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STANFORD UNIVERSITY

PROJECT: Bob Murphy Interviews

INTERVIEWEE: Mike Montgomery

Murphy: [0:01] Hello again, everybody, and welcome once again to the Stanford Sports History Book. Visiting this time with Coach Mike Montgomery, who has been with Stanford for 17 years. And he has coached overall for 25 years and he's won over 500 hundred games. And folks, that add up to 20 wins a season, both at The University of Montana and at Stanford. A fabulous record with all kind of awards. Coach, I know you're trying to be humble, but it isn't easy. [laughter]

Montgomery: [0:32] It is easy, it's not that hard to be humble. This is not rocket science, this is just coaching basketball. I think if you get yourself in a situation with good kids and you have good people working for you, you can have success. I think if somebody were looking for a blueprint as to why I've been successful, it's been because I've had good people around me that have been hard workers, most of whom have gone on and become head coaches in their own right. [1:04] We've had great kids. I mean, obviously, at Stanford we get kids that are exceptional, but even at Montana I had kids that really enjoyed playing basketball, really wanted to win. We tried to recruit kids there that being at Montana was important. While a lot of the guys in the Big Sky would recruit kids from junior college, players from California that really didn't care at all where they were, they just wanted to play basketball. I think that's been probably the number one thing, is the players I've had where I've been have really wanted to be there and really wanted to succeed.

Murphy: [1:39] Mike, you were born into a coaching family, talk about that. Let's go back a few years. Long Beach, California, your brothers, your dad. I mean, you were born to be a coach.

Montgomery: [1:49] You known, they didn't want me to be a coach. Just like, I guess, I have some second thoughts about my son who kind of wants to be a coach, because that's

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all he knows and been around our basketball program over the years. You know when you're little and you go to games and there's people and it's exciting and it just naturally gets your attention. In fact, I was at the UCLA-Stanford game in the Coliseum, which Stanford people won't want to remember, because it was 72 to nothing when John Brody was the quarterback. And I distinctly remember that. I wasn't very old, but we were sitting up in the Coliseum. And then my brothers, who were older, started playing sports and, so, it became something that was important. At my house the TV couldn't be on before 5: [2:39] 00. Dad didn't want the kids sitting around watching TV all day. But there was an exception to that, and that was sports. Whenever sports were on, they could be on. Which, as a kid, what meant to you, "Well, sports must be really important, if they can be on television, but highway patrol can't be. It's got to be important."

[3:02] So, when you are born that way it becomes really important to you. And, of course, anybody that's ever played competitively knows how much fun it is just to get out, and compete, and play, and sweat, and the team, and all that stuff.

Murphy: [3:18] How about three of you? Your two brothers, Don and Dick, and yourself. The three of you guys hang together growing up? How'd it work out?

Montgomery: [3:24] No, they're older. They're much closer in age. Dick, my oldest brother is six years older and Don's four years older. And so, they were best friends, they hung out together. But I was that much farther behind that it was hard to include me. [3:41] And that was at the point where I got in college, then they started to include me, because I played rugby with Don. In fact, he invited me to come out to play with the rugby team. And that was important and all his older buddies and all the football players. So that was like me looking up to these guys that I watched play football and everything. And so, went out and tried to be successful there. But that meant a lot to me.

[4:07] And then, of course, Dick was a real good volleyball player and had really become fairly accomplished in the club volleyball scene. And we would play some two man together and play against each other on the beach. But when I was younger, I was too far behind to really spend much time with them.

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Murphy: [4:26] Long Beach State, and of course, we played down there two or three years ago. and it was like a homecoming for you. Great place to go to school. And of course, going back a few years, that was pretty heavy duty basketball territory, too.

Montgomery: [4:38] Well, you know, that's one of the things, ironically, that really had helped my in my career. Because when I played at Long Beach State, it was college division basketball. People would have to think back to remember that they kind of divided it up as to big schools and then college division, and that's what we were. And mostly the team was composed of guy like me from local high schools -- Bellflower High School, Western High School, Long Beach Millikan -- from around the area. You know, we played Fresno State and San Diego State in that league. But we also played Chapman and Redlands and school like that. [5:14] But when I left and went into the service, Jerry Tarkanian came in and, of course, all of the guys I played with were pretty much out of there. And, really, he had all these potential pro type players. Real, real different style of basketball, changing people, philosophy and the whole deal. But they got real good real fast. And then, when I went out and was applying for jobs, I said, "Well I played at Long Beach State." And people looked at me at the same level that was playing. It was really funny I had to chuckle.

