COVER STORY
cided that they were going to start a bas- ketball program. The coach convinced me to come play basketball at Gaston Community College instead of joining the army. I ended up setting the scoring record in North Carolina by scoring 54 points in one game. That garnered a lot of attention, and a lot of schools were starting to recruit me. I wanted to get as far away from Gastonia as I could. I wanted to go somewhere I could focus on getting my education and that’s why I chose The University of Tennessee at Martin, not knowing that I would be the first Black basketball player. No one ever told me that until I showed up. A unique thing is after my first year play- ing there, they had an annual campaign for something called Mr. Volunteer or Mr. UT Martin. A lot of students were campaigning and carrying signs and making speeches to win Mr. and Ms. Volunteer. I was walking across campus one day and saw everyone carrying signs and making campaign speeches, which I thought was a pretty neat student activity. Then someone comes up to me and says “Congratulations!”. To which I asked, “Congratulations for what?”. Apparently, someone had written me in as a candidate for Mr. Volunteer. Here I am on a predominately White campus, didn’t know who was running for what. And I end up winning by a landslide. So now there I was, Captain of the bas- ketball team and Mr. UT Martin while we’re trying to pledge this new fraternity on campus. So, I had a very interesting collegiate career to say the least during segregation on this predominately White campus, trying to navigate the twists and turns of what I had to go through. Journal: As a coach you have a unique opportunity to mentor young men during their formative years. How do you ap- proach that? And how big of a responsi- bility do you feel to do that? Hamilton: Well, most people judge coaches by how many times they go to the NCAA tournament, how many games they win, how many coaches of the year awards they receive, that’s how you guys judge coaches. In reality, the
most important thing we do is take teen- agers and usher them into young adult- hood. We don’t get recognition for that. But because I was fortunate enough to have that moral compass, God put me in this situation. The fact that I was able to have my focus and purpose for trying to do what is right and navigate some of the most difficult times in this country’s history, while still valuing my education, that changed the whole culture of my family. We’re able to make it very clear to them what’s most important. You can’t really evaluate me and the job that I’ve done with the young men we’ve worked with until they are away from me for five or six years. Then you find out what kind of husbands, what kind of fathers, what kind of neighbors, what kind of citizens have they become? Everybody wants to talk about the ones that go to the NBA. That’s what they recognize you for. Yet in reality, less than 1% of players that play college ball end up playing profes- sionally. So what does the 99% do? My point to you is that I’m just as concerned about that 99%, even though the only recognition we get is for how many get drafted, and how many games you’re winning, and how many NCAA tourna- ments you go to, which is important. But the most important thing is how successful have those guys become in life as a result of my part of their journey. So I take that very seriously. Brother, we graduated ten basketball players this week. I’ll send you a picture of them. That’s ten kids that graduated from Florida State University this week. Some programs don’t have ten graduates in ten years. I try to set the table and make sure that our guys are in school for all the right reasons and are doing things that are going to help them be success- ful in life. And that’s getting an educa- tion. Now sure I’ve won games and had a lot of kids go to the NBA and so forth and so on. But the most important thing is who are they, and what have they be- come as a result of your supervision. Journal: I have a question that uniquely for you. You coached at Oklahoma State, The University of Miami, and Florida Sate University, all schools primarily
known for their football programs. What if any challenges did taking the helm at “football schools” present? And how did you approach them? Hamilton: I approach everything the same because every opportunity that you face has some challenges. So whatever the challenge was, I didn’t view it as an end all. It was just another obstacle we had to work through. Football was more of a plus for me everywhere I’ve been because it’s always given my school and my program name recognition. I always worked with the positives and not wor- ried about the negatives, because as child I was trained that wherever there’s a challenge, there’s a solution. Journal: You’ve obviously done a mas- terful job. Florida State’s basketball program is a perennial powerhouse now as a result. What’s a normal day like for you during a season? Hamilton: With all due respect, I work 12-14 hour days no matter what time of year it is. I’m always going to find some- thing to do. It’s either interviews, it’s recruiting, it’s evaluating film from last year’s games. And what happens is not only do you deal with players that you have now, but you must deal with play- ers that you have coached. So my phone is ringing off the hook dealing with the past, present, and future. So it never stops. If you as a basketball coach find yourself with nothing to do, then you’re just lazy. I’ve always had jobs where I started out playing catch-up. I’ve never had jobs that were already great success- ful jobs before I took them. So I’ve never had the luxury of resting on my laurels. I’ve always felt that I’m on the grind, you know. Journal: When you consider this year in particular and the challenges the pandemic brought your way, your pro- gram was able to navigate it much more successfully than most. Many programs actually had to shut their seasons down because of the virus. To what do you attribute your program’s success in that regard?
28 | SPRING 2021 ♦ THE JOURNAL
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