By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – As John Pelphrey sits at his desk In the Eblen Center overlooking the basketball court, notes and diagrams are scribbled on the windows – an impromptu blueprint for improving the Tennessee Tech men's basketball team.
Like an inventor, Pelphrey, in his first season at the helm, is trying to figure out what works, what doesn't and put together the best product on the floor that he and his staff can.
"It's like Thomas Edison when he was trying to invent the light bulb," Pelphrey said. "I don't think he knew it'd take a thousand times, but someone told him, 'wow, you failed a thousand times.' 'No,' he said, 'it took a thousand steps to get here.' It's the same for us. I don't know what the time frame is going to be. I just know it's going to happen and it's going to be done the right way."
The right way. Starting from the ground up and building a foundation, finding the right pieces, accounting for more than just what happens on the court. It's that process that has Tech certain that, wins and losses aside, things will move in the right direction.
"It's going to happen, yes," Pelphrey said. "We're extremely proud of the women's team's progress. We're extremely proud of (Head Football) Coach (Dewayne) Alexander and the other coaches on this campus who have taken over programs and trying to do it the right way. That's one of the things (Director of Athletics) Mark (Wilson) and I have talked about, (University President) Dr. (Phil) Oldham and I have talked about. I wasn't interested in coming in here and cutting corners. I wasn't coming in here to make a quick fix. There's a certain way we're going to go about putting this team together and we believe in it. We're going to double down on it.
"It's with DNA. It's with the right guys who are serious about going to school, serious about basketball and who are serious about going into this community and serving Cookeville. We're very intentional in the hiring process with coaches. It's talked about in recruiting from day one, so that everybody understands when you get here, we can't have people who aren't going to do that. I don't want that as a coach. From day one, I'm letting people know that and if you come here, there are no surprises. You know what you're getting yourself into. That's where we need to start. That's what's going to work for this program. That's what's going to work for me. I think we are putting that foundation in place. I don't know how many tries it's going to take for us to start getting the results we want to get. I just know that it's coming."
While there have been some tough results shadowing the progress made, Pelphrey isn't worried about that nor is he allowing his players and staff to dwell on it.
"I am fully aware we live in a microwave society," Pelphrey said. "Everyone wants to order something at the drive-thru, drive around and pick it up. I'm not sure what outside of fast food actually works like that. I think for our team, we know where we're at and we know where we're going to be someday. Quite honestly, we're proud of these guys. We get energy every day going down to coach them and they're very focused. If you see anything from them, you see them trying to be young men, trying to be leaders, trying to have good attitudes, trying to have good body language even though they may not be getting results.
"That's something we're trying to get them off of – we don't want them focusing on results. Even when we get to the point where we're getting results, we want to be focused on the present moment. Are you giving your best? If not, why? And we learn from that situation and get their best. We believe that if they're working hard and giving their best in the moment, being the best leader you can be, then we're going to graduate. We're going to see results on the court with improved levels of play as individuals and as a team."
Tech women's basketball head coach Kim Rosamond understands that sentiment because in her vision, you have to be able to succeed off the court to help create success on the court.
"Even in year four, it is not about records," Rosamond said. "I couldn't even tell you right now what our record is. It is one game at a time and trying to be the best versions of ourselves daily. Especially in those first couple of years, records and wins are the last thing you want to focus on. You have to focus on the process of winning every day, winning in the classroom, winning in the locker room, winning in the community.
"We didn't win a lot those first couple of years on the court, but we were winning daily off the court. It led into years three and four of being able to have more success on the court. But you can't win on the court until you're winning daily off the court. As I watch Coach Pelphrey and his program, they're winning every day off the court and I'm really excited to see what's next. The future holds great things for our men's program."
And if anyone can relate to where Pelphrey and his team is at, it's Rosamond. She became the Golden Eagles' skipper following a 10-19 season in 2015-16, finishing 6-10 in the Ohio Valley. Her first two seasons didn't see the win total waver much, going 10-20, 7-9 in the OVC the first year, then 7-22, 4-14 in league play the following year.
"Any time you come into a program as a new coaching staff, you want to put your imprint on it," Rosamond said. "That's not taking anything away from anybody who has been here before or you're not necessarily trying to change the culture, you just want to implement your culture and the way you will do things on and off the court, the standards that you are going to live by on a daily basis.
"In our first year, we were focused more on how we will operate daily – in the classroom, socially, in the weight room, in the locker room, on the court. What are our standards going to be? You then take that to recruiting and bringing in not only talent but players that fit your core values and the way you do things."
The results the Tech women pulled together, including the third-best turnaround in NCAA Division I women's basketball last year as the Golden Eagles went 22-11 with a 12-6 OVC mark to a seven-game winning streak through mid-January this year, have shown that the process does indeed work.
"There are probably two words that are overused in athletics – culture and process – but I believe in both of those," Rosamond said. "It truly is a process and it takes time. It takes time to start to understand the expectations for your players, but, number two, to understand your identity. We know who we are on and off the court now. That is three-and-a-half years in. That takes time to develop that identity. Even in the first year, we had to figure it out from a basketball standpoint. It took two years to get our system in, figure out what we wanted our system to be, fit it to the players you had in that first year, then, as you start to recruit and sign players, you start to tie both of those things into one another."
The parallels between the men's team today and the women's team back in 2016-17 are strikingly familiar, something that Rosamond has taken notice of.
"First of all, I love interacting with their staff," she said. "I love how they go about things – their professional level and organization. Secondly, I love the young men that are on his team. I love interacting with them. They have a lot of the core values that are important to us when it comes to respect and their relentless work ethic. I see the attention he is giving to holding his young men to a standard each and every day, not just on the basketball court, but in the classroom as well."
One thing Rosamond learned through the process is that sometimes you end up going backward before you can go forward.
"I joked two years ago when we had a team full of freshmen that it was kind of like a root canal," she said. "You anticipated the struggles that were ahead, you knew it was going to be painful at times, but you also knew it was going to be so much better after you got past it. That's where we're at now.
"When we came here, I didn't look at it as coming in and building a program. This program has been established for years and years and years. We came in to build young women. I think if we can be builders of young women, and build them up to be the best people they can be, the best students they can be, the best daughters they can be, the best friends they can be, then the best teammates they can be, then, of course, we're going to be the best team we can be. In the process, you're going to build a really strong program. The foundation all starts with people and building these young women up to be the best people they can be."
To characterize a team just by wins and losses isn't always fair. To look at the many successes the Tech men's basketball team is pulling together outside of the standings, it paints a broader stroke of achievement. Wins are nice, but so is building a solid foundation for the future.
"Not that winning is not important," Pelphrey said, "but that's really not part of the equation right now for this group. If I was to make winning the most important thing right now and we're not capable of getting that done, then what would we be doing with all of our practices, our school work, our film sessions and individuals? This is more about getting these guys ready and teaching them the game. We don't have anyone in our program that's capable of modeling the type of behavior that they need to compete. I don't know if anyone on our team has experienced winning 10 games or even a winning season.
"When this is your starting point, then you've really got to get some foundational pieces correct. We want to build this thing on solid ground. That's our focus and I think these young men can be that. They're young, they're energetic, they want to. We talked to them about going to the school of hard knocks a little bit this year, but if you handle that the correct way, it's going to pay great dividends."
Photos | Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
