Adams State's Louis Wilson featured in Basketball Times
Adams State University men's basketball coach Louis Wilson was recently featured in the September, 2012 edition of Basketball Times magazine. The story, authored by Lew Freedman, explores Wilson's background, his relationship with father figure and Grizzly assistant coach Chuck White, and his family type approach to the Grizzly basketball program, which has posted an impressive 39-18 in Wilson's two seasons at the helm, both of which have resulted in NCAA Division II Tournament appearances.
The article titled "The Middle of Somewhere" can be found below...
ALAMOSA, Colo.-You can read the game on Louis Wilson's face, the ups and downs play out in expressions of satisfaction and frowns of displeasure as his Adams State team runs the court.
What you can't read so simply is the story of the journey that brought him here, to this Division II basketball school at high altitude a few hours south of Denver in the Rocky Mountains.
Setting out to become a career college basketball coach requires a sense of adventure and the awareness that you will not live in the same zip code for 40 years. There is a process, a path, a likely road followed, and when you are in your 20s, you don't think that it will take another 20 years to fulfill your dream.
With luck you learn along the way, you network, you become known in the profession.
One day you wake up and you realize you are there and you didn't even quite know it. Maybe the carousel has stopped spinning and you are supported by a marvelous family in a place you didn't even know existed when you were a kid and it's home.
That might be exactly where Louis Wilson is today, long after he grew up fatherless in Anchorage, Alaska, where was tutored by a hard-nosed, brusque, but deep-down-inside caring father-figure coach. Long after he was miraculously plucked from the obscurity of being an assistant high school to become a Division I assistant. Adams State is his home after spending 18 years in the shadows as an assistant on a grand tour of the west at Southern Utah, Idaho State and Cal-State Northridge.
He has his own show, is the head man, the boss of a college basketball program, and he's 46 years old and no longer a boy wonder, but he's doing all he really, really wanted to do.
"I was 26 years old when I thought I was going to beat the world," Wilson said as he sat on the back deck of his home overlooking the Rio Grande River while gazing at a backdrop of 14,000-foot mountains. "What you know about Division I basketball is what you see on TV. I thought I'd be the head coach of a high major program and rule the world. Then you start to understand the challenge of it."
The team dinner was held at Coach Wilson's rented home, cooked by him, his wife Andrea and his mother Dolores Waldron, visiting from Alaska, the night before the weekend's final games of the 2011-12 season began in February. Players' parents came from around the country, too.
Wilson allowed each senior to request a favorite dish and then cooked vats of other types of food, from pasta to chicken, to meats to Mexican, from soup to salad, not to mention Wilson's specialty gumbo. Besides his many fancy suits, Wilson also owns an apron. It was quite the operation and involved nearly eight hours in the kitchen. If you play for Duke, Coach K will probably not cook for you during your entire four seasons with the Blue Devils. If you play for Adams State, Coach Wilson will cook for you before every home game. He said the cost breaks down to $10 a person with smart grocery store shopping, a price for the volume and quality that he could not hope to match in a restaurant. Adams State can't afford fancy group meals in restaurants - not in the budget - but Wilson adds the personal touch.
Wilson had absorbed more than two decades worth of basketball as a player and coach when he finally got his chance to be a head man here in 2010.
Taking over a program that was coming off 4-23, Wilson immediately produced the Grizzlies' first 20-game winning season in 2010-11 and then nearly repeated with 19 wins in 2011-12, guiding both groups to the NCAA Division II playoffs. Winning 20 in his first year as a head coach was special for Wilson.
"It was particularly gratifying because it was a struggling program before," Wilson said.
Several seniors at the feed were two-year players, junior-college transfers, and Wilson believed he owed them more than an entrée and a vegetable side dish.
"I will always be indebted to them," Wilson said. "It's my first recruiting class as a head coach. There wasn't a lot to buy into. They bought into something I said because not only was the house not built, the dirt hadn't been moved."
Wilson talks a lot about sending his players out into the world as responsible young men with degrees. Lord knows at Division II, not many can seriously entertain the idea of a tryout in the NBA or making it big in professional ball anywhere.
One outgoing player was Robby Hanzlik, son of former NBA player Bill, who is now a Denver Nuggets broadcaster. Another was Delray Wilson, the coach's nephew.
"He taught me a lot," the younger Wilson said. "I don't think anybody's going to forget anything he says."
There are no national TV games in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. Good attendance is in the 2,000 range. Wilson might operate out of the limelight, but he didn't spend his apprenticeship preparing to run a losing program. A one-time high school state champion point guard at Anchorage's East High School, a junior-college guard at Trenton State in Missouri and then at D-II William Jewell, the 6-foot-1 Wilson's basketball mind was always one step ahead of his basketball talent.
