Tang Thankful and Ready to Work

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Jerome Tang is ecstatic. In one breath, the new Kansas State head basketball coach is talking about the Octagon of Doom, and in the next breath he is talking about family, and in the next breath he details the "whirlwind" past 72 hours that helped bring him to this point. Tang thanks K-State athletic director Gene Taylor. He thanks other K-State athletic department officials. And he thanks God for this amazing opportunity to lead the Wildcats.

"I've heard so many great things about our Wildcat fans and the Wildcat Nation and just what's important to them — the hard work, commitment and loyalty," Tang says. "That's what I'm all about. I'm so excited for this opportunity."

Then Tang discusses his faith, his first orders of business as head coach, his 19-year stint as assistant coach – and eventually associate head coach – under Baylor head coach Scott Drew.

Finally, Tang takes us on a remarkable journey of his life, which led to Heritage Christian Academy, which led to Baylor, and which led to his first head-coaching position in Manhattan.

As for what it will require for K-State to win consistently in the ultra-competitive Big 12 Conference and to be in the running for the league championship each year?

Tang smiles.

"You need some dudes, right?" Tang says. "At the end of the day, it's not rocket science. You have to get some dudes on campus."

Tang spoke with K-State Sports Extra's D. Scott Fritchen about his life and his coaching career just hours after the official announcement of his hiring as K-State head coach:

D. SCOTT FRITCHEN: First of all, congratulations. What excites you about this opportunity to serve as head coach at K-State?

JEROME TANG: Having been in the league for 19 years, when you visit that Octagon of Doom — I remember the students when you walk across the floor during warmups and they were just so passionate and it was so intimidating, and I just remember the passion of the K-State family for their basketball program. The student section is unbelievable. They terrify you. I remember them saying, 'Rogaine,' to one of our assistants, and it was just hilarious. Normally, you're in arenas, and even when the other team was winning, you look and see if their fans are leaving, and man, our fans don't leave.

That kind of passion and that kind of support and commitment to the student-athlete is something that as a coach you just love to see. The opportunity to put a product on the floor that is going to make them want to be there and to bring that energy and passion and stay until the very end, that's exciting to me. I've heard so many great things about our Wildcat fans and the Wildcat Nation and just what's important to them — the hard work, commitment and loyalty. That's what I'm all about. I'm so excited for this opportunity.

My wife, Careylyen — we call her "Rae" for short — and I have been married for 24 years, and it'll be 25 years on August 2^nd. We have two kids of our own. My oldest son is 21 and his name is Seven and he's a sophomore at Baylor, and my daughter, Aylyn, is a senior in high school, and she just turned 18.

FRITCHEN: Starting with Saturday, can you walk us through your emotions, and everything that went along with it?

TANG: For 30 minutes of Saturday's game (Baylor vs. North Carolina), I had no idea who was out there on that floor. We just didn't play the way we're capable of playing. But for 10 minutes it was incredible — down 25 and to fight to come back, and just losing in overtime, but just the fight, grit and toughness of our guys, and the heart of a champion that we showed, and the whole roller coaster of that. Then you know in a few hours you're going to be at your house and a group of men are going to come and talk with you about possibly being the head coach. It's switching gears. You want to put your best foot forward. I wanted them to know why I was the right guy for the job. I'm just so thankful to Gene Taylor and his heart and spirit and just the whole crew — Casey Scott, Josh McCowan and Kenny Lannou. They made me feel so wanted and at peace. My prayer was that God would give me just peace about what he wanted me to do. Those guys facilitated that. It's just something about a man looking you in the eyes and telling you that you're his guy, and you're the guy that he trusts to be successful in his program. It just made my heart swell and gave me a sense of peace and joy. We hug and they left and then life becomes real.

It's been a whirlwind and then word gets out even though it's not supposed to come out, and you've got phone calls coming in, and text messages, and you're trying to not say anything but not lie because you don't want anyone mad at you. It was crazy, but fun. My juices were flowing. I was just ready to go. I'm ready to get there and be with the guys and just sell the vision. We're going to be tough, appreciative, passionate and we're going to be all about the right things. Winning is the result of doing all the little things the right way and going 1-0 every day and 1-0 in every aspect of the day. We're going to pile a whole bunch of 1-0's in a day, and have great days on top of each other, and when the product hits the floor our fan base is going to be so proud of what they see out there on the floor.

"Our fan base is going to be so proud of what they see."@CoachJTang #KStateMBB x EMAW pic.twitter.com/52DgaoUwYj
— K-State Men's Basketball (@KStateMBB) March 22, 2022

FRITCHEN: What's the first thing you'd like K-Staters to know about Jerome Tang?

