Central Michigan University Athletics
Transcript of Ernie Zeigler's Introductory Press Conference
6/29/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
June 29, 2006
Opening statement from Central Michigan Athletics Director Dave Heeke:
It is an exciting day at Central Michigan University today. I'm proud to stand in front of you and talk about our athletic program. I'm pleased to stand here and introduce our new men's basketball coach, who will take our program forward.
I'd like to take a moment to recognize some people who were instrumental in this process. Our search committee really did yeoman's work over a lengthy period of time: Kevin Love, our faculty athletic representative; Derek van der Merwe, senior associate athletic director; Marcy Weston, senior associate athletic director; and Michael Powell, associate vice president for diversity and inclusion on campus. They worked very hard to bring this to a closure over the recent couple of weeks.
I'd also like to recognize President Michael Rao. His support for athletics here is genuine. He has a great vision for athletics and its role on our campus. Mike was very supportive through the process. Ironically, he is in the state of California today traveling on business and so he can't be here, but Mike does extend his greetings to Ernie and his family as well as everyone here today.
This is a real important moment for Central Michigan University Athletics as we continue to write the next chapter of athletic history here. It's the start of a new commitment of excellence in men's basketball. It's the first step in building a program that will be consistently competitive and will contend for championships. That is our focus here - championships and a championships culture. To build quality programs, it's essential that you start with quality people. All good organizations have quality people, and that's no different here at Central Michigan University. We need people who possess tremendous integrity, a great passion for student-athletes, and a desire to be successful. Our new head coach Ernie Zeigler has all of those things. The true backbone of the athletic department here is the people, and I'm real proud that we're hiring Ernie today.
I did want to touch on a couple things. During the search process, we really focused on a few key components. First, extensive coaching background and a variety of experiences. Ernie's been at UCLA, Pittsburgh, Bowling Green, Kansas State, as well as the international basketball program. He's been at the high school level and at the AAU level. He understands the complete gamut of basketball coaching.
Second, strong ties to the Midwest, and the state of Michigan especially. Ernie's a native of the state of Michigan. As I mentioned, he coached high school basketball in the city of Detroit. I think that's a real credit to Ernie and to his candidacy for the job.
Third, strong leadership qualities and skills. Ernie is a leader, and he demonstrated that through the whole process. He's got the skills to lead our program.
Additionally, we wanted someone with a strong desire to understand how to build a championship-caliber program. Ernie's been involved in the building of the program at Pittsburgh, which has continued to be a championship program, and been at UCLA and rebuilding that program from a state of mediocrity, an underachieving program, into a championship level program that was in the NCAA Championship Game last season.
We wanted a person whose core vision was focused on student-athletes, and more importantly, our basketball players. Our basketball players are the core of this program. This head coach will be focused on these players and those student-athletes, and the success that they have in the classroom and on the floor. This person is committed to the growth of Central Michigan University and this basketball program. He's committed to building this, and building a foundation that will be consistently competitive.
Finally, we sought a person who had a clear commitment to recruit quality student-athletes that can be successful on the floor and will be successful in the classroom. Along with that, we wanted someone that had a real plan to retain those student-athletes and ultimately graduate them. That's our goal - recruit quality student-athletes, retain them and then graduate them. Ernie communicated that to us throughout the entire process.
It was a thorough and extensive process. I had the opportunity to talk with people throughout the country connected with college basketball. It was an exciting time to talk about Central Michigan University. I talked to people that understood the specifics of what we have here at Central Michigan, and what we need to move this program forward. I included head coaches, athletic directors from around the country, and high school administrators and high school coaches from the state of Michigan. The backbone of this program will be Michigan student-athletes. I talked to conference commissioners, and took the time to talk with several former players (alumni) who have been connected with this program for a long time about what it would take to turn this program in the direction we all want it to head.
I had the chance to visit personally with 15-20 people that were interested in this job. I think that says a lot about the potential that exists here at Central Michigan that so many people were genuinely interested in this program. The conversations continued with Ernie all the way through. All of these conversations helped me clarify what we need here at Central Michigan to move forward. Some of you may wonder a little bit about the length of the process, and I wanted to comment on that. Without the critical issues surrounding recruiting right now and without the frenzy that sometimes occurs in the search process when you are at the conclusion of a basketball season, we were able to step back and examine where our program was, what the history of this program was, and talk to people that understand the basketball world to find out where we needed to go. I thought that was very important, and that if we compromised that in any way by not going through those steps, we would compromise the entire process and ultimately not get to the decision that we have arrived at here today. That time was critically important in defining what we needed.
