MINNEAPOLIS – Ben Johnson arrived at the home of Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle, already dressed for the job where he was there to be interviewed.
Johnson wore a Gophers sweater, making a strong first impression. His first job as head coach of the men’s basketball team will be to convince more Minnesota kids to put on that garnet and gold.
“We have great high school coaches, great AAU coaches and kids who have a good feeling and know how to play basketball, so we have to do our job in the state to keep these guys at home,” he said. Johnson, who spoke at a socially distanced press conference on the team’s training track on Tuesday, two days after meeting with Coyle and the university’s president, Joan Gabel, to present his vision of the program, previously as a player and assistant.
Johnson, 40, grew up in Minneapolis, played at the powerful DeLaSalle High School and spent two seasons at Northwestern before moving to the Gophers in 2001. His coaching career took him from Dayton to Texas. Pan American in northern Iowa in Nebraska, Minnesota, where he was on the staff of Richard Pitino for five years. He left for Xavier, where he spent the last three seasons.
When Pitino was fired last week with a 54-96 record in the Big Ten play, Johnson quickly found himself on Coyle’s shortlist of possible substitutes despite never being a coach.
“Every kid in the state, like me, has to wait a day to play at Williams Arena. They have to wait to try to become a Gopher and create that energy and enthusiasm,” Johnson said.
For five years in office, Coyle has been impatient with the lack of traction the program has had at a time when high school talent in the state has never been superior.
Of course, the best local recruits went to destination programs like Duke or Gonzaga. Still, Colorado (McKinley Wright IV), Texas (Jericho Sims) and Wisconsin (Brad Davison and Nate Reuvers) were one of the teams in this season’s NCAA tournament with prominent Minnesota seniors.
“We look around the region and the number of kids who aren’t there. We’ll get them here,” said Coyle, who also had Brian Dutcher (San Diego State), Craig Smith (Utah State), Dennis Gates (Cleveland). State) and Ben Jacobson (northern Iowa) among others on his radar.
Of course, Pitino had some key players in the state. Amir Coffey and Daniel Oturu now play for the Los Angeles Clippers in the NBA, and Johnson was a player main reason why they chose to stay home. Shooting goal scorer Gabe Kalscheur, the current team’s best defender, is another home player.
With the Musketeers, Johnson also helped head coach Travis Steele sign consecutive recruiting classes in the top 30 over the past two years.
“I’m not worried about the stuff in the game,” Coyle said, “He knows ‘X’ and ‘O’ with anyone. He’ll learn to do downtime. He’ll be surrounded by great staff.”
Johnson, who has a $ 1.95 million annual base salary and a five-year contract, asked for patience when asked what his biggest initial challenge would be. He named former Nebraska coach Tim Miles, Jacobson, Steele and Pitino among his numerous mentors. He then focused on Michigan State’s Tom Izzo (26 seasons) and Purdue’s Matt Painter (16 seasons) as models of identity and stability.
“You can tell the Purdue players and the Michigan State players. That will be our goal. I want our fans to say, ‘He’s a Minnesota guy,'” Johnson said. “We’re proud of our state and our program and we will not fail “.
Johnson also joins the athletic department at a time when all other head coaches at Gophers Sports are white. In a report published two weeks ago by the Star Tribune, Minnesota was found to be the only current Big Ten institution without a school president, athletic director, or coach of color.
Historically, Gophers hoops have been one of the Big Ten leaders in this area. Since Wisconsin made Bill Cofield the conference’s first men’s basketball coach in 1976, Michigan (Juwan Howard, Tommy Amaker and Brian Ellerbe) and Minnesota (Johnson, Tubby Smith and Clem Haskins) have been the only programs to have more of two.
Rutgers has had three black head coaches over that time, with Eddie Jordan the most recent, but has only been in the Big Ten since 2014. Four teams have never had any. Excluding interim replacements, Johnson’s first year will mark 22nd place for the Gophers with black leadership in the 46 seasons since Cofield’s hire. The Wolverines will be next with 13.
“Guys like me haven’t had these opportunities in the past. This is the elephant in the room, right? Our leadership has intensified and provided me with this platform. Now it’s my job to do the best I can, and I hope I can open doors to the next one, ”Johnson said. “I have a lot of friends who are very capable coaches. I was lucky that there were a lot of things that put me in that position today, and I’m humiliated, and I realize that. There are a lot of things. Of guys that could be up here. I get it. I don’t think I’m a guy who thinks I have all the answers, but I know I’m the right guy for the job. “