TANG: My faith is extremely important to me. That's what I live my life by. I believe that God put me on this earth to be a servant leader, and I just want to be of service in any way I can to serve our players to serve my staff to serve our community and our university. There's no job that's too small for me to do, and no job that's too big that I can't find the right people to help me. Nothing is ever accomplished in life by yourself. Nobody can do it alone. I'm a guy who likes to have people around him. I like to roll my sleeves up and jump in with everybody. That's who I am. The other thing I'd like for them to know is I want everybody to win. I want football, I want women's basketball, baseball, volleyball — I'm a fan. When I'm in, I'm in — and I'm all in. I won't be wearing any other color. Although I'm color blind, my wife is going to make sure I'm wearing purple. I'm all in. I don't do anything halfway.

FRITCHEN: What are your first orders of business as K-State head coach?

TANG: The three most important things are taking care of your players and getting the right staff and then it's making sure the schedule is right. Those are the basketball things. The first order of business is to get with the guys and to look them in the eyes, and to tell them who I am and what I'm about, and what I see for the vision of the program moving forward. Then I'm going to meet with them individually and know what their vision is individually and then show them how that can mesh with what we're about as a program. Good business is when both people win. I know most guys' hopes and dreams are to play professionally. My goal as a coach and for our university is to win on the basketball court and to win off the court as great citizens and great students. I'm going to show them how winning in the classroom and winning in the community relates to winning on the court. If you're winning on the court, everyone can reach their goals and their dreams. That's what I'm going to do first.

FRITCHEN: You were such a remarkable duo with Coach Scott Drew for 19 years. What are a few of the key attributes that you were able to learn under Coach Drew that you hope to bring with you as a first-year head coach?

TANG: I go back to the first thing, which is he's a servant leader. Nobody serves more than Scott Drew. He's extremely humble and his humility is impressive and it's something that I admire and aspire to be. Coach is extremely coachable. He's willing to ask questions and listen to everyone's advice. I pride myself on being very coachable. I don't have all the answers, and I don't have a problem having the people around me be smarter than I am, and that's my goal — to have people around me who are smarter than I am, because it takes a village to do this thing.

FRITCHEN: What are you looking for in assistant coaches and what will that process entail?

TANG: I've been doing this thing for a while, and I've had the honor and privilege of being able to mentor a lot of young coaches, and a lot of those coaches have grown up to be really, really good coaches right now at really, really good programs, and winning programs. For me, I want to find guys who love people, who are about the student-athlete, and they're winners — winners — and family is extremely important to them. My calling in life is to help young men become great husbands who can become great fathers. You have to model it in front of them. I want men and women in our program who are able to model what it is to be a great husband or wife and to be a great father and mother. Those are the kind of people I want on our staff and in our program.

FRITCHEN: You have lived such a remarkable life. In as much detail as you care to share, could you walk us through your journey as a person and as a coach?

TANG: I'm the son of immigrants. I was born in Trinidad and my parents came over, and they were wonderful, hard-working people. I learned my work ethic from both of my parents. We moved to Texas. I didn't know a lot about basketball but fell in love with it quickly. My faith was really important to me, and I learned how to mesh my faith and basketball together to have an impact on peoples' lives. I was youth pastor in church and coached the basketball team at Heritage Christian Academy, and we had a lot of success with four state championships, and the last three years we went independent and were ranked top 25 in the country.

I felt like God was getting ready to move me. My wife and I didn't know where, but we just felt that on our life, and Scott Drew got the job at Baylor University. I didn't know him from Adam, but three people who knew me spoke with Scott very positively about me. At our school, we brought in international students, we had about 20, and Scott had gotten a commitment from Mamadou Diene, who was his first recruit. He was African, so I assumed he needed a school. I tracked Scott down and he called me back one night at 10 o'clock and told me Mamadou wasn't coming to the states to come to school, but he wanted to meet with me. I told him at the time I didn't have my degree, and you don't know me from Adam, and there's no reason for us to meet. If you're a good person, I'll know, and you'll be able to recruit the kids who I coach.

The worst thing you can do is tell Scott Drew no. He spent the next 45 minutes trying to convince me to come up to meet with him. To get him off the phone, I agreed. I didn't tell my wife, but I drove up to Waco to see him. I went into his office and spent three and a half hours. He had a list of 100 questions he wanted to ask me. He got to question number three about movies, and we talked for about two hours just about movies, because we were both movie guys. We really hit it off.

When we got done, he said, "I'd hire you, but I just don't know you, and I just don't hire people I don't know." I remember hugging him and saying, "Coach, if God wants me at Baylor, there's nothing you can do to stop it. If God doesn't want me at Baylor, there's nothing you can do to make it happen." I got into my car and left. This was on a Tuesday. On Thursday, he told his dad that he was going to hire someone else, but he really liked the guy from Texas. His father said, "Why don't you hire the guy from Texas?" He said, "Well, I don't know him." His father said, "Go eat dinner at his house. If you eat dinner at a man's house, you'll find out everything you need to know about him."