As a result of the process, I'm confident that we found an outstanding men's basketball coach. I'm equally excited because we found a great person, a great human being, and again, back to having great people in your program, that's very, very important to all of us here at Central Michigan University.
We're thrilled to have Ernie here. His wife Seantelle is here with us today, too. His son Trey and his daughter Skylar are not with us today, as they're back home in California, but they'll be joining us in the CMU family.
It gives me a lot of pleasure and a great deal of excitement to introduce the new head men's basketball coach at Central Michigan University, Ernie Zeigler.
Opening Statement from new Men's Basketball Coach Ernie Zeigler:
Thank you very much. I'm very excited to be standing here before all of you. I'd like to start off by thanking President Rao for giving me this opportunity, along with Dave Heeke and the search committee. I also would like to thank my beautiful wife Seantelle for praying on this whole situation and wanting our family to be back in the state of Michigan.
As I stand before you right now, I think about what is most important to make Central Michigan a special situation for men's basketball, and the number one thing in my mind is that everything revolves around relationships. The most important is the relationship that the head coach has with the studenty-athletes on our men's basketball team. Those relationships have to continue to be developed, have to continue to be massaged, and continue to allow our student-athletes the opportunity to be successful on the court and off the court. That's what we're going to be about - we're going to be about relationships on a daily basis, and from there, everything will branch out.
It branches to the recruiting effort. On the recruiting trail, it's about relationships, and we have to build a bridge to improve relationships that, for whatever reasons, haven't been to the standards that Central Michigan basketball deserves. Those relationships will be repaired. For me personally, being a native of Michigan and a Detroiter, we're going to be able to bridge gaps in Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw, and those will be a main focus of recruiting. At the same time, we're going to continue to recruit in the Central and Northern areas of the state. We're going to recruit the state of Michigan hard and thorough. We'll also try and recruit our neighboring states and steal some kids away from our opponents in the Mid-American Conference.
This is a real special opportunity for me to return to my Michigan roots after being born and raised in Michigan, coming up as a high school player in the Public School League in Detroit, then being able to coach in the Public School League in Detroit, and after seeing a lot of the world through coaching basketball. I'm happy to be back in the Central Michigan area - I went to school right down the road at Northwood for one year - because this is a beautiful area of the state and a beautiful place to raise a family, and I'm looking forward to restoring Central Michigan to a championship level of success.
Zeigler ... in his own words
On recruiting student-athletes to Rose Arena:
I think in college athletics right now, quite obviously there's this big surge to outdo other schools in terms of facilities, and facilities are a very important part of any situation in athletics, but the main thing is about, as I said in my opening statement, relationships. If people believe and trust in you and feel that there is a genuine respect between the individuals you want to recruit and get to your university, kids will come here and coaches will send their players here and want them to be here and be a part of our basketball program. I truly believe that Rose Arena, when and if the renovation happens, it's just going to make everything multiply even more from that point.
On "Ernie Zeigler basketball" on the court:
The first thing you're going to see is toughness. Our motto is going to be "think tough, be tough." From that, I really believe that we're going to come out with a defensive presence that's going to allow us to compete night in and night out, and then offensively we're going to do different things game-to-game to be able to be successful. That may be that against one opponent we'll look to push the ball as much as possible and try to get as many easy opportunities to score early, and against another opponent it will be more about executing our offense and taking advantage of the mismatches we have through our personnel to be successful offensively.
But, I truly believe the main thing that "Ernie Zeigler basketball" is going to be about is for our team to, night in and night out, hold teams under 40% shooting. If you look at the 31 conference champions from across the country that had a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament last season, a common denominator of those teams was that they took care of the basketball, they held teams under 40% field goal percentage, and they outrebounded their opponent. That's what we're going to base our premise on to best have the opportunity to compete night in and night out.
On his experiences at Pittsburgh and UCLA and what he'll bring from them to CMU:
Being at Pittsburgh, we had a situation there that I believe is quite similar to the situation here at CMU - and I told this to our players earlier - where we had players at Pittsburgh that were under-recruited guys, or guys that had the opportunity to, at the last minute, either go to Pittsburgh or go to a good mid-major program, and we got players to buy into being tough and doing things to be mentally tough and mentally focused. Being tough is not about being a guy that's going to go up and cheap-shot someone, but it's about staying to task and being mentally tough enough to carry out the assignment, whatever it is, for that particular game, and we had guys like that. That experience at Pittsburgh, being with a group of guys that were under-recruited and to go and win the Big East Tournament championship against two NBA lottery picks in Ben Gordon and Emeka Okafor from Connecticut, that lets me know that these guys will be winners, and they're just looking for someone to show them the way, and that's what it's going to be about.
