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Indiana Alumni Magazine

Accepting the Challenge

Kelvin Sampson is set to lead Hoosiers into a new era

By J.D. Denny

When Kelvin Sampson was hired in March as the new head coach of the Hoosier men's basketball team, he was new to Indiana and Bloomington. He didn't know a lot of people, so forgive Sampson if he didn't recognize the man in his late 60s who showed up unannounced at Sampson's office in April. "He just kind of walked in," Sampson says. "He didn't come here to ask if he would see me, he came here to see me." Sampson obliged his guest. The man sat down and started a conversation.

Sampson soon found out that the man to whom he was talking was Archie Dees, a Hoosier basketball legend. Dees, BS'58, who played under coach Branch McCracken, was a two-time Big Ten Player of the Year and All-American and led the Hoosiers to two conference championships in the late 1950s.

"The more he talked, the more I learned," says Sampson, 51. "I started thinking about what he'd been through, what he'd seen. He knows more about the tradition and history of Indiana basketball than I'll ever know."

Dees is not the only former Hoosier player with whom Sampson has connected. Sampson mentions recent conversations with Ray Tolbert, BS'81, Landon Turner, BS'84, and Isiah Thomas, BA'87, from the 1981 national-championship team, and Greg Graham, BS'93, and Damon Bailey, BGS'94,from the 1992 Final Four team.

"This is not going to be territorial, like 'I'm the coach now and this is the way things are going to be done,'" Sampson says. "The way things are going to be done is with open arms. This program is all-inclusive. A lot of people take ownership in this program. That's what makes this program special."

THE LURE OF TRADITION

Well aware of the tradition of Hoosier basketball — even before meeting some of the participants — Sampson now looks to add to that lore. During the press conference at which he was introduced as the 26th men's basketball coach at Indiana, Sampson was direct.

"I came to Indiana for one reason," Sampson said. "I think we can win championships at Indiana."

Sampson — who left a winning program at the University of Oklahoma; who is described as intense, charismatic, and energetic; who is devoted to his family and community; and who, until May, is recruiting under the restrictions of NCAA sanctions — has in front of him a major challenge: returning the Hoosiers to the top of the college basketball world.

Perfect. That challenge is exactly what he wanted.

A tradition-rich program like the one in Bloomington might have been the only thing that could have drawn Sampson away from the University of Oklahoma.

"I loved Oklahoma," says Sampson, who spent 12 seasons with the Sooners. "It was just an unbelievable university. Our administration was incredible in terms of support."

And the administration had reason to be happy with Sampson, despite leaving the program with NCAA sanctions.

In his time at Oklahoma, he put together a 279–109 record, averaging 23 wins per season. OU's 20–9 record in 2005–06 marked the team's ninth straight 20-win season. In Sampson's final six seasons, the Sooners won three Big 12 tournament titles and one Big 12 regular season title.

In NCAA tournament action, the Sooners advanced to the 2002 Final Four, where they lost to the Hoosiers, and they reached the Elite Eight the following season.

Last season the Sooners finished third in the Big 12 behind Kansas and Texas.

"His legacy is greatly appreciated here," says University of Oklahoma's Director of Athletics Joe Castiglione. "He proved you can build a great program, engender respect, and win on a consistent level [at Oklahoma].

"It's difficult to do. He achieved it."

If he had stayed at Oklahoma, Sampson would have had a number of strong returning players along with a recruiting class that was considered to be one of the best in the nation.

Between the end of the season and the move to IU, Sampson recalls thinking, "This is [Oklahoma's] time to make another run."

In addition to his professional success, Sampson and his wife, Karen, had developed strong personal connections in Oklahoma. They had built their dream home, their neighbors were their best friends, and their son, Kellen, was looking forward to his senior season on the OU basketball team.

Sampson says he had offers to coach at a number of "great schools" over the years, including this year, but, he says, "I didn't have any desire to go anywhere."

But that changed when the Hoosiers expressed interest.

"It was truly an honor for me that Indiana would want me to be their basketball coach, because I think Indiana is one of the great, great universities in our country," Sampson says. "I had a great vantage point, too, because I was at a great university."

And, of course, there's that challenge of hanging a sixth national-championship banner from the rafters of Assembly Hall.

HOLDING ON, ADDING ON

Immediately after his introduction as Hoosier coach, Sampson turned his efforts toward holding onto the returning players. A number of them were saying that they were either leaving or thinking about leaving.

"While everybody was on the road recruiting an '07 class, the entire month of April I was in Bloomington recruiting our [current] team," Sampson says. "I dedicated myself to staying here meeting with the players.

"It's traumatic when a kid signs with a coach, with a university, and all of the sudden everything's gone. They don't know their new coach. They've seen my teams play on TV, but they didn't know me, so I had to get to know them."

Sampson recruited those players well. The only significant loss was Robert Vaden, who followed former coach Mike Davis to University of Alabama at Birmingham.

One of the Hoosiers' most important returning players is D.J. White, a front-line force for the Hoosiers. The 6–9 White enjoyed an outstanding freshman year but sat out most of last season with an injury. White says the transition to Sampson's system has been smooth and that he is eager for the season to begin.

"We really believe in [Sampson]," White says. "Every word he says, we listen. He inspires us."

As for new recruits, Sampson will be hindered by NCAA sanctions until May. The NCAA announced in May that Sampson had made excessive phone calls to recruits while he was at Oklahoma. He was barred from calling recruits and making off-campus recruiting visits for one year. The NCAA also accepted self-imposed sanctions against Oklahoma, which included reductions in scholarships and recruiting activities.

