Win 800: For Rick Barnes, for Tennessee and for Dave Hart the second time was the right time
When it comes to college basketball victories, 800 is a lofty number. Actually, a staggering number. For Richard Dale Barnes, it’s a number that’s created by a collection of relationships that have created highs and lows, and, most importantly, personal growth for his pupils and for their teacher. In 37 seasons, Barnes has notched win number 800 thanks to an 86-51 rout of Texas A&M Saturday night. That’s an average of 21.6 wins a year. In his five stops as a head basketball coach, Barnes has had 3 losing seasons, one each at Tennessee, Texas and Providence.
In his time on Rocky Top, “Lil’ Ricky from Hickory” has led a Big Orange Revival. He’s won 20 or more games in five of the last seven seasons. He’s led the Vols to the NCAA tournament 5 times and has never been lower than a 5-seed. That will grow to 6 in a couple of weeks.
It’s been marriage that for many onlookers made sense long ago. Barnes’ wife, Candy, went to school at Tennessee and he was from just across the mountain. Barnes to Tennessee seemed to always have merit.
In 1997, Tennessee was searching for a basketball coach. My boss, Mike Keith, had a David Letterman style top-10 on WNOX’s SportsTalk. It was “The Top-10 Reasons Why Tennessee Should Hire Rick Barnes Away From Clemson”.
Tennessee athletic director Doug Dickey tried to make a run at Barnes but he wasn’t interested.
What would have happened had Barnes said ‘yes’ nearly 30 years ago? We don’t know. Maybe the Vols wins big and Barnes is a Big Orange lifer. Maybe the hot-headed Barnes of those days and Tennessee administration/Vol Nation struggle to get along, sending Barnes to win his 800th game elsewhere, say maybe a place like…Texas.
Both Barnes and Tennessee were in a very different place back then. Barnes has been very candid about his growth spiritually, and his changes in both coaching style and in the culture of his program.
We will obviously never know how things would have gone had the Vols and Barnes gotten together in 1997. What we do know is that the timing wasn’t right, but nine years ago it certainly was.
Now, let’s not act like everyone was jumping for joy with Barnes was hired from Texas.
Barnes’ Texas program had lost a step in the Big 12. His recruiting had fallen off, and many Vol fans wanted younger, more energetic, more aggressive when it came to their new hoops coach.
Just how much fuel was left in Barnes’ tank was a real question. Well, 196 wins later, you can say that Barnes was hardly running on fumes.
While fans wondered about Barnes, Tennessee’s decision maker, then-athletic director Dave Hart, had no doubt. Hart was in a bind. His hire of Donnie Tyndall was a disaster and Hart needed not only a good coach but, honestly, a sure thing.
And that’s why Hart really had no Plan B. It was Rick Barnes in what was a circle-complete-moment.
“He was going to have to tell me no,” Hart recalled. “I wasn’t going to Plan B unless he did that. Because we had a number of telephone conversations leading up to going and getting him, I didn’t have any doubts in my mind about where he was in his career. It was very clear the fire still burned, and I didn’t ask him many questions about Texas because I felt we were getting ready to hit a home run at Tennessee.”
Following Barnes’ departure press conference at Texas, Hart and his wife, Pam, were waiting on the tarmac to fly Barnes and Candy to Hart’s house where they would hammer out a deal to be Tennessee’s head coach.
Ironically it wasn’t the Barnes first stay at a “Dave Hart Bed and Breakfast”.
“I got to know Rick years ago. My history with him goes back to East Carolina. I had just been hired there to help AD Ken Carr start a marketing program. At the time he hired me he was kind of at the tail end of a basketball coaching search. He said you played basketball at Alabama. I think I have my guy but I don’t know a lot about basketball. Could you take a week or so and maybe feel out the waters or other candidates. I told him I knew exactly who he should hire. It was Rick Barnes. He was at George Mason. I called Rick and asked him to come to Greeneville (North Carolina) and spend a couple of nights with Pam (Dave’s wife) and me and talk to me about the East Carolina job. I told him in fairness that Ken Carr had his guy. He just wanted me to come in and get in front of somebody. Rick came and spent a couple of nights. He was really interested and to this day he still gives me grief about not hiring him at East Carolina.”
“Then at an ACC event years later in the spring at a golf outing, Pam got paired up with Rick and rode with him. She told me she loved him. He’s so funny and a good guy. Those were the early how did you get to know Rick Barnes days.”
The second stay at Hart’s house was a three-day affair that included a call to the head coach of Tennessee’s biggest rival to get his thoughts.
“We were hammering out the deal and Rick asked if he could call Cal (John Calipari). I told him ‘yes’ and he put Cal on speaker and asked him how good was the Tennessee job. Cal said it’s the second-best job in the SEC and I have the best one at Kentucky,” Hart recalled.
On March 31st, Barnes was introduced as Tennessee’s basketball coach. The press conference was a technical mess and the enthusiasm for the hire was far from the grand message Hart envisioned— trust me.
“There were questions from prominent people and some friends who wondered where Rick was in his career and I told them to give him a couple of months then we will go sit in on a film session and or a practice for an hour and watch. That always erased the question, ‘Does he have enough gas in the tank?’ He’s remarkable in that regard,” Hart offered.
From staying touch while Barnes was at Texas to staying in touch these days, Hart has seen his friend grow in all facets of his life.
“I saw the growth and the changes. Now he still coaches hard in practice and in the game. Coming into the huddle after screwing something up is no picnic. Kids during recruiting are told they ‘will be coached hard but I (Barnes) love you’. That’s who he is,” Hart explained with emotion
For Rick Barnes and Tennessee, the timing for his arrival on Rocky Top was perfect. It was certainly perfect for Hart.
“I think the relationship has been such a good one because there are so many good people there and they have put their arms around Rick,” Hart said. “He, in turn, has exchanged that feeling. He has a great thing going. Fanbases will be fanbases and he understands that. You can’t go on a four-game losing streak and throw a party, slapping people on the back. He understands it. He’s never met a stranger. He does a great job of giving his time to fans and donors.”
Over the next couple of days, Hart will get a call from Barnes . Hart will also likely get a call from some donors and friends reminding him that he was right nine years ago when they wondered about his hiring of Rick Barnes.
“A lot of donors, many who were friends and will remain friends for life, said I scratch my head at that hire. If they (Texas) are letting him go and I said listen, I don’t need to research Rick Barnes. I have a history with him and your question is fair and I understand it, but trust me, just hang in there and watch him build this program to not just a solid program but to a championship level program in the Southeastern Conference.”
The 37-year coaching veteran has done exactly that. The Vols are a championship-caliber program thanks to a marriage made nine years ago, but was actually nearly 30 years in the making.
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