In terms of UCLA, it was kind of a similar situation, and Dave touched on that. When we got there, the program was coming off its worst season in the history of its rich tradition of basketball, and in our first year we only won 11 games. We inherited some guys that didn't quite buy into our program, and in that culture things are a little bit different in terms of how they think you should play, but we had a core of guys that did buy in and in our second year we were able to reach the NCAA Tournament and won 18 games and then fed off that this past season and we were able to accomplish things that no one thought that young group could accomplish. It started, though, with the core of guys that were already in the program when we arrived, the guys that bought in to out mantra of "think tough, be tough." We wanted to be the toughest team in the Pac-10 Conference, and our goal here at Central Michigan is to be the toughest team in the MAC.
On the change in the weather from Los Angeles to Mount Pleasant:
I tell people this all the time, it doesn't matter where you live in the country, there's always something you have to deal with. In L.A., it's sunny and it's nice and you know it's going to be 75 to 80 everyday with a nice breeze off the Pacific (Ocean), but ... (pause, laughter) ... but, the top of my mind is you have to deal with the traffic and the smog. I actually lived an hour from UCLA and drove one hour each way into work everyday for the last 12 months. This situation, there was a connection with Dave Heeke the first time I sat down and spoke with him, and feeling his passion about Central Michigan Athletics, and more importantly about his vision for this basketball program, along with the fact that my wife was praying each day that we could get back to Michigan, was more than enough to make me want to be here.
On putting together a coaching staff, whether he had names in mind to fill his staff:
Definitely. There are two of my good friends that are actually here in attendance.
On his excitement for being at CMU compared to his wife:
This is where my heart is, without a doubt. I guess my praying really doesn't come into play because between my wife and my mom, who actually lives with us out in Palmdale which is where we live - she's there with our kids right now - this was the right fit, without question.
And again, with Dave, in talking with him this is something I mentioned to him, I really likened his situation coming here to Central and coming with a new vision and a new spirit and how to go about doing things, really reminded me of when I came to Pittsburgh, the situation that Ben Howland had with Steve Peterson. Steve came there and he made some changes that were sometimes unpopular, but they were the right decisions for Pittsburgh Athletics, and I see now, with Central Michigan and what direction Dave has this going, this is the time to be at Central Michigan and be here in Mount Pleasant to be a part of the start of something special.
On his timetable for moving to Mount Pleasant:
You should probably check with my wife on that. Right now, the major focus is going to be getting on the road and getting organized to connect with the key recruits that we want to identify for next week and them seeing me and seeing members of our staff, and just rebuilding those relationships. That's going to be the number one goal, and then once the recruiting period is over, then I have to worry about moving.
On coming back to the Mid-American Conference:
When I had the opportunity to work at Bowling Green (from 2000-2001), I found out the MAC is one of the most competitive conferences in the country, and a lot of times because of the television coverage, because of the media and ESPN and College Gameday, the MAC, along with a few other mid-major conferences, go unnoticed. It's going to be very enlightening to get back down to your roots and get down and have a blue-collar work ethic in an area where that's what it's all about.
On his first impression of the Chippewa men's basketball team he inherited:
When I walked in these guys were working in the weight room, and they were up at 7:30 this morning getting after it, so they have a passion about wanting to be winners. It's just about pushing them beyond their personal threshold to attain that goal, and I really believe all these guys are more than willing for that to happen.
Athletics Director Dave Heeke, on what set Ernie apart from the rest of the candidates for this job:
I talked about some of the characteristics we were looking for, and I think Ernie's ability to really crystallize those things stood out. I've talked about this program being student-athlete centered, and Ernie really captured that with me and his ability to talk about how his program is student-athlete, and specifically basketball player, centered, and the vision he has for creating an environment for them to be successful. That's an academic plan, that's a social plan, and that's a game plan, all the way across the board, for our young people to be successful.
Ernie was able to communicate that very effectively, not only to me but to others on our staff, and certainly the people that I talked to throughout the country have a great deal of respect for Ernie and his ability to do that. I think that's what most important about a basketball program.
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