Murphy: [5:48] You didn't tell them you were part of another era, did you?

Montgomery: [5:50] I tried, but it was really funny because they honestly looked at me in a way different way than they would have looked at me. Because they had never heard of Long Beach State. Now all of a sudden, "Oh, Long Beach, I saw you guys on television against UCLA in the NCAA, you guys are really..." [6:07] And I had more stature as a result of that. And the funny thing is, is that really tells a lot about, you know, how athletics fits in a university. People tend to evaluate universities a lot of time based on their athletic success. That's how they look at things. I think that's important to know as we talk about athletics and how they fit in the college scene.

Murphy: [6:30] Well you had your bag packed. You were ready to go someplace and coach. Tell the folks a little bit, quickly, where you went and how you got there.

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Montgomery: [6:38] Again, you know how fate would have it. Having to go into the military was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Because I left Long Beach, and that got me away from my friends, and my pals, and my security blanket. [6:53] You know how college is. You're in a fraternity, and you have your group of friends, and you played ball. So you have this built in prestige, or at least you think you do. I was thrown out there and didn't know a soul and had to go to boot camp and all this kind of stuff. But that's really where I made my contacts that got me started in college coaching. I didn't ever dream that I was going to be a college coach. I think I would have probably figured out that's what I wanted to do, but the road would have been very difficult.

[7:23] But I got into the Coast Guard. And when I got in there, ran into a guy named George Hill that had come from a major college program, University of Tennessee. And we got along very, very well. I just couldn't get enough of basketball. And that was my first taste of big arenas, of actually going around and seeing east coast basketball, where, obviously, it was way different than west coast, and that really got me started.

[7:48] So I went from the military, where I coached, and got my start at the Coast Guard Academy, to graduate school at Colorado State, where I went on a graduate assistanceship, which I'd never heard of, until George told me that you got to try to get a graduate assistanceship. Here I was at Colorado state, there was just three of us. Jim Williams was a famous legend of a coach, Boyd Grant, and myself, and those were the guys I was around.

Murphy: [8:15] Nothing will get you ready for the oomph of the mountain country more that Fort Collins, Colorado. That'll get you read in the wintertime especially, won't it?

Montgomery: [8:22] It was a great place and it really was a great place to go to school. And again, I got a lot of responsibility when I was very young. And I went to the Citadel and coached, and that was my first full-time job. Then I left there and I had a chance to go to the University of Florida in the Southeast Conference. [8:39] I think I was 24 years old, and traveling around, and flying our own plane, and all that kind of stuff. Training

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table there was spectacular. I remember all these things, but I could do this because I was single and salary was not an issue. I was really having fun.

[8:57] And then the staff got fired. First time that I had been involved in somebody getting fired, and watched how that disrupted somebody's life and how bad that was. Hooked on at Boise State, which I never... Idaho...

Murphy: [9:11] Now that's quite a move from Florida to Boise State, huh?

Montgomery: [9:14] Well, I needed a job, and you're 24 and don't have a lot of exposure. At some point the question was, "Do I try to stay on the east coast and bang around. There weren't a lot of jobs, I do remember applying at Utah State to try to be an assistant coach with Dutch Belnap. The guy that he ended up hiring was Jim Harrick, who was in high school coaching at Morningside High School. [9:43] I needed a job, so Boise State was the one thing that was available, and whenever they had called, when we had a conversation back-and-forth, it seemed like I was out playing golf, because I didn't have anything else to do, and I could play for free at the Florida golf course. I was horrible.

Murphy: [laughs] [10:00] I was going to ask you, have you gotten any better?

Montgomery: [10:02] No. That was when I first started back. I mean, since junior high school or elementary school, this was when I first started back, because the guy that was an assistant was like a '1' and he was very good. So, that's where I first started back at, and so part of my responsibilities at Boise State was as a golf coach, which was a little bit of a joke, because I was horrible.

Murphy: [10:27] Didn't do too many demonstrations for the boys? [laughs]

Montgomery: [10:29] None. In fact, one of the kids that I went out with, the last group, when I was cutting the squad, asked me in just a very honest, naive sort of a way that a kid would do, "How did you get to be golf coach?" As he and I were both rolling the ball down the fairway. Needless to say, he didn't make the team. [10:49] So, Boise State for three years, and then when Judd Heathcoat left to go to Michigan State, Jim Brandenburg

p.6 got the job and asked me to go up there. Again, I was assistant golf coach and assistant basketball coach. That was a tremendous break for me because Montana really love their basketball, and I really liked it there.

Murphy: [11:12] Missoula is a great town.

