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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: PHILADELPHIAMarch 23, 2013Sherwood BrownBrett ComerAndy EnfieldEddie MurrayPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA Q. Between the end of last night and right now, what has it been like? What is the strangest thing you've heard, a person, and how do you keep your focus with all that? SHERWOOD BROWN: Well, I mean, it's been very exciting for what we've done for the program, and we appreciate the support that we've been getting from everyone, even people from all the way up here have told us that they're on our side and they're rooting for us. But the way we keep our focus on is just that we know that we got a big win last night, but we're not satisfying with just winning last night. We want to do bigger things here, so we're just going to keep being motivated. EDDIE MURRAY: Yeah, kind of piggy‑backing off what Sherwood said, everyone back home, friends and family have been texting me and I've been getting things on Facebook. Fort Myers is kind of rocking and rolling right now. They're really excited. This is a big thing for the city and I'm glad we could deliver this. As far as going forward, this morning it was a different feeling. We're starting to get focused again and getting ready for San Diego State. BRETT COMER: You know, we saw a lot of it on social media, a lot of Twitter from celebrities, people back home, everywhere. It's been exciting. But we woke up this morning and we have to prepare for San Diego State, come out and try to get another win. Q. I was wondering if each of you guys could just talk briefly about your recruitment coming out of high school, did you have any high major offers, what kind of offers did you have, and Sherwood, I know you walked on. Can you talk a little bit about that, and did you ever think you'd be here now after walking on? SHERWOOD BROWN: I wasn't highly recruited out of high school, but I knew that I could play amongst some of the best people in the nation. I just had that type of confidence. And I mean, as far as being here today at this spot that I am, I never really imagined that we'd be here where we are today. But when we brought in our new coach and when Brett and Bernard and a lot of other players came in, I knew that we had a chance to do something special. I knew that we would have a really good team, and I knew that anything could happen. EDDIE MURRAY: Yeah, for me personally I wasn't recruited by any high majors or anything. A lot of A‑Sun schools along the Florida Gulf Coast obviously. I was more of a baseball player growing up and picked up basketball in high school, so I was a raw talent, just athletic and slowly developing my game. BRETT COMER: I was put on the big stage with a guy like Austin Rivers, and I signed my letter of intent to FAU, and then later in the spring, middle of my senior year, I asked for my release actually, so I got my release from FAU, and shortly after that Enfield got the job here, and there's no way I could turn him down, so that's why I'm here. Q. I'd like to follow up on that with Brett. You talked about Enfield got the job and no way you could turn him down. What kind of vision did he sell you? And then for the other two players who were already there, did he ever try to convince you that something like this could happen? BRETT COMER: I mean, he pretty much‑‑ he called me on the phony think the day after he got the job, and then he made a house visit, and he pretty much sold me on the fact that he wanted me to be the point guard of his team for four years. And he actually genuinely‑‑ I felt like he meant what he said. A lot of coaches you get the feeling he's telling 20 other guys this, but I actually felt like he meant it, and ever since then I believe everything he has to tell me. EDDIE MURRAY: Enfield coming in, the year before he came in I scored 11 points my entire season (laughter), sat on the bench a lot, and he came in and he said we're going to try to build something here, and we really think that you can help us. I like your attitude, your effort, and he turned me into a starter actually my senior season, and everything he's done has been awesome, gave me confidence, just the locker room, we've had a better feeling ever since he came in. It's been a good feeling. SHERWOOD BROWN: Just like Murray, I never played much my freshman and sophomore year under our old coach. I felt like I never got an opportunity to play until he kind of‑‑ I want to say that he kind of gave up on our team near the end of my sophomore year and I started to get some playing time. The end of that season, I had a career high of 27 points, and that's when we brought in Coach Enfield, and Coach Enfield and I had a conversation, and he was telling me that this program was headed in the right direction, and I really bought into that and I believed his words, and that's where I am and why we're here today. Q. Eddie, can you talk a