Coach called me and said, "Can I come eat dinner at your house on Saturday?" This was the third time we ever talked. I told him, "Yes." Now I had to tell my wife, "Scott Drew is going to come to the house for dinner." We scrapped all of money together, everything we had was $10.81, and we had a half slab of ribs in the fridge that her dad had cooked for us. They were leftovers, and we bought another half slab of ribs, and we bought some potato salad and a loaf of bread. Coach came down and my mother-in-law stopped by, and she's an unbelievable lady. I didn't even know she knew who Scott Drew was, and she did, and she said some nice things. My son, Seven, was two at the time, was acting up, so I took him in the back and he got a spanking. We came back out, sat at the table, and ate ribs. When we finished, Coach said, "The job is yours." Then he told me what the salary was, and it was just incredible, an incredible blessing.

My wife quit her job with Child Protective Services because she was pregnant, and got called out late at night to remove some kids from the home, and I said, "You can't be going back and forth doing that." Thirty-days later, our insurance had lapsed, because she had the insurance for the family, and she had gone to Medicare to find out if we qualified because we were having a baby and needed to pay for the baby. We didn't qualify, and she was in the parking lot crying, and God just provided and blessed us. I'm forever thankful for Coach being obedient to his dad and being a good son who listens to his dad, and for taking a chance on me. It's been incredible.

FRITCHEN: You mention you're a big movie guy. What's your favorite movie?

TANG: Anytime Shawshank Redemption is on, I've got to watch it. Then the Green Mile, too. That's another one that any time it's on. But I love Coach Carter. Actually, the real Coach Carter lived just a little way from us in Waco. He lived in Marlin, Texas. He lived there and started a school. He'd come by the gym all the time. I'm a big Denzel fan. All his movies. I love the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Oh man, those trilogies. I love those.

FRITCHEN: The program rebuild at Baylor in 2003 and the success for nearly two decades has been legendary, culminating in last year's NCAA Championship. Obviously, the Big 12 Conference is extremely competitive. What will it take for K-State to win consistently in this league and to be in the running for Big 12 Championships each year?

TANG: You need some dudes, right? At the end of the day, it's not rocket science. You have to get some dudes on campus. There was a time there were some dudes here, and there are a couple dudes still on campus. We just have to get some more dudes around them. The competition is what makes practice every day great, which allows you to raise your level of play when you face competition on the outside. We want to find guys who really embrace competition. If all these guys want to play professionally, guess what, when you go and become a pro, whether its overseas or in the NBA, there are other good players on that roster, and you have to compete against them to get onto the floor. You've got to learn to compete early in life. We want to find kids who are super competitive, and who don't shy away from it, and they don't care that there are other good players. Good players want to play with other good players. Bad players want to play by themselves.

We want to find dudes who want to compete, and they want to compete every day in practice, and they understand it's what's going to help them reach their goals and dreams. People say, "Get old and stay old," and that's a motto, and I'm all about it, but this day in age, because of the transfer portal and everything going on, it's really roster management. I'm going to just say that I want guys who are competitive and want to get better every day, and they want to be in the gym, and they don't want a lot of distractions in their lives, and they're addicted to basketball — not gym rats, but addicted to basketball. They can't go a day without it in their hand, and they can't go an hour without holding one. Those are the kind of guys who are going to want to be in Manhattan, Kansas, and who we're going to get to Manhattan, Kansas. Guys who are about other stuff, and want to go out and party, those aren't the guys. We're going to spend a lot of time evaluating the character and the drive and their "why" before we bring them to campus.

FRITCHEN: You're noted as one of the top college recruits in the entire country. What is the message you want to share with potential Kansas State recruits out there?

TANG: If you want to play in one of the best homecourts, and in front of the greatest fans in America, we have a place for you. If you want to compete in the best league in the country every night, going against the best players in America, we have a place for you. If you want to be in an environment where you're going to be loved, challenged, and pushed to be your very best version of yourself on and off the court, we have a place for you. I believe that we're going to find guys that that resonates with.

"We have a place for you."@CoachJTang #KStateMBB x EMAW pic.twitter.com/G5Ks2jlwQY
— K-State Men's Basketball (@KStateMBB) March 22, 2022

FRITCHEN: What is your offensive philosophy?

TANG: The best players are going to get the most shots and our goal is to get to the point where the best shot is the open guy. There are sometimes on teams that there's a reason why a guy is open, and we want it to get to the point where we have five weapons on the floor, and the guys are going to throw the ball to the open person, and that's the shot we're going to take.

