MEMPHIS, Tenn. — As is the case with superheroes, college basketball coaches have unique origin stories that help establish and differentiate who they are and what they’re about.
They come from all corners and in all colors, but some stand out more than others.
Griff Aldrich might have the most unique entry into the coaching ranks of any coach in the NCAA Tournament.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Some 10 years ago, Aldrich, whose 16th-seed Longwood Lancers face tremendous odds against top-seeded Houston on Friday, was a high-earning law partner at Vinson & Elkins, a prestigious Houston law firm.
His best friend from college, Ryan Odom, had taken a standard head coach origin track, starting as a graduate assistant, and working his way up from school-to-school for 20 years. When Odom was hired at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, the talks became serious.
UH VS. LONGWOOD: Breaking down No. 1 vs. No 16.
Well, serious if you consider $32,000 a year serious.
A 41-year-old successful attorney changing careers to chase a coaching dream for chump change? He must be crazy.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
“Yeah, most people thought I was crazy,” Aldrich said Thursday. “I think a lot of people didn’t understand it. A lot of people thought it was too much risk.
“And in fact, I just got an email from a colleague in the private-equity world earlier this week saying, ‘Well, I think you were right.’
“But again, I think that’s where I go back to the freedom of you get to do what you want to do rather than what you think people think you ought to do. And so, it’s been a fun journey.”
It is deeper than that for Aldrich, who grew up in Virginia Beach and is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, a Division III college in Virginia.
“Why did I get into coaching? My faith,” Aldrich said. “I think God was taking me on a journey personally where he was revealing to me that my identity wasn’t just in what I did day to day.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
“And there was real freedom when I realized that my identity is supposed to be in Christ, that I got the opportunity to start thinking about, well, what do I want to do.”
Don’t misunderstand. This journey isn’t about “I.” His family — he and his wife have three adopted children — were involved with a Christian ministry in Third Ward that touched them.
RELATED: No. 1 UH not taking No. 16 Longwood for granted
“The more and more time we spent, it felt like this was something that not just me, but my wife and my kids were being called to,” Aldrich said two years ago when he first led Longwood to the NCAA Tournament. “We really thought it would be more AAU. I never thought I would be coaching college; never thought I would be a head coach. That was never the plan.”
Divine intervention, says Aldrich, who is a finalist for the Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award, which is given annually to a Division I coach who exhibits strong moral character.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Well … Aldrich was a longtime Houston resident before that Longwood tournament appearance. His lone mention in the Houston Chronicle was in 2015, when he and his wife Julie Wareing were among 500 guests in “summer whites” at a fancy soiree honoring Phoebe Tudor and Ann Kennedy for their work in transforming Hermann Park’s McGovern Centennial Gardens into a beautiful space.
Yet, he is now a head basketball coach in the NCAA Tournament, a fifth-year coach going against Kelvin Sampson who got his first head coaching job in 1981.
Aldrich doesn’t earn the money the big-time coaches from power conferences do. Big South Conference coaches don’t roll like that.
There are coaches with clothing and car allowances that top Aldrich’s monthly salary. But Aldrich doesn’t seem to be looking for the move up.
He agreed to a 10-year extension with Longwood a year ago.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Sampson met Aldrich last summer when the two ran across each on the recruiting/scouting trail.
“I just remember having a really nice conversation with a really, really nice man,” Sampson said. “Then I heard about his story, being an attorney, chasing his dream of coaching. It’s kind of neat. Kind of courageous. A lot of guys won’t do that. Hats off to him for doing it.
“Watching his team play, that’s a great story. And they’re good. They’re well-coached. You can tell. He knows what he’s doing. He’s got a very well-coached team.”
When the Lancers made the Tournament two years ago, they lost by 32 points to No. 3-seed Tennessee.
Obviously, Houston has little to worry about, since No. 1 seeds do not lose to No. 16 seeds. Well, they didn’t until the University of Maryland-Baltimore County shocked the Virginia Cavaliers in 2018. Remember UMBC?
Guess who was the lead recruiter and Director of Program Development for the Retrievers. A millionaire, who quit his job to basically volunteer on his friend’s college basketball staff. (Insert “Twilight Zone” theme music, here.)
Aldrich downplayed his role in UMBC’s historic victory — Fairleigh Dickinson became the second team to pull that off with a win over Purdue in last year’s tournament — but does see some similarities in the teams.
“I think each team has its own journey,” he said. “I think there’s some really important elements of that team, the UMBC team that won … they believed. They believed in themselves. They had experiences early in the year. They were a very confident team, very similar to our team. They were connected. They really enjoyed one another.”
But Aldrich has barely mentioned those huge upsets in talking to his team.
“For us, we want to be Longwood, not a UMBC repeat, or Fairleigh Dickinson repeat,” Aldrich said. “We want to write our own story.”
Wait, the story could get better?
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Rachel Marsden
Donald Low
Bradley Blankenship
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
Michael Kwet
visit website
