never did. I always thought I would have a chance to get back in. I wasn't sure when it would happen, how old I would be. Maybe I would be a volunteer coach at 75. I was determined to get back in, and really, a lot of it was really for my dad. I felt like I embarrassed him and really wanted to get back in while he was living. And that's my only regret to this day I wasn't able to do that. He passed New Year's Day of 2006. I got back into college basketball March of 2006. He had said at a cookout, we talked all the time, closest person that was to me, we talked during a family reunion, cookout in September of '05. He was telling relatives that he just wanted to live long enough to see me get back into coaching. So, you know, that would answer that question. In terms of reflecting, I'm not much of a reflector while I'm in the moment, but the one thing that I did think about when we won the championship was that I wish my dad was here to experience it, and, you know, it meant a lot to me that my brother drove down and kind of surprised me and walked up on me while we were on the court. It was a very special moment, and we hugged, and we both spoke of our dad, and I brought my mom out here to this tournament. So she's out here soaking it up. She's going to watch us practice and obviously give me tips. I'm not much of a reflector while I'm in the moment. Even the year we beat Duke in the tournament. I didn't watch the tape for probably two years, just because you always moving on to the next thing. But I will reflect because it is a special moment and it was a long road back. But, you know, I probably have maybe five people, you know, that told me -- agreed that I would have an opportunity to get back in. You know, definitely is a special, special moment for sure. Q. Can you describe for us a little bit what you feel, what you were feeling the moment that the job offer was accepted and the deal was sealed? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: Again, I thought of my dad. I'm a strong believer in prayer, and I talked to him, and I think of him every single day, sometimes four, five times a day. Friend of mine once told me that when my dad passed, whenever you see -- his mom had passed. Whenever you see a penny laying around, think that's your dad telling you, he's walking with you and pick it up. I pick up pennies all the time. "Hey, Pop." I do it all the time. So that was -- that would probably be the thing that -- when it first happened, that's what I thought of. And when I buried my dad, I had a particular black suit on and a shirt and tie. I wore the same shirt, tie, underwear, everything to the press conference, to the first game, and I really got emotional at the first game. We were playing East Carolina, and I got really emotional right before the guys went on the floor. And I apologized to them I said, "Look, guys, if my dad was here, he would be right here with me. So this is a very special moment for me." I know Ricky "Stokes" was looking at me. My eyes were red. I came immediately out on the floor. That's what I thought of when I got -- when the job was sealed and called my brother and my mom and they both screamed in the phone, and my wife and my kids, they really didn't care. They just went, "Oh, so now the phone bills, can we now get the extended text messaging and can you upgrade the cable?" That's all they cared about. But it was a good day in the Bozeman household for sure. Q. Can you also tell us a little bit about what it was like to want to be a coach at a time when no one wanted you? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: Well, it's probably more of feel like coaching is what I was born to do. I was listening to T.D. Jakes on the Black List, and he said that when you're doing something that you feel you're born to do, it's almost like when you do it, it's like God blew his breathe through you. That's not the exact quote. I got it on my phone. It was a tremendous quote. It just meant so much to me. But, you know, being out of coaching, I really missed being around the guys. I missed the teaching aspect of it because it's my form of communication, ministry. I reach people through coaching. I coach in my household. I can't make them run sprints, but I coach all the time, and I really missed that. I missed being on the floor. I missed the traveling, being with the guys, being with young people, seeing them come in as boys and leave as men and like Reggie Holmes. He's been here since he was a freshman. He and Rogers Barnes have been there the longest. Just to see those guys grow as players. They didn't have the roles they have now and they weren't as mature, {obviously} as they are now, but to see those guys. Reggie went from being -- he would shoot a 3-pointer way out or go for a layup. I kept trying to get him to get a mid range game. Now he's developed that. It's a great feeling. I can't even explain it to you when you see that or when you see guys start saying that and repeating for example the things that you say to them, it's just a passion. I enjoy working with the players, the managers, the assistant coaches, you know, everybody, and even to this day, some of my managers from Cal are here, some of my former players are here, and we've stayed in touch, you know, over the years and everybody has stories, and they've sent me little notes throughout the time. And when I see Michael Stewart when we would go down, when I got back in and go to Orlando and I was seeing with his kids and wife and I knew both of them at Cal. I can't even tell you how good it feels, because I remember Yogi when Yogi he had milk behind his ears. Now he's a father of two. Now he has a great life and business and has -- had a great career in the NBA. That's what this whole thing to me is. It's about life lessons, and I use basketball as a means to teach those guys life lessons. Even to this day, I tell the guys, I use my own story and say there's consequences for your actions and so you have to really think about things before you do them, think about before you say them. Just the fact of dealing with adversity, the fact that you might fall down but you can get back up. I mean all those different things is what encompasses to me coaching. And, so, we all have something that we feel passionate about, and that's something I feel passionate about. That's why the guys see my energy level the same everyday. I'm so fortunate to be coaching, I can't even put it into words. I mean -- I wouldn't want to be doing anything else. Q. Two questions, Todd. First, did you watch the NCAA Tournament all these years? