Thirty five after the hour. Welcome out of Friday. I hope you got
plans for the weekend and we'll enjoy it as well. Always enjoy the conversation
we have with Great Campy on one of the most accomplished coaches in his division
one tenure forty years at Oakland University. What a ride it has been.
And he gets a contract extension and deservedly so. He joins us here on
exus and Bros. Coach, hope you and your family are well. Congratulations
you are the longest tenured coach. You've done it for forty years. Why
do you keep doing it? That's another question, Matt, especially you know,
in this day and age with you know, the way things are changing
so much, and those of the people in my generation you know, are
moving on to do something now. And it's funny, is because when I
talk to is So, I think we start every conversation with why we're still
doing this, you know, And the truth of the matter is, man,
I don't know what else I would do. I'm going. I love
it. It's still no matter how it changes, no matter you know you
hear of doomsday coming and all that kind of stuff. I still get to
be around eighteen to twenty two year old young men, you know, every
day and having a part of their lives and being able to help shape their
lives. Whether they're only with me for a year and now or they're with
me for four it's still something that I kind of enjoy and revel in.
Yeah, but you could retire. Are you one of those guys who just
can't sit still and you need to do something? Or is it just because
of the intoxication you get from coaching basketball and make a difference in young people's
lives, both on the floor and off it. I like that word intoxicating
it because it's probably what it is. Yeah, you know it's Yeah.
I don't know what else I would do, really, man. I have
play golf. I play a lot of golf, but a lot of that
is because it's like playing hooky. You know. If I get out there
and play around the golf, I enjoy it because I know maybe I shouldn't
even be out here. And you know, if I could play every day
and not have to worry about anything, I'm not sure I would enjoy it
as much. So, and then you know, there's competition has been in
you know my whole life has been competition growing up as a kid, as
a player, and then I got into coaching right away, and you know,
I'm a very competitive person, and I think I would really miss that,
you know, I really do. And I'm sure there will be a
day that I walk in and say, Okay, I've had enough, But
right now I don't see that day anywhere near so Khaki Cousins or the Sharf,
because both are fantastic there at your school. Yeah, there are very
few golf courses, or very few institutions at college institutions in this country that
have two golf courses, and there are value that have ye know, they
have one good one, let alone too. So I'm an old school guy.
Though I like Khaki yeah better, you know. I just I think
it's a better test of boff I. There's nothing wrong with either. I
mean, they're both top twenty thirty golf courses in the state of Michigan,
so it's kind of cool that we have them on our campus. And yeah,
but I like Khaki the best. I asked this the other day of
somebody of Jim Leland when he was on our show, and I said,
who's the ideal for them? If you could have any foursome, your three
other golfers obviously to play with, whether they're alive or dead, and whether
they're good golfers or not. Who would be in that forsome for you?
Oh? Wow, jeez? If that would depend on are we playing for
money? Are we just playing for fun? No, you're playing for the
enjoyment of life. Oh okay, because if we were playing for money,
i'd want guys with a lot of money. They were going to get a
lot of right, right, And guys who can hit from the whites.
Yeah. Yeah, you guys go all the way to the back and let
me come up here. Right. So well, I mean I'm a religious
guy, so obviously if Jesus Christ was alive, that would be that would
be number one of all time, you know, to have an opportunity to
do that, that would that would be I think if I could get him,
it just be me and him. I wouldn't want to share him with
anybody else. Well that's a great answer. Yeah, that's a great answer.
And you know what the only thing is, you know, you wonder
if he would give you the three foot gimmes. You know, that's good.
He'd probably make you put it in a great camping joiner is here on
exus and Bros. What's the biggest challenge you faced today as a head coach
compared to maybe not when you first started, but even just twenty years ago.
What's the biggest challenge in how do you deal with it? Well?
I think social media is obviously, you know, far and away, social
media has changed the world. You know, it's just not changed. It's
just not changed sports or athletics or college basketball football. It's changed the world.