little bit about your dunking history? I think we've all read that you've won some contests. When were you first able to dunk, and what did you do to win those, and how did it feel like last, basically you made a name for yourself above the rim. EDDIE MURRAY: Yeah, my athleticism is kind of the reason I've gotten to where I am. I think I started dunking the end of eighth grade, beginning of ninth grade. I was only 6 foot going into freshman year of high school, so I grew a lot through high school. I won my first dunk contest in a Florida Flame D‑League competition, a dunk contest thing. Put it in between my legs, won that one and from there I was playing in the high school City of Palms. Came in second behind Brandon Boykin who is now in the NFL playing for the Eagles actually, and won a couple at FGCU. Kind of a high flier. Me and Chase, we like to get a couple passes from Brett here and there. Q. What did Boykin do to beat you? EDDIE MURRAY: I think he actually jumped over about 40 people. He did some amazing things. It's on YouTube. You should check it out. Q. Has Coach Enfield given you any sort of instructions to try to subdue the hype like no watching ESPN or anything like that, just to kind of keep you guys focused? BRETT COMER: No, not really at all. I mean, he knows as a team we're here focused because we are the underdog. I know probably none of you in this room thought we'd beat Georgetown and be in the position that we're in. We're kind of here, like nothing is distracting us, we're focused and here to win games and go as far as we can. Q. Brett, entire stories have been written about that alley‑oop you threw. What does that mean to you? Have you read those, and what do you think about that play and all the attention it's gotten? BRETT COMER: I've seen some of the stories about it. About the play, we've done that so many times. Maybe not on this big of a stage because of the time going on, but me and him have connected on so many alley‑oops. Between me and him, me and Murray, Sherwood. It's just normal play for us. It's just the way we are. We are fast‑paced team and we like to get a lot of dunks and a lot of momentum off of them. Q. If you can kind of compare and contrast Georgetown and San Diego State and talk about what you have to do I guess differently to prepare for San Diego State. SHERWOOD BROWN: I think that Georgetown is more of a slow‑paced team, and they probably like to slow the game down rather than San Diego State is kind of like a team like us, they like to get out and run, and they shoot a lot of shots in transition just like we do. EDDIE MURRAY: Yeah, Georgetown, they're methodical. They want to slow down the pace, whereas we want to get out and run. If I had to get tomorrow night there's going to be a lot of transition buckets, it'll be a fairly high‑scoring game, and it's going to come down to whatever team plays better defense because both teams want to get into kind of a track meet. Q. I think the entire FGCU administrative and coaching staff is going without any sleep, but did Coach make sure you guys got some rest and were you able to be light on your legs today in practice to make sure you guys got some rest? BRETT SHERWOOD: Yeah, you know, we got back kind of late, though, because we did watch the Oklahoma San Diego State game, but he let us sleep in today. We were light on our feet today at practice. What just went over kind of what they do and what we're going to do. It was pretty much just like a walk‑through, so we're going to be fresh for tomorrow. Q. Your coach last night spoke about halftime as a turning point in your game against Georgetown, that in his view you had played Georgetown style the first half. That wasn't getting it done, and he told you guys let's play our style the second half. Can anybody remember a specific turn of phrase he used or anything he said specifically about kind of wanting you to change the gears or even describe his attitude, whether it was upbeat or serious or‑‑ any you can flesh out about that. EDDIE MURRAY: I don't know specifically anything he said, but he was definitely upbeat. We went over a couple of things that they were beating us on defensively, got those covered, and he kind of emphasized we need to try to get out‑‑ rebound the ball, get out and start running a little bit more, and we were able to do that in the second half in the beginning. We started going on that run. It was just kind of upbeat and I think we had a kind of confidence. We were up 20 at Georgetown second half, and it carried over. Q. Enfield is a shooting coach, I think in the NBA. What was one thing that he taught you specifically about basketball that made your game better? SHERWOOD BROWN: Well, Coach Enfield, he is very good, and the rest of the coaching staff is very good with individual skills. When I came in here, I was strictly just a catch and shoot type of guy, and I mean, I still catch and shoot from time to time, but I also have other aspects to my game