Everybody says they want to play fast. I want to play fast, but I don't want to shoot fast. Playing fast doesn't mean shooting fast. I love college football, and I've been blessed at Baylor to be around some really good ones. Matt Rhule would talk about complementary football and how the offense and defense had to complement each other. That's the way it is with basketball. We don't want to play 10 seconds of offense and then turn around and have to play 30 seconds of defense. At the end of the game, you've played 30 minutes of defense and 10 minutes of offense. That's not good. We want to play complementary basketball. It doesn't mean we're playing slow. If we can turn you over in five seconds, then we want to score in the first seven seconds. If we're not turning you over, then we're not going down and shooting the ball really quick. We're going to make you work on defense, too. That's really important to the final outcome. Every open shot isn't a good shot, and we're going to understand time and score, and our fans – who are extremely knowledgeable – are going to appreciate the way we play and how smart our guys are.

FRITCHEN: Let's talk about player development. You're also known as one of the best coaches in the country when it comes to player development. Can you share some stories of some of the outstanding athletes you've been able to coach and the gratification you take in being able to develop so many fine players over the years?

TANG: I love guys who have a chip on their shoulder and who have been counted out, but they just have this great belief in themselves and are willing to work. I love guys who get up every day and have the same old boring habits. All the great ones have the same old boring habits. What we're going to do is help our guys develop a championship routine. They're going to live by it. You'll know where they're at at a certain time, and you'll know exactly what they're doing at a certain time. They'll be eating at the same time and sleeping at the same time because that's what all the great ones do if they want to be great.

We had a young man at Baylor, Freddie Gillespie, who was a Division III non-scholarship basketball player who played 16 total minutes as a freshman at a Division III school. He played a little bit more as a sophomore, transferred to Baylor, redshirted a year, and then played two years for us, and he's in the NBA now. That's just a credit to his hard work and belief in himself, but he had the willingness to develop the same old boring habits.

We had a young man named Taurean Prince, who was ranked 25^th in the state of Texas. On his way to Long Island, the coaches left, so he got out of his NLI and came to Baylor. Nobody had him on any rankings and there were no stars next to his name. He wasn't a high recruit, but he put in his time, and got the same old boring habits, and as a junior came off the bench and earned Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year as a senior. He led us in scoring and became the 12^th pick in the NBA Draft. Four years before that, nobody saw that. Nobody saw that.

What we'll do is find young men who have a chip on their shoulder, a great belief in themselves, who are willing to buy into having the same old boring habits, and we're going to have a plan for him. It's going to tell them where they're at and where they're going and what we're going to do help them get there. We're going to have that great buy-in and belief and we're going to see great results.

FRITCHEN: Was there one player or one game that you remember at Bramlage that was a nightmare for you?

TANG: I remember multiple games. That team with Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen, they were a terror. Those two guards, man, I don't know, we may have beat them one time with that group, and I think that was the year they went to the Elite Eight. That team was so special. And then, I don't think we played the game at Bramlage, but when they had Billy Walker and Michael Beasley at our place, Beasley went for 44 and Walker went for 31 and the rest of the team scored 11 points. We happened to win the game, but those two dudes, holy cow. Then the year that Shane Southwell was their four man with Rodney McGruder and it was impossible to guard them. Then the other year when they had Barry Brown and Kamau Stokes and Dean Wade, I just remember Dean Wade scoring however he wanted to score, and thinking to myself, "Man, this is how other people felt when we had Jonathan Motley." There was no answer for Dean Wade.

Just incredible environments and incredible teams. There was a stretch there where five-consecutive games where the game came down to one possession. I don't know if we were on the winning side of many of those, but there've been some incredible battles. I'm just happy I'll be on the side where everybody is cheering for us this time and not yelling at us.

FRITCHEN: What else would you like to say to K-Staters as you begin this chapter as K-State head coach?

TANG: When I read about Kansas State basketball and the rich history and traditions, my heart swells, but I also feel a burden as coach because I've become the steward, and I've been entrusted with such a tremendous program and history. I can't do this by myself. To all our alumni and legends, this is your program, and I'm just the dude who's doing it right now. I'm a servant, and I'm here for you guys. I want you to know that this is your program, and you're important to this program and to the future of the program — not just the past but the future.

Your investment and your time, coming by and talking to the guys and spending time with them, and just your knowledge — your investment goes a long way. One of the best things we did at Baylor was our Vet Week, when all the former players would come back in the summer and spend a few days with our guys and just be able to talk to them. Some of the younger ones would play with them, but the older ones would just pour into their lives. There's something about someone who's done it before and who's been there that goes a lot farther than a coach telling them.

You guys are welcome any time to come back. This is your program and we need you in order to be what we're capable of being.

Kansas State University Athletics

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