He has been devoted to the game from the time he was an elementary school kid keeping stats in his head while his high-scoring cousin ran up big points at the high school Wilson later attended. While he was a high-school assistant, he wrote a letter to Bobby Knight asking for advice - and was so nervous when Knight wrote back that he carried the letter around for two days without opening it. He was scared Knight was going to tell him he was an idiot who had no business coaching. (Knight was gracious and answered questions).
But all of that came after an observant coach running a basketball summer camp recognized the neediness in the little boy with no money to play standing at the doorway to his gym sniffing the aroma of a free lunch. Wilson admitted later the smell of free hamburgers actually attracted him more than the bouncing balls. Something in the kid's manner stood out - a hunger to belong, perhaps.
It's going on nearly 40 years now since Wilson rode his bicycle to the East High gym and coach Chuck White, the most successful high-school coach in Alaska in any sport, invited him inside that door. White, 70, won 921 basketball games and 18 state championships in Alaska, and there is an exhibit touting his achievements in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
A special bond formed between Wilson the youngster, and then the high-school player, and White, and it remains strong. Didn't matter for a second that White is a white man and that Wilson is black. Didn't matter that White's intimidating demeanor - he was a sideline screamer - usually scared young people.
"He followed Coach White around," said Wilson's mother Dolores. "He was crazy about Chuck White. He was a great influence on him. I used to say, 'You act like Chuck.' White, she said, "was very much so" a father figure for Wilson.
When White retired from Alaska coaching a couple of years ago he moved just outside of Denver, a few-hour drive from Alamosa. One of the first phone calls Wilson made when he got his head coaching chance was to White - asking him to be an assistant on his staff. It felt so right to pay back the man who taught him so much. And it was a blessing for White, who did not have a ton of hobbies in retirement and always wondered what it would be like to be part of the college game. The last time White was involved in college ball outside of sending innumerable players to schools on scholarship, was 50 years earlier at Idaho, where he shared the frontcourt with future Hall of Famer Gus Johnson.
"It was within the first 24 hours after I took the job," Wilson said of how quickly he reached out to White. "I did it purely because that's the person that introduced me to basketball and instilled and developed my love of the game. That was a no-brainer for me if he wanted to do it."
White did, and now during the season, White actually has a room in Wilson's home. The 4,000-square-foot house is rented, not a perk that came with Wilson's salary of $72,000. It has room for Wilson, his wife, his two kids, White, an assistant women's basketball coach, plus space for the team to eat. With White on the premises, it's a little bit like having a live-in grandpa for Wilson's elementary-school-aged daughters Keawe and Kalea, though, like everyone else, they call him "Coach."
Wilson has a few weaknesses, or hobbies that can divert his mind from basketball besides family. He is one of the world's all-time intense Michael Jackson fans (he has one of the singer's tunes on call-waiting) and is passionate about the New York Yankees and about dressing sharp. Even when Wilson was a semi-broke assistant coach, he was the best dresser in the gym, though the wardrobe stretched his own budget.
If Wilson was gifted with an analytical basketball mind, he was also awarded a talent for talking. He can do a perfect Dick Vitale imitation. He loves arguing politics so much, cable-TV political shows seem to run 24/7 in his home.
As a player, Wilson was a bench warmer and a star. He can relate to single-parent households because he was raised in one. He has been financially on the brink (try to live on the $5,000 restricted earnings salary he first earned at Southern Utah), and he has been gainfully employed. So when recruiting, he can speak from a variety of personal experiences.
"You're leading a program in a city of 12,000 people, 40,000 in the San Luis Valley," Wilson said. "We're next to a national park. I think it's a great place, but you don't have a lot of bells and whistles here for 18-to-20-year-old basketball players. In small towns, you don't sell them, you educate them about what's good."
For Adams State, that is the education, friendly atmosphere on campus, proximity to the outdoors, and the tight-knit way he runs the program.
"We follow the principles of pride, trust and family equals 'we,'" Wilson said. "It's we over me. You create a home environment. Every birthday of every team member there's a cake. They've got to know they can depend on a personal relationship."
Wilson has also worked in Cedar City, Utah, for Southern Utah and Idaho State in Pocatello, Idaho. Neither are cities that make the top-10 list for black culture. Wilson likes to think he is glib, adaptable, and sincere enough to get along with anybody.
When Wilson lived in Cedar City, a community of about 17,000 people, he said, "As far as I know, I am the only black professional in town. I'm very conscious of who and what I am."