that have been developed. EDDIE MURRAY: The biggest thing he's given me has just been confidence. But other than that, you know, just technique wise there was a couple things in my shooting form, my offhand and stuff like that. But the biggest thing has definitely been confidence. BRETT COMER: I mean, coming out of high school I wasn't much of a point guard. I kind of just passed the ball to a guy, cleared out, or we ran in transition. So as a staff they gave me the confidence to be able to run this team. I mean, I kind of run the show and get the guys the ball when they need it, and they do a great job of finishing, like Sherwood is the Player of the Year and everybody just does such a great job around them. I kind of just orchestrate the offense. I feel like between him and Coach Norris who was a point guard at Miami, they taught me how to be a true, actual point guard. Q. With your win yesterday and the tournament's history of smaller schools beating bigger schools and the fact that a lot of kids today play a lot of AAU, is it easy for you not to be intimidated by those bigger schools because of the whole AAU thing and everybody seems to play one another, and does that mean that there's parity in college basketball amongst the players? BRETT COMER: I mean, personally last night against the Georgetown team, I played against their center in an AAU game, so I've played against these type of guys all the time. So it was nothing new to me. We all as a team we were going to come out there and beat them, right when we saw the bracket. So it was nothing new for us. SHERWOOD BROWN: When I was in high school I played against very good players. I played against John Wall who was the No.1 draft pick, so I'm not really intimidated by anyone that I've played against. I feel like I've played against some of the best players to have played the game, at least at the high school and college level. Q. I asked the Duke players sort of if they could put themselves in your situation and what that would feel like to be the 15 over the 2. I wonder if you guys could even comprehend what it would be like to be the favorite now, even in an emotional way, tomorrow night? BRETT COMER: Oh, man. As a Duke team, I feel like I would come out and try and make a statement, as being the high seed like that. You don't want to lose to a lower seed. I'd come out and try to step on everybody's throats every chance we could to be honest with you. As a team with that school name, a coach like that and players like that, there's no reason why you should lose. EDDIE MURRAY: Honestly I would prefer to be in the position we are. The group of guys we have here, there's really no pressure on us. Everything we do from here on out, nothing is really expected of us, but we expect it of ourselves. All the pressure is on the teams we're going to be playing from here on out, so I really like the position we're in. Q. A couple days ago you talked about how you were all recruited by more or less programs that are the same size as the one you're at now. Were you at all‑‑ what made you decide that this was the program you wanted to go to, a program with no real history, a head coach who had not really been a collegiate head coach, over all the others that you were recruited by or the others that you were considering? SHERWOOD BROWN: To be honest, with me I didn't really have a choice. I came here, and that was the only decision that I had. It was the only decision I could make, and so I was going to come here and make the best out of it, which I really am right now. EDDIE MURRAY: For me, I'm a local kid. I grew up 20 minutes from the University. So I mean, it didn't make much sense to go to another A‑Sun school in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, when I could go to a school 20 minutes from my house that had amazing facilities, was on the rise, and that had the possibility of being where we are today. BRETT COMER: Myself, I didn't want to leave my mother. My dad passed away recently at the time, and I didn't want to leave her, and the fact that Enfield got the job and pretty much told me that he wanted me to be his point guard right away, I wanted to go somewhere and play right away. I didn't want to go somewhere and sit. And the fact that I knew some of the guys he was bringing into my recruiting visits, Eric McKnight and Bernard and we all talked about coming here with Eddie and Sherwood and Chase and changing this program and making it what it is today. Q. If it is a track meet tomorrow like Eddie said, how confident are you that you can make history again? BRETT COMER: I'm pretty confident. That's our style of play. Our style of play hasn't really done us wrong so far. So we're going to stick with what we do and hopefully we get more stops than San Diego State. EDDIE MURRAY: Yeah, I'm pretty confident that we can run with anybody. We don't have the typical big body guys, we have the long, athletic guys who want to run, me, Eric, Chase, and then we