Montgomery: [11:13] Missoula is a great town. It's a college town, and I had never envisioned living in Missoula, Montana, but I have still got a lot of friends, and I met my wife there. I mean, I would probably still be kicking around. So, that started that.

Murphy: [11:28] That may have saved you, because you could have been a golf pro. [laughs]

Montgomery: [11:33] May have saved me from being a golf pro, yeah. I should blame Sarah for that.

Murphy: [11:41] The Griz, the Griz is up there, and it is a real community, and really rallies around that university.

Montgomery: [11:46] Yeah. We had some interesting things happen. We had an ineligible player, and there was lots of stuff, but somehow they had enough confidence in me. I was 30-years old, and at that point I was starting to think about trying to get my own job. [12:01] Again, you know how things happen. I applied for Walla Walla Junior College, and didn't get that. I was in an interview pool at Portland State University, and I may have had a chance there, but then that's when Jim took the Wyoming job, and they hired me at 30-years-old.

[12:21] They made me a Director of Basketball, so I didn't have to go through a lengthy process. One of my first responsibilities was to hire the women's coach, and I ended up hiring Robin Selvig, who had played there. Of course, the rest is history, because Robin has won probably 600 games at Montana. He is just a legend. He has absolutely been spectacular as the women's coach at University of Montana, and remains a good friend to this day.

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[12:48] So, I was there eight years, and we had some success early. We thought success. We didn't realize people were grumbling, but they have a great history of success there from the coaches. Judd Heathcoat started it, and then myself, and my assistant, Stew Morrill, who is now at Utah State and winning 25 games a year, and Blaine Taylor. It has just been a series of people playing--of course, who worked for me, and is now at Old Dominion.

[13:21] So, Montana has been a part of a lot of peoples lives, just like it has been in football, when you go through these guys like Jack Elway and Dennis Erickson. They all came through at Northwest. It's a great place.

Murphy: [13:35] Yeah. I was talking to Keith Gilbertson not long ago, a football coach at the University of Washington, and we were talking about northwest guys. There is a real camaraderie for the northwest guys. I am not sure what it is, but Gilby thought it was because most of these are old families, people who have worked hard, it is just sort of the tradition up there, and everybody kind of hangs together and roots for one another. I think there is a real feeling about the Northwest. You had that.

Montgomery: [14:03] Well, I think it is a couple of things. I think, one, I think a lot of the guys that came through there were not 'silver spoon' guys. They were not guys that were great athletes, pros that automatically got a job because of your name. These are guys that worked up through the assistant coach ranks, and end up being successful. So, I think the guys knew that they worked, and they knew that other guys worked that came through there. [14:27] I think the other thing is, too, as a good thing or a bad thing, but people up there tend to socialize together. Here it's hard. Everybody lives a long ways away, and they don't socialize. There, if you are there, you are one of them, and you just tend to get out and have a good time, and people don't worry too much about that, and it is kind of a different way of life.

[14:47] We were all younger then, and of course like almost everybody, when you are younger you have a little different lifestyle. You don't have kids. You don't have some of the responsibilities, so you all have got stories to tell about--each of us have stories about one another, and that kind of tends to bond you together too.

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Murphy: [15:04] After a lot of success at Montana one day, the phone rang and it was Andy Geiger on the other end. Andy of course, had come to Stanford from the University of Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania had made quite a name for itself in basketball. I think Andy felt himself, he had a great confidence about his judgment in basketball, and he went up there. It had to be flattering when you got that call. [15:26] I just wonder what went through your mind, because Dr. Tom Davis had left Stanford. I knew Tom well, and continue to know him well, and I know that he left Stanford, because he just didn't feel you could quite get it done at Stanford. I wondered, you and I have talked about this in the past a little bit, how you felt when you got that call?

Montgomery: [15:46] Well, I wish it was as simple as him calling me. I had called four years earlier, when Tom had gotten the job. Of course, I had only been at Montana four years then. We had been good, 18-19 wins, but from that point on we kind of got going, and won 20 plus every year. [16:05] Andy was very nice and said, "Gee. I know who you are, but I kind of have a guy in mind," which made all the sense in the world. I think Andy at that point wanted to see if basketball would work at Stanford. They had of course some really tough years prior to that for a lot of reasons, which I mean I can think when I got here, why some of that, but they just had a lot of tough years.

[16:28] He wanted to commit some money to it, try and make it important, and so he went out and got a guy that was pretty visible. Tom, I think knocked down a lot of barriers. I mean, I think he did a lot of the dirty work that needed to get done trying to establish a program, but it