The amount of disinformation, the amount of people that feel free to say
whatever they want to say, the way that our youth and the way people
believe what's on there, and how we our youth really strives for likes and
follows, And now why wouldn't they because you're they're being compensated. The more
people they can get to follow them, the more you know, they can
be compensated for that. There's all these influencers out there, and I think
that's the biggest biggest challenge. You know, we talk a lot within our
team to you know, keep the outside noise out, you know, that
type of stuff, but it's almost impossible to do today. And it's not
just college I mean that's what pros do. As soon as they get back
to their locker, they're on their phones to see what's going on and what's
being said about them, which is really unfortunate. You win the Horizon League
regular season title a year ago and the tournament title a year ago. I've
said this for a long time. I don't think mid major programs get the
opportunity enough to get enough teams in for you to have the resume you had
and win the regular season and then have to do it again in the tournament
is borderline unfair. What do you think should change for mid major teams to
have I don't even want an equal play necessarily a level playing field, but
a better opportunity to showcase more of the thrilling moments we get, like when
your team beat Kentucky. Yeah, that's an age old question. And what
I tell people, and I think it's the rises them as our conference tournament
is it is the I don't ever want to see that goal away because at
the mid major level, the only other times you're going to cut nets down
is if you go to the final four, and then again if you win
the championship. You know you don't cut next we beat Kentucky, we didn't
cut the nets down. If you know, we almost beat NC State,
we lost in the LA you know, and overtime, And even if we'd
won that game, we're going to the Sweet sixteen. We don't cut the
nets down. And so every conference tournament ends with you know, the confetti
flying, the team cutting nets down, the you know, you've accomplished something
so hard that I would hate to see that go away, and our players
lose that because the chances of them cutting the nets down at the national championship
game aren't probably that that good. Yeah, it's hard. I mean,
of the thirty leagues last year, twenty one of the thirty champions got beat
in their conference tournament. And then, you know, I say this a
lot. I don't think people really understand what I'm saying. I think they're
trying to They look at me as making an excuse or something like that.
But you know, Michigan State's got a string of twenty eight or nine straight
years going to the nc Tournament something like that. Correct, Yeah, And
in the last twenty years, since two thousand and five, the only way
that Oakland can get to the NCAA tournament is to win our conference tournament,
right, we just talked about that. So we've won it four times in
the last twenty years. The conference tournament. How many times you think Michigan
State has won the Big Ten conference tournament most twenty years? The number four,
I was going to say three, but yeah, okay, yeah,
Michigan has won at three. I think Western Michigan's won at once, Detroit's
won at once. Eastern Michigan I don't think has won it in the last
twenty years. Central Mischigan and maybe I don't think they have either. So
that's how hard it is to win that conference tournament, and that's how hard
it is for a mid major to get to the NCAA tournament. But the
Power fives, obviously, Mission State's gone twenty eight years in a row,
and I'm not belittling that it in any way, shape or form. I'm
just I'm just giving honest information out there. So when we have this conversation,
we realize how hard it is. But it's also really hard to win
the regular season, is my point, and it's been my points for a
long time. I'm not taking anything away from Power five conferences either, And
look, I'm a MAC guy. I'm a mid major guy, so there's
there might be some bias. But when you put together and you're as a
coach, you're telling your guys, look, every game matters, we want
to be the one seed, so on and so forth, and then you
slip up one game compared to the entire regular season. I think that is
short changing a mid major team. I don't have the answer, so I
don't want to be a hypocrite here. I don't necessarily have the answer.
I just think it's a really tough challenge for these teams, and I think
there has to be a different way of looking at possibly getting them in even
if they happen to stub their toe in a mid major tournament championship game.
I noticed the whole talk about Danny Hurley going from Yukon to possibly the Lakers.
He's interviewing the Lakers today. Eleven coaches over the last thirty years coach
Campy have jumped from the collegiate game to the professional level. The winning percentage
combined is forty five percent. Two men, Billy Donovan and Brad Stevens,
are the only ones to have winning records. What do you think is the
biggest issue for college coaches to try and adapt to the NBA game. I
don't think it's the coaching part of it, man, I really don't.
I think some of it is problem. You know, when you're in college
at eighteen to twenty two year old and you're trying to turn them from you
know, not children but young adults into men. And when you get to
college at the pro level, you already you've already got men there, I
think, So that's part of it. But the biggest thing is roster construction.
And in college, I construct my roster. If I took an NBA,
I'm not constructing your roster. They have general managers and presidents and directors
of operations and all these people are making millions of dollars and that's their job
to figure out contracts and come up with the roster. So part of college
coaching is being obviously having a good roster. So then the second thing on
that I think is that most pro coaches take over, and that's why it's
open. They take over a bad situation, and it's a lot easier to
fix a bad situation at the college level than it is at the NBA level
through the draft or through however, you know, trades or however it's being
done at the NBA level and at college you have say, you know,
now, did John Calipari when he went to the next that he have total
say? I don't know. I would guess he didn't. But John Calipark
can coach now, and so it's more situational than it is coaching, the
actual coaching of it. But I do think there is you know, you're
not in the college level. Dan Hurley is king of you con right now.