also have the quick guards, so I think that we can run with anybody. Q. Eddie and Sherwood, what have you seen from Brett this year in terms of his development as a point guard? What's allowed him to get so much better? EDDIE MURRAY: You know, he's always been an amazing passer. His vision is incredible. But I think that at times he kind of forced things his freshman year sometimes. He would kind of get stuck in a lane, jump in the air and the coaches kind of worked with him on that. He's just gotten better. He's grown, matured, and he really gets the ball to the right person when it needs to be there. SHERWOOD BROWN: I don't know if anyone has seen it, but there was a point in the game last night where he was double teamed almost in the corner of half court, and everyone else seemed to be covered, and then he seen me out of nowhere, and I was like right next to the basket, and he seen me. I don't know how anyone else could have seen that pass, but he seen me and I was wide open and I made the basket to stop a run that Georgetown had went on. Brett is a great point guard. He sees some things that a lot of other players would never be able to see, and I think that's what makes him very special to our team and what puts us over the top. Q. Last night Andy said one of the things he believes in is keeping it fun for his players, and I was wondering if any of you have any stories you can share about what he does to keep it fun or any favorite stories about him? EDDIE MURRAY: I don't know if I should say this, but in our A‑Sun Tournament right before the championship game, you're not allowed to touch the balls before the clock goes off, so we were in there messing around getting stretched and we decided there would be no better way to get loose than to play some freeze tag. So our entire team is running around tagging each other and stuff, and the guy in there watching our practice thought we were absolutely nuts. But after we won the championship, he's like, you guys are incredible. We keep it light. And then once we start practicing we get in the game and we get focused. But it's fun. Q. Being not so far from home, but this is obviously in your guys' backyard, when you hear last night everyone is sort of supporting you in this area and obviously I heard stories that there were no Florida Gulf Coast tee shirts left on the concourse, is it almost an adopted feeling for you being here and being out of your element a little bit? BRETT COMER: I mean, for sure. You know, we are very far away from home. I'm pretty sure nobody here has really heard of us before this game. We put on a show, though, last night. We had everybody happy and having fun watching us play. And I feel like we've got a lot of fans off of that. We're very exciting to watch. We push the ball down the court, there's a lot of dunks, there's a lot of excitement. We have a lot of characters on our team like Sherwood Brown, who likes to flex and blow kisses at the crowd. We're definitely going to gain a lot of people like that, so it's definitely fun. EDDIE MURRAY: Early on in the game I kind of thought that more people would be going for the underdog, but they weren't really too vocal in the beginning. As we started getting a couple dunks here and there, knocking down a couple threes and going on a big run against Georgetown, the crowd really started to erupt, become more vocal. The place really started rocking there for a while. Yeah, all these people in Philadelphia have really come to like our team and are rooting for us. SHERWOOD BROWN: Yeah, we're very far away from our hometown, and after the game last night I feel like a lot of people out here in Philly make it seem like we're actually their home team, and they got behind us and they actually helped us along with our crowd, our hometown crowd, and they helped us will that victory last night. COACH ENFIELD: San Diego State, they've had a tremendous season. They have a coach that's been around a long time. He's a great guy, great coach. We're looking forward to playing them. We know we have our hands full. Q. You mentioned great coach. I'm wondering, do you know Steve Fisher at all well, any personal stories you can relate? COACH ENFIELD: Nothing personal other than I've met him a few times and had conversations, just one of those down to earth, tremendous people and really enjoy talking to him and when I watch his teams play, he's a really, really good basketball coach. Q. What are your thoughts on Jamaal Franklin, and any specific plan that you guys are going to have to stop him specifically? COACH ENFIELD: Well, if I had a plan I wouldn't tell you right now. I think he's the only player in the country that leads their team in scoring, rebounding, assists and steals. For a player to lead in four categories is pretty impressive. Watching him play on film, watching him play in person last night, he's one of the better players we've played against all season. Q. Can you give us an idea of the text messages