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: Yes. I'm a basketball fan. I watch Old Classic Sports Network. I watch old NBA games, international games. My wife doesn't understand it, but I do. Q. My last question. Does part of you hope that this week helps to bury the past, or do you anticipate having to answer some of these questions as long as you're coaching? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: First of all, it has been buried for me. I've buried it when I apologized. I meant it. That was the last time I was going to apologize for it. I wasn't going to do it again. I actually did an interview with a guy today. He asked me about do I feel like a villan? If somebody still views me as a villan 13 years later, come on. There's a lot more things going on in the world. If that's that you're been harboring for 13 years, some issues going on. Because I've moved on from it. People make mistakes, and the great thing about this country is that you've seen it time and time again, you know, from the Steve Jobs to the Martha Stewarts -- and I'm not comparing myself to an older white woman (laughter), but I'm saying in terms of making a mistake and being able to come back from it. It just happens, you see it all the time, and you could have people there. Quote, unquote, they viewed Muhammad Ali when they didn't accept him into the Army. He's the most recognized sports figure in the world. I will not allow anyone else to define who I am. If the weatherman says it's going to be an ugly, rainy day, who are you to determine that that the day is going to be ugly. That's the way I view it. Monty is saying this cat is the same, he hasn't changed. Q. Coach , you coached at Cal, you coached at Morgan State and done some stint in the NBA. What do you consider to be your singular greatest accomplish? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: I don't know. I'd have to say that signature win, the signature game is the win at Duke. I could say, you know, why -- I would probably say that because -- even when I was out of basketball and I would see people in the airports and I would see people -- anywhere then they would go hey, I was either Jason Kidd's coach or the guy that beat Duke, one or the other, because a lot of people -- you know, kind of Duke is such a special program. People like kind of root against Duke all the time. I had a lot of people that always brought that up. Even the Duke fans say, "Hey, man you messed up my bracket during that time of the year." That would probably be the most -- well, the signature one. I don't know if I could say the greatest moment, because sometimes that could come -- the game we had against USC when I first took over at Cal was a triple overtime. It was just a special moment because of the way the guys played their hearts out, you know, when we when we were on the floor. I don't know if I could just pick one. KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Any more questions? Q. Oddly enough, you got emotional after you won the conference title game. What was behind that, and what were you thinking about at that moment just last week? COACH TODD BOZEMAN: It was definitely my dad. I thought of him when the clock was ticking down. I was like, I mean, could you fill the blank?. Man, dad, I wish he was here. I spoke to him and I just -- I was overcome with emotion, and I wanted to make sure I shook the coach's hands after the game. And that's what I thought about, and it's been a long, long road. I mean, I could never even put it into words. Some day I want to write a book, and I always said to God that if you let me get back in here, I want to be an example that for people in different ways, you know. It could be for "Don't do what I did." It could be "If you have adversity and you fall down, you can get back up." It could be in terms of perseverance, in terms of having a passion and the passion burning for so long. Because I've had coaches say to me, "I can't believe you still have the same passion that you had back then." I can see it. My energy level was the same. I mean, only difference is I'm a few pounds heavier. I said a few pounds. I am a couple pounds heavier. That's probably the only difference and -- but all that stuff that happened, I could really say that, you know, that during that time -- I'm not saying I'm glad it happened. I got to spend the last two years of my dad's life with him, and we played golf and we got even closer. My children got to know their grandfather, which, had I stayed on the West Coast, they would not know him, only know him through little visits and be telling him things about them. I got closer to my children who are now teenagers. When they are young, they're all over you. You're able to deposit things in them much like your players. When they become teenagers like they are now, they don't want to have anything to do with me. So I did my dues with them. I still fix them breakfast every morning. Leonard Hamilton told me once you're able to do some stuff that I wasn't able to do. I taught my son how to ride a bike. I can't put a price on seeing my man hit the mailbox, hit the tree, and finally go 50 yards and jump off, and "Daddy, I did it. " Lot of times as coaches you don't get a chance to do that because you're so busy, you know, doing the next thing and doing the next thing. I cherish that time right there, and I'm really thankful that I was able to experience that, not how I got there, but just the fact that I got there. And I mean, I couldn't even put it into words, but to answer your question directly, I know I could go on and on, that's what I thought of was my dad. KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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