DAYTON, Ohio -- The gene for ruthless ambition comes standard issue in most college basketball coaches, but it skipped Dayton's Brian Gregory.
When he was an assistant coach at Michigan State from 2000-03, a half-dozen schools approached him about becoming their head coach. Some of them he turned down right up front, even though he might have become one of the youngest head coaches in the country. Others he considered but withdrew from consideration, including DePaul in 2002.
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| Brian Gregory oversees a program ranked in the nation's top 20 in home attendance. (Getty Images) |
"Sometimes," Gregory explains, "there's nothing wrong with staying on track."
Gregory switched tracks when he was 36, saying yes to Dayton in April 2003 and negotiating his first contract with the guile of a golden retriever. Dayton athletics director Ted Kissell pulled out a list of A-10 coaching salaries and asked where Gregory thought he belonged. Gregory pointed somewhere near the middle of the page and said, "I think about there is fair." Kissell nodded and put the paper away. Done.
Two years later Gregory had 42 victories -- and had Dayton at his mercy. DePaul again was in need of a coach, and Gregory again was reported to be the school's top choice.
It was the perfect setup. For years Rick Majerus had used other schools to sweeten his deal at Utah. Duke's Mike Krzyzewski turned his flirtation with the Los Angeles Lakers into momentum for a new practice facility. This is what coaches do.
Not Gregory. Within hours of the April 16 announcement that Dave Leitao had left DePaul for Virginia, Gregory had an announcement of his own: He wasn't leaving Dayton.
"No question, he had us (in a tough negotiating spot)," Kissell says. "But if he was the kind of guy to use an opportunity (like that) to have his name in the paper and grind out a few dollars, we wouldn't have wanted him in the first place."
Even as a kid, Gregory was a Dayton kind of guy. He broke his femur playing pickup basketball at 16, and doctors told him to stay off the leg for four months. Two weeks later he hopped out to his driveway, dragging a lawn chair, and sat down to shoot.
That's the humble, hardworking ethos of Dayton, a blue-collar town with one of the world's largest General Motors factories outside of Michigan. It's also a town that loves basketball, which is why the NCAA put its play-in game there. Dayton consistently sells out 13,266-capacity UD Arena, even in February 2003 when a nasty snowstorm had city leaders threatening a $100 fine for anyone on the roads other than emergency personnel.
This is a Brian Gregory town. One of Dayton's most effective charities, Secret Smiles, donates beds to families in need. Gregory and his wife signed on -- Yvette directing community relations, Brian providing labor. The Dayton basketball coach has made close to 10 deliveries and hasn't been recognized yet. Perfect.
"We wanted to be in the community," Gregory says, "but not the spotlight."