and phone calls you've gotten since last night, and if you had to rank the top two or three, who would you put in there? COACH ENFIELD: Well, it's 450 and counting. I have not begun to reply to most of them because I just have been too busy with film work. I have three children with me on my trip, my two year old son kept me up all night, about an hour of sleep. But that's all part of it. It's fun. I've received congratulatory and advice from other coaches, people in the media, family, friends, people I haven't seen or heard from in 20 years. So I guess the funniest one was someone I went to high school with. They were giving me advice of what we did wrong last night and what we can do on Sunday to beat San Diego State. Q. You obviously have a very unusual story, with your business success in addition to basketball, so you're not the typical rising coach in terms of financially and so on. But what kind of vision do you have for your career? Do you see yourself using this as a launching pad to go to a bigger school, or do you‑‑ is there something about this situation that you especially like? COACH ENFIELD: My goal when I took this job was to build a program. I was fortunate to work for Leonard Hamilton at Florida State who was a master at building programs. He's done it three times. And my goal at Florida Gulf Coast was to come in, work with their AD Ken Kavanagh who hired me and create something special. And that continues to be my goal. I think we have a unique opportunity. If we keep getting good players, we do the right things in the classroom, in the community, on campus, and on the court, we can make FGCU one of the best basketball jobs at a mid major level in the country. Q. There was an article last night that asked if you were the most interesting man in the world. I'm just wondering if you are. COACH ENFIELD: I'm not that interesting. I'm a pretty simple person. It is a little chaotic around my household at times with three small children and being a basketball coach is not an easy profession from a weird hours and weekends and holidays, but as far as being interesting, I would say I'm way down the list. Q. I'll just relay a question I got this morning. How did Enfield find all these guys who can jump out of the gym? Where did you find these guys? They're basically all diamonds in the rough and now they're excelling on a national stage. COACH ENFIELD: Well, I coached in the NBA and in the ACC, and my style is an up tempo, athletic, long athletes. We like to push the ball. We like to defend with our long arms, need some shot blockers, quick guards, and if you play to your style, that style, you need certain type of recruits. There are players in our program already like Sherwood Brown and Chase Fieler and Eddie Murray, we saw them as talented but they needed to develop their skills. Eddie Murray scored 11 points the entire season his sophomore year. Last year he started for us a lot, this year he's key, played great last night, had nine points and five or six rebounds. Sherwood Brown has developed in the last year and a half into the Player of the Year of in our conference; had 24 points last night. Chase Fieler was second team All Conference this year. Sherwood and Chase are two of the most improved players I've seen in the country over the last year. And then the freshmen we brought in when we got the job in April, Brett Comer and Bernard Thompson were our first two visitors and Eric McKnight was our third and Filip Cvjeticanin was our fourth. So we signed the first four players to come visit in April after we got the job. Well, they're all sophomores, so we have a young team. We start three sophomores and a junior, we have two transfers sitting out, 6'10" Nate Hicks out of Georgia Tech, and a 6'6" forward Jamail Jones out of Atlanta, Georgia, he played at Marquette. Jamail was the 52nd ranked player coming out of high school two years ago, so for FGCU to get a top 50 player recruit was big for us. We expect to keep recruiting to our style. If we look for certain things in players, we also look at their attitudes, and will they fit in with our personality. If you're not a fun loving guy, if you take yourself too seriously or you're just a jerk, you're not going to play for me. Q. Piggy‑backing on that, some people would think of a team that's fun loving, and you said last night you have a bunch of crazy guys on a team that maybe doesn't take things as seriously on the court. Is that a mistake if they look at your team, oh, they're just out there having fun and throwing up dunks and things like that? COACH ENFIELD: Well, as long as the dunks go in, I'm fine with it. It's a fine line. You have to be serious when it matters. Game preparation, practices, look, I'll raise my voice if I say recess is over, it's over, and you can have all the fun you want, but when it's time to prepare for a game, when we're on the court, you need to be serious and you need to play and be a good teammate and play hard. So if they