BALTIMORE — Within the first 10 minutes inside Kevin Willard’s office, Dan McHale began to understand how fortunate he was to land a position as a graduate assistant at Louisville. McHale had graduated from Kentucky just a few months earlier, and yet here he was, receiving his marching orders from Willard, a rising star in college basketball.
Willard outlined McHale’s role in the sort of efficient nature adopted by coaches who must maximize their time. There would be 18-hour days ahead, studying opponents and going over practice plans. An extensive onboarding process for McHale would’ve cut into what they were all at Louisville to focus on: basketball.
“I knew it right away,” said McHale, who’s now a special assistant with New Mexico. It’s the air of authority Willard gives off. And it’s more than that — from a young age, Willard convinced those around him to buy in completely, giving their trust to a relatively unknown commodity.
At Bowling Green High School in Kentucky, it took two practices for coach Ernie Simpson to notice Willard had won over the older players on his varsity roster. On a team of hard-nosed players, Willard immediately challenged the hardest nosed of them. He proved up to the task. And it took one start for Matt Simpson, one of Ernie’s sons and a teammate of Willard’s, to realize increased minutes would only prod Willard further.
That was just the beginning for Willard, who was introduced as Maryland’s new coach Monday, signing a seven-year, $24.9 million contract.
He’s proven along the way — from Bowling Green to Iona and Seton Hall and now the Terps — that those who trust in him will receive the same trust back.
“You’d love to go to war with him any time,” Matt Simpson said. “He’s that guy that you’re like, ‘I’ll stand up for you. I’ll do whatever as a teammate. I’ll run through a brick wall for you, because I know you’ll do the same thing for me.’ ”
There is more uncertainty around the hire from the outside, as boosters and fans point to his 1-5 NCAA Tournament record and inexperience landing top talent from Maryland’s high school recruiting hotbed. The 46-year-old is charged with resurrecting a Maryland program that is nearing the 20-year anniversary of its only national title but hasn’t made it past the Sweet 16 in 10 NCAA Tournament appearances since. It’s no easy task.
But to those who have known Willard longest, he’s a logical choice to rebuild trust. He doesn’t sugarcoat a situation. Still, he gives his players — and by extension, the fans — belief, just as he did when he was a player.
In high school, for instance, when Bowling Green played a team from Tennessee that boasted three future Division I players, Willard willed his team back into the game, bloody knees and elbows and all as he dove for loose balls. During running drills, he’d lead by example, calling back encouragement to those trailing.
“Kevin would puke running and just never break stride and keep going,” Simpson said. “He’s just that dude.”
Ernie Simpson could tell Willard was “a coach on the floor from an early age.” Willard could digest the input Simpson offered, but he’d return to his coach with suggestions of his own — a side effect of learning from his father, Ralph, who coached at Western Kentucky, Pittsburgh and Holy Cross.
Ralph Willard always knew his son would be a coach. When Ralph coached Kevin in middle school, he noticed his son looking at things through a coach’s lens while questioning everything that happened on the court.
“He loved to analyze the game,” Ralph Willard said. “He would question me all the time. He wanted to know why you do it this way or that way. And so when he told me that he wanted to go into coaching, it didn’t shock me at all.”
Ralph coached his son for one season at Western Kentucky, and Kevin followed Ralph to Pittsburgh, his next coaching destination. There’s often a spotlight on the coach’s son, Ralph said, but he thought Kevin handled it well.
“It was difficult,” he said. “[Former coach] Al McGuire told me something that stuck with me. He said, ‘if your son is the best player on the team, coach him. If your son is the worst player on the team, coach him. But if he’s anywhere in between, don’t coach him.’ I think that’s true.”
Ralph called Kevin a sponge. Working under Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino as an assistant with the Boston Celtics and Louisville was an ideal situation, allowing Kevin to pick Pitino’s brain about certain decisions. Those conversations extended as former Louisville assistants Scott Davenport, Willard and Mick Cronin gathered each morning, picking up a newspaper and talking strategy.
Davenport, then in his mid-40s, marveled at how experienced and detail-oriented the 26-year-old Willard was, which Davenport chalked up to the fact that Willard had already spent three seasons coaching with Pitino in the NBA.
“That’s also why I’m bald at 26 years old,” Davenport remembers Willard quipping at the time, “because I age so much faster working for him.”
When Davenport’s Bellarmine program won the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament two weeks ago — but was not eligible for the NCAA Tournament due to a recent jump from Division II to Division I — he received a congratulatory text from Willard. Davenport said his own son got into coaching, in large part because of Willard, and that “caring” is the first word he’d use to describe Maryland’s new headman.
“He’s a shining star in putting players first,” Davenport said.
Ralph echoed that sentiment about his son.
”I mean, that’s his thing,” he said. “He loves to help players get better. And what he built the program at Seton Hall on ... getting good players, who aren’t great, but getting them to reach the next level of development.”
Because Willard expects his players to give him the same commitment in return, mirroring the work ethic he showed as a high school player. In Ernie Simpson’s 30 seasons as a coach, he can remember only one player like Willard.
While others trudged out of the locker room, Willard ran every single day — right to the basketball rack, ready for another practice. He’s never changed, even if he’s not the one dribbling that ball any longer.
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Ryan McFadden and Hayes Gardner contributed to this article.