"I have learned an invaluable lesson, and I hope that this reinforces to other coaches the importance of every aspect of NCAA compliance," Sampson said soon after the penalty was announced. "I am fortunate to have a quality, veteran staff who has built and maintained a high standard in all aspects of coaching, particularly in recruiting."

Not surprisingly, criticism about the NCAA sanctions has dogged Sampson.

"If you're a highly visible person, the criticism almost [gets to] the sensationalism level," he says. "I don't react to what other people think or say. I know who I am, my family knows who I am. The people that know me and love me know who I am … so if I'm going to be concerned about someone's reaction or opinion, those are about the only ones I'll react to."

The recruiting beat goes on — the sanctions don't affect the team's assistant coaches, and Sampson can meet with recruits on campus and can communicate with them via text messaging, mail, and by answering calls they make to him.

LEARNING FROM COACH NED

In dealing with the criticism — as well as the adulation and everything else that coaching brings his way — Sampson says he uses lessons he has learned from his father, an accomplished coach in his own right.

"He never gets too excited; he figures things will work out," Sampson says of his father.

John Sampson — known to just about everybody as Ned — was Kelvin's high-school coach in Pembroke, N.C. The elder Sampson coached there from the mid-1950s until the mid-1980s. In May 2004, he was inducted into the North Carolina High School Coaches Hall of Fame.

"My father is the best coach I've ever been around," says Kelvin Sampson, who calls his dad after every game. "He's the best coach I've ever seen in practice and coaching a ball game.

"You think about where he started. [He] was a person of color, so he had to coach through segregation," says Kelvin, whose parents are Lumbee Indian, a tribe indigenous to North Carolina. "And I think about the impact that he made on the lives of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of young men over those 30 years."

Kelvin says that watching his dad's former players come back to see his father year after year was empowering. Seeing the difference that his father had made in those players' lives, Kelvin says, is the biggest reason he went into coaching.

Guiding young people, not competing for championships, is what makes coaching such a powerful profession, he says.

"It's such a position of influence," Sampson says. "I take that really, really seriously."

'A VERY INTENSE COACH'

Sampson is not concerned about numerical goals — the number of games the team is going to win. He is more concerned, he says, about the team forging its identity.

"Good or bad, we're all going to be known for something," he says. "And since we get to choose, we might as well figure out what it is we want to be known for."

As he has at Oklahoma, Washington State, and Montana Tech, Sampson says he strives for his teams to be tough, physical, and competitive, and to sustain effort for the entire game.

"[Playing that way] doesn't come by accident; it's an attitude," Sampson says. "And that's the attitude that we're trying to instill in the basketball players here at Indiana."

Sampson's father calls his son a "very intense coach."

"He demands a lot of his players," the elder Sampson says. "But he also demands a lot of himself."

Kelvin Sampson describes himself as a "big film guy," and he has a flat-screen television mounted on a wall in his office. Videotapes are stacked nearby.

"I've got clips of just about every facet of the way we've done things at Oklahoma over the years," he says. "I'll bring [the players] in here when I talk about cutting or screening or defense or whatever it is we're teaching. I'll show it to them one-on-one in this office."

COMMUNITY SERVICE, CEREAL RUNS

Expect to see Sampson and the players outside of Assembly Hall.

"We live in Bloomington, Ind. — this is our town, this is our city," Sampson says. "We want to be passionate about giving back to our town and our community."

The Hoosiers, he says, will volunteer and make appearances at local homeless shelters, hospitals, and elementary schools.

"Our basketball team and coaches will go read at each school," says Sampson, who had researched the number of elementary schools in Bloomington, 14. "That's called the Hoosier Reading Program, not to be confused with the Sooner Reading Program."

Karen Sampson says that she and Kelvin have found it easy to become a part of the community.

"We'll do what we do every place we've been," she says. "[We will] adopt the community and the people as our hometown."

Bloomington's love of basketball is much like the love of basketball in Pembroke, N.C., her actual hometown.

"We were born on Tobacco Road; we were born with basketball in our blood," she says. "We are now with like birds."

Kelvin Sampson has also brought his love of cereal to Bloomington. Don't be surprised to see him in the cereal aisle of a local grocery store.

"I'm famous for making cereal runs," he says. "I'm addicted to cereal. I'll go there to buy four or five different kinds of cereal."

His favorite in August was Frosted Flakes, he says, but he likes anything with sugar, including Froot Loops and Honey Smacks.

"I go in cycles with it," Sampson says. "Sometimes you eat the same cereal all the time, and it gets a little mundane."

Sugar buzz notwithstanding, Sampson says he likes to get out and about.

"I'm a people person. I like people," Sampson says. "I like going to the grocery."

There is no doubt about the coaching challenge that Hoosier basketball brings.

The national-championship banners hanging in Assembly Hall hold much significance, and, depending on the state of the current team, their influence seems to change. In the best of times, they motivate players and coaches, intimidate visiting teams, and impress recruits. They make it easy to believe that another championship is about to be delivered. But when times are tough, those same banners magnify the gap between what is happening and what is expected.

Fans long for the glory days.

"When Indiana called there was something that struck a chord," Sampson says. "Indiana is one of those schools that if you're a basketball coach, you want the challenge of coaching there."

J.D. Denny, BS'90, MA'01, is managing editor of the Indiana Alumni Magazine. He can be reached at josdenny@indiana.edu.

 

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