do that, it's great. I think that's what college basketball is all about. I think you need to‑‑ you can't just be too uptight and serious all the time, and my players, they have unique personalities. You've probably seen that. I think that helps them tremendously in games because they don't care who we play. They don't care what stage they're on. They don't care where they play. They just have this unique confidence about them to compete. And it helps because when you go to Cameron Indoor like we did this year and you play Miami and Iowa State and VCU and Georgetown and Mercer and the better teams on our schedule, it really helps us put everything‑‑ just block everything out, and we pretend it's a pickup game in our own gym, and whether we got to throw an alley‑oop with two and a half minutes left and bring the house down or we have to go down to the other end and defend, they're going to do it. So to answer your question, as long as they can separate the fun from the seriousness at the right time, it's really positive for our program. Q. It seemed these players embraced being underdogs. Now that the attention is on them and there's a lot of excitement with this program and about these players, how do you keep that mentality going into tomorrow? COACH ENFIELD: We'll prepare for tomorrow's game like we've done all year long. We are going to win this basketball game. I don't know if we will. If we do things offensively and defensively like we have been doing, there's a good chance we will win the game. We've held the last six opponents under 40 percent from the field. Georgetown shot 38 percent last night. Our team field goal percentage for the season is at 40 percent which I think is great. Offensively we scored 78 last night on the fifth‑ranked defensive team in the country, against Mercer in the championship game in our conference. We scored 88 points on the seventh‑ranked defensive team in the country. We've averaged almost 80 points a game here the last six or seven games, went 13 and 2 in our last 15 games. We are playing at a high level. We're playing our style of basketball. But at some point you need to adjust. Like in the first half we had to adjust to Georgetown's style, and I thought we played too much like their style in the beginning and throughout the first half, and at halftime we made it a point, if you want to win this game, you can't‑‑ it can't be in the 40s. If it's 48‑46 or 48‑44 you're probably going to lose. It needs to be in the 60s, 70s, if we get it to 80 that's great but we only had 24 at halftime so we knew 75 or 80 was going to be tough. Ended up in the game with 78 points. That was our style of play in the second half, and if we can do that on Sunday, we'll have a great chance to win the basketball game. Q. Your kids, as you say, they seem composed. Has it all been put aside what happened last night, and they are just on to the next thing, and for you to keep that focus rather than getting caught up in the hysteria, is that an easier thing than it looks? COACH ENFIELD: It's not easy to‑‑ in my opinion, this is a time of their life. They need to enjoy this, embrace the moment. This is what college basketball should be. We're a big underdog. I want them to take a deep breath and remember this the rest of their lives. Whether we win or lose tomorrow or go any further in the tournament. But they know, because I'll remind them, when it's time to prepare for the next game, it's all business. And that's my job as head coach, to make sure we do that as a team and a program. I tell the players, my assistant coaches were up until 4:30 in the morning watching film last night, so when they say something you'd better listen. And if not, you won't get fed tonight, and you'll go to bed early. Q. You likened Georgetown a little bit to Mercer as far as match‑ups go. Is there anyone in the non‑conference you saw this year and in conference you might liken SDSU to possibly, and the second part is a 15 seed has never been to the Sweet 16. COACH ENFIELD: San Diego State plays on the west coast and I'm in bed every night at about 9:30 or 10:00 every night so I haven't seen any of their games. I couldn't tell you‑‑ before watching film today and watching two players on their team. I couldn't tell you two players on their team. I knew their coach. So we don't know much about them. We know they're really good. They wouldn't be here at this point if they weren't, and they have some great players. To compare them it's really tough comparison because I just don't know enough about them. What was your next question? Q. 15 seed has never been‑‑ COACH ENFIELD: Yeah, it's a goal. If no 15 seed has ever made the Sweet 16, that should be a goal of ours I should think. Thanks for telling me. Q. Did you ever have‑‑ did you ever try to sell this vision when you first came to the school of doing something like this, and now that you've pulled the big upset, how do you use that to kind of rise the wave going forward? COACH