The fact that Wilson parachuted into his job at Southern Utah from Anchorage when he had zero college-coaching experience is remarkable in itself and illustrates the it's-who-you-know aspect of college coaching connections. Bill Evans, the former Alaska-Anchorage assistant coach (and now head man at Idaho State), was the new coach at Southern Utah, and he knew Wilson.
"I just saw a guy with tremendous people skills," Evans said of why he targeted the young Wilson for the college ranks. "He could talk to anybody. He was one of a kind. He's a very good coach. He's a very good motivator. He's far ahead of me. He's organized. He really understands the business. He's got a magic way with people. He sees things in people. Lou builds relationships and communicates with people.
When he lived in Trenton, Mo., Wilson said the men's and women's basketball players were virtually the only black people on campus and perhaps in town. Getting along with everybody wasn't so easy. At times rednecks drove past yelling, "Nigger!" Once, a man pointed a rifle at two of Wilson's teammates from a passing car.
In what seemed like a Don Quixote-like campaign, Wilson declared for student-body president. His best friend told him he was nuts, that only black basketball players would vote for him. Wilson won with 89 percent of the vote.
Perhaps taking on the head coaching job at Adams State seemed like an equally hopeless cause. There was no basketball tradition at the school located at 7,554 feet above sea level, only a reputation for magnificent cross-country and track-and-field teams.
But basketball? They tried real hard. Athletic Director Larry Mortensen, who was also previously basketball coach, is thrilled by how quickly Wilson has made a difference. Mortensen spoke at the team dinner.
"I want to thank you for building a legacy here at Adams State," Mortensen said. "You got people excited about basketball. I promise you, years from now, you're going to hear Coach in your ear and it's going to help you make you better men, husbands and fathers."
Adams State was 19-6. Wilson said the team lacked consistency all season, so it was pretty amazing the Grizzlies had not lost at home. That changed when the team was upset two days in a row, falling to Colorado Mesa, 98-92, after blowing a 33-12 first-half lead, and then losing to Western State, 79-75. The first game was a refereeing monstrosity with 68 fouls and 92 foul shots lasting two hours and 20 minutes without overtime or TV timeouts.
Wilson might spend considerable time thinking of his players' overall welfare, but that doesn't diminish his will to win. During his first season, Wilson smashed a blackboard in the locker room, breaking his hand with the rash gesture. In Alaska, White had a reputation of being a borderline wild man on the sidelines. Still, even White was incredulous when Wilson connected with the immovable object.
"Why did you punch that wall?" he asked Wilson. "I don't even know you any more."
Wilson worked for head coaches Evans, Doug Oliver and Bobby Braswell at universities, and they all contributed things that formed the recipe for Louis Wilson head coach. But it's doubtful their input exceeds how much White style Wilson has incorporated. After a lifetime of being in charge, White offers input, but must defer to Wilson decisions.
"I'm very proud of Lou," White said. "He was a little kid with no silver spoon in his mouth. It's an around-the-clock job for him. I don't know how many college coaches would be cooking dinners for pre-game meals. I would like to see this little place win something."
After the Western State loss, Wilson rode home in a car in silence, marched in the front door of his house and walked up the steps to his bedroom, all without an utterance. Adams State still qualified for the NCAA playoffs, but the Grizzlies went down in the first round. It hurt just as much to lose at Adams State as it as it does in the Division I playoffs.
"I don't think heartburn knows divisions," Wilson said. "It's an equal-opportunity butt-kicker."
Two seasons into the Wilson regime, he was 39-18 and had guided the Grizzlies to their first two NCAA playoff berths. Yeah, maybe could run a program. Wilson seemed to be doing something right. Late in the regular season, Wilson's phone rang. Idaho State, where he was an assistant coach from 1998 to 2006, wanted him as head coach.
He was torn. Wilson had something going in Alamosa. But Idaho State was D-I. Idaho was wife Andrea's home. Mortensen dangled a new five-year contract with a raise each year, and a jump in the budget, and Wilson stayed. His mentor, Evans, got the job instead. Evans said he thinks Wilson "has his eyes set on a national championship, and I think Lou thinks he can do that there."
The guy who wanted to be head man at a major D-I program before he was 35 has changed.
"I am very fulfilled," Wilson said. "I'm not the guy who believes he has to be at the D-I level at this stage of my life. I get up every day and I coach college basketball and I get to work with young people that I enjoy."
Where else could Coach Louis Wilson nourish his players' souls with his basketball wisdom while also filling their stomachs with his gumbo?