All the roster decisions are made by him. If he says jump,
everybody in that building says how high it's you know, all the players if
they just want to be there, if they're being paid enough, they just
want to be there. So, uh, you know, it's a whole
different situation when he goes to the Lakers and he's going to have players that
you know, believe they should have a say and everything you've got an owner,
you've got. So I think it all has to do with that more
than it has to do with the exors o's of coaching. I agree on
how to persent with it. What do you like most about your situation at
Oakland speaking? You have king of campus what do you like most about your
situation there? Well, when you've been at a place as long as I've
been, you know, everybody right and now there's turnover and everything. But
you know, you walk into a building and a guy that's sweeping the floor
comes over and you have a conversation with him. You know, he's got
a son name so and so. You know you you know, and it's
a we've got twenty thousand students, but it's a small town atmosphere. You
know, I'm a small town guy. I grew up in Defiance, Ohio.
That's how my life always was. And uh so it just really has
fit me. Well, you know, I've got I got a group of
friends that you know, I got, I've got you know, a golf
course is to play, I've got you know, those are the things that
I have. A here's a better way to put it. I have a
great quality of life. And in this business, and you've been around this
business, you know, the quality of life. For the pressure of college
coaching at the level, you know, the highest levels, it really affects
your quality of life. You know, there's so many you know, pitfalls,
there's so many people you have to please, there's so many things that
have to be done that you know, the stress and the pressure of it
can really get to coaches and you see them get out and you see a
lot of coaches get fired because of that kind of stuff. So I've been
lucky, you know. I I love what I do. I have an
unbelievable situation that I live in, and I've never you know, there's a
song out there. The lyrics was, you know, it's not wanting what
you it's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got. And
I think that I've and somebody that's just wanted what I have. You've had
chances to go elsewhere, right plenty over your forty years. Why did you
ever learn about it? Because it was never It was never life changing money,
you know what I'm saying. It wasn't Michigan at three million a year
or five million a year or whatever it is, or it makes four million.
You know, it wasn't a Michigan or a Michigan state. It wasn't
a you know, obviously those are you know that in this where we live,
those are the two jobs to the best, you know, ten jobs
in the country. It wasn't those places. It wasn't a Kentucky or you
know, a Power five that you can go to the National Championship in.
And I didn't want to chase that. I never wanted to chase it.
I didn't want to take I wasn't willing to take the next step like the
Missouri Valley or you know. I've been offered, you know, a handful
of jobs like that over the years, and when I looked at them,
it just wasn't worth to chase. And you know, probably that's why I've
not gotten you know, the Tennessee that. You know, we go to
Tennessee and we beat them. Yeah, they're at seventh in the country.
We beat them, and the coach leaves and you know, I make a
phone call there and they say, yeah, yeah, wow, you're a
great coach. But you know, it's just not what we want right now.
So okay, you know that's fine. I'm lucky. I got what.
I got a good perspective last thing before I let you go. It's
been enjoyable. I always enjoy it with you. How much can you use
last year's success toward building quote unquote momentum for next year or this coming season
and afterwards we're hat. I mean that ended, and I've had more speaking
engagements, more you know, interviews, more, taking more pictures with people
came here. I tried at the draft. You know, of course,
there were seven hundred thousand people there and they're all they're all sports, you
know, related people, So it's not like a regular walk through the park
where somebody has no idea about basketball. Right, it took me over two
hours to walk from I was. I did something at the Caucus Club on
one side of town, and I had to walk to the Detroit Athletic Club,
which is about a ten minute walk. It took me over two hours
to get there, just because of the amount of pictures I had to take
with people. So we're a hot commodity right now, and we want to
keep that going. We want to build on it. We want to get
to a Sweet sixteen next year. We want to get to a Final four.
That's our goal and that's what we're trying to do. But the reality
of it is, you know, every white six foot five shooter in the
country's calling us and want to come here because they think they can be Jack
Golkid shoot three hundred threes right right, So when they call, and some
of them are really really good. I mean, they're guys that could do
what Goki did. But when they find out that we don't have one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars or two hundred thousand what they're asking for to come,
that conversation ends. They're more They're more interested in the money than the opportunity.
You know, Jack Golkie, no one knew who he was when the
Kentucky game tipped off. He had four hundred followers on Instagram, when five
hours after the Kentucky game he had sixty five thousand followers on Instagram. He's
made a ton of money because what he did. I can't convince these people
to make it that way. They want it up front, they want I'm
the outcome for one hundred and fifty thousands. Well, they've got to consider
you because you're such a great coach. You're a great person. I've always
appreciated our conversations and our friendships. I hope you and I can play golf
sometimes. In the meantime, enjoy your summer. You've earned a coach.
Thanks for the time today. Have a great weekend. I appreciate it.
Appreciate you having me on you bet