ENFIELD: Yes, we sold this vision. It wasn't play San Diego State in the second round on a Sunday in Philadelphia, it was a vision of success, it was a vision of making our players better every week and every month, and what was in it for four years and what they could expect in the classroom, off the court and on the basketball court. That's the vision we sell, and I think that's most recruiting. You have to let players know what they should expect from you during their time at your school. I aim for the stars. I don't sell, hey, we want to be a good team. We lay out a plan, where do you want to be, and then we try to put things in place to get them there, and a lot of it relies on the players' work ethic and their desire when you're not around them as a coach, what are they doing to make themselves better. I am very proud of our players. We have some of the most improved players in the country on our team this year. They've made huge jumps, and I think that's big in selling that recruiting. Players don't walk in college ready for the most part. If they are, they're playing at Duke and Carolina and Kentucky. For the rest of us, we have to get guys that are talented but they all have different flaws, and we have to sell that vision of how we're going to address those flaws and where we're going to go as a program. And to be at this point in two years, we didn't lay that out, but it's not unexpected to me. We didn't come in and say as a staff, we need to win our league in two years. What we said is we're going to show up every day and every week and make this program better than it was yesterday and last week, and however long it takes to be successful, we're fought going to stop until it gets there. That's our motto. We had no time frame for this, but we're very fortunate to be in this place after two short years. Q. I'm wondering if you could help me accurately but briefly recapitulate your sort of professional track after grad school. I'm just a little muddled. My impression is that your initial move was to create sports‑related businesses, the lacrosse camp, the basketball, the shooting consultant, and then you had a great success with a non‑sports business. At what point‑‑ when I assume you could have had a Wall Street career and gone a more corporate path, did you wrestle with the question what truly is my first love and is it back to basketball? COACH ENFIELD: Well, after a few bad losses this year I wish I was still on Wall Street, but now I'm happy I'm here. I don't really like to talk about myself, so I'll go over this, but this is not‑‑ I don't really like to say this in the first person and brag about my career, so please take this with a grain of salt. When I was in graduate school, my goal was I funded my graduate school with some scholarship money but also I had a lacrosse camp with Dave Pietramala who is the head coach at Johns Hopkins who is the best defensive player probably to ever play. We were partners in basketball shooting camps, which is my specialty. So I funded my graduate school through the camps and clinics, and then when I got out I wanted to start my condition consulting business for NBA players called All Net Basketball, and I was a shooting consultant and a shooting coach, and I went out and was able to get some clients and help them improve their shooting technique and their percentages. My goal was to get in the NBA. I wanted to be an NBA coach, was fortunate to have Mike Dunleavy hire me for the Milwaukee Bucks as a shooting coach. I spent a couple years in Milwaukee, was‑‑ at that time there weren't a lot of player development shooting coaches in the league. I think it was myself and one other person. It was kind of a new thing. When we got fired in Milwaukee I ramped up my business and then ramped up my camp business and also my NBA consulting business and had a lot of NBA clients. Then I was hired by the Boston Celtics as an assistant coach on the bench, so it was really able to get into game planning and scouting and player development and do everything for Rick Pitino, and it was a great experience because he gave us a lot of responsibility, had a third of the scouts with the other two assistants, so it was my job to prepare the team. So working for Mike Dunleavy and then Rick Pitino was really able to know the NBA and the league, and we still use a lot of those NBA sets and quick hitters in the transition game right now in our system. Then I left and went to New York City and I continued my on net basketball business and I was hired by two other NBA teams as a consultant and also a lot of different players. I produced my first instructional video with Glen Rice of the Charlotte Hornets and our second video I did in New York with player shooting techniques. Onnetshooting.com is the website. So through onnetshooting.com I was able to sell the video and shooting device worldwide and ramp up that business even further. At the same time, I had a good friend in New York, New York/New