COOL, CALM AND COLLECTED:
Mike Riley is at the helm for Men’s Basketball at The University of the District Of Columbia
By Kevin E. Coleman
On June 11, 2013 Mike Riley was named to replace Jeff Ruland, as the new UDC Firebird Men’s Basketball coach, and it appears that Riley is just what the university needed to right the wrongs after five years of probation. “Mike is extremely well respected in the basketball community and understands this university well,” notes Patricia Thomas, Director of Athletics. “More importantly,
Mike Riley is a person of integrity; his work ethic is second to none and now he
has more of reason to be in this building twenty-four hours a day.”
Riley is no stranger to competing on a high level, crediting his success to discipline, hard work and developing a good product. He believes that the challenge will be to put a good product on the floor and that at the end of the day nobody cares about the challenges in order to get to game day. “You can talk about the things that lead up to this point, but only thing that you want to know is what type of product did you want to put out on game day. The challenge is to make sure that we are ready to play and have something that represents the university.”
When asked about his philosophy on coaching today’s athlete with expectations on them to be successful on and off the court, Riley responded that it could be measured in many ways.
“My philosophy would be to make sure that the kids are doing what they need to do. This can be anything from making sure the locker room is clean, speaking to people when they see them, making sure they go to class on time, show up for the bus on time, putting forth maximum effort during practice. My expectations are that we do all those things, because doing all those things makes us a better team. You are a product of all this little things that you put together in getting to that point.”
Riley inherited a team, that in four seasons has been barred from recruiting and held to scholarship limitations; does this make him optimistic yet cautious about this first season?
“October 15th is the day we open for practice. I am thinking within a couple of weeks we get to scrimmage and get a test of where the team is. Yeah, that’s a very good way of putting it. I am very optimistic but cautious of the process. As I said during the press conference, I am not making any predictions. I am cautious of stepping from one step to the other but am confident. I know the things I want to do with this team based on the personnel we have.”
The UDC athletic department needs leadership and redemption after receiving the 2008 infractions handed down by the NCAA and the foundation bestowed upon Mike Riley seems to be the best way to start in rebuilding a program.
“I have been very fortunate to have been around some very good coaches that have tutored and mentor me. One of them was Lawrence Bradford, who attended and played at Federal City College (UDC). The other one was Harold Dean, my high school coach at Cardoza. The third was John Thompson of Georgetown- who coached me and I later worked for him. Those guys built programs and in the process of building the program, I saw that all the little things were important. How they present themselves (to others) and expected the team to do as well. I would like to do is build a program based on those things I have learned. The things basketball related (X’s and O’s) come with the territory but at some point and time you have to personalities together with that. The tools that I have learned in the process with everything are “life skills”. It is what you carry with you everyday. When you are presenting things to people, you have to remember that they are not machines…they are people. I have to take into consideration how I say something to you better either you can handle it or I would have to adjust the method in order to coach you. With today’s media the athlete is reading or listening all the time to other people than myself. It easy to persuade them into trying something other than I can instruct them to do. When you have that happening, your job becomes tougher. You have come into a coaching and practice situation stating “this is how we are going to do this”…this is way we are going to do it and here is the process to do it in going the team and players aboard. It is a process…and I plan on taking my time and getting through it.”
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