Jersey, named Tom Risk, who was previously a CEO of a publicly traded company that was semi retired, and through Tom and his partnership I joined his partnership, and we created a company around a technology called Tracked Manager, which is a contract management service in the health care industry, which I didn't know much about. Since I had my MBA in finance I wanted to try to build a startup company and see where it went. Through Tom's leadership and the other great people I worked with, we were able to make it successful and eventually profitable and had to raise quite a few million dollars to do that. So I was really doing the NBA consulting through on net basketball and the track manager at the same time. And I didn't want to go back as a full‑time NBA coach. I met my wife Amanda in New York City. She was a very successful model, and at the peak of her career she was flying all over the world, and I said, hey, I have an offer, an opportunity at Florida State to go back and get into the college game, and if I go back to coaching full time instead of just doing the consulting, I'd rather have it on a college campus because I think it's much more engaging and entertaining and just a better atmosphere for a family, and I want our kids, if we have children, to be around that. So we left New York City, she gave up a very successful ‑‑ in the prime of her career to become a coach's wife and a mother and had three children. So I give her a lot of credit for that. It was a lot easier on me to make the transition than it was on her. So I spent five years in Tallahassee at Florida State with Leonard Hamilton, and then the last two years. So that's kind of a brief thing. Q. You mentioned you had 450 text messages and counting. I was wondering if that was more or less than Amanda because I think she got about twice the face time. COACH ENFIELD: She deserves it. She has a much prettier face than mine. Yeah, Amanda, funny story about Amanda, the way we met. It was in New York, it was on her way to an NCAA basketball game, the first round. She's an Oklahoma State fan because she grew up in Oklahoma. And a mutual friend of hers had approached me and asked me if we were going. Amanda had the tickets, and I said that‑‑ well, if you're going to go up, you can just come with me. I'm going to drive. They were going to buy plane tickets from New York to Boston because the first round was in Boston. Oklahoma State was playing. I said, just come with me. Save yourself $500. Then I pulled up to the Starbucks in Manhattan to pick them up, and as soon as I saw Amanda get in my car, I knew it would be a good trip. (Laughter). So I had a great weekend. And then our first date was actually at the NIT when we got back to New York the next week. We went to a St.John's NIT game and sat right behind the bench. It was at queens. We had to go to the on campus arena. I was going to take her out to a nice dinner beforehand but we got to Queens and I couldn't find a restaurant that I thought was either nice or she wanted to go to, so we ended up going‑‑ I said there has to be something on campus, let's go to the student union. There's got to be a Chili's or something. Well, the only thing that was open was Taco Bell. She stuck with me. I got her a nice burrito and we sat behind the bench, and I figured if she still likes me after Taco Bell and a basketball game. But she's such a big sports fan, and she used to go in New York to‑‑ she loves college football and basketball. She used to go to sports bars by herself like at noontime on a Saturday afternoon because Oklahoma State was playing football. She would be the only female in the bar. She was belly up to the bar and watch football. You can imagine with 300 guys in the bar and here she is watching football by herself, but she made it clear to everyone that came up to her, hey, I'm watching football so don't talk to me. But she's such a big fan, and I thought that was really why we got along so well, because of her interest in sports. And then she's just a down to earth person, and what a sacrifice she has made to give up‑‑ from flying all over the world to doing fashion shoots for some of the biggest designers on the planet to moving to Tallahassee, Florida, which is a nice place, but it's not New York and it's not Milan and it's not Sidney and it's not Paris. So I'm just very blessed to have someone like her with me, and this is a celebration for her and my family, as well, because for her to sacrifice, it just makes me feel great to see the smile on her face knowing what she gave up to be here. Q. What year was that, that you met? Which NIT, do you recall? COACH ENFIELD: St.John's played Virginia, whatever year that was. THE MODERATOR: I believe it was 2003. COACH ENFIELD: Yeah, we've been married about eight and a half, almost nine years, and I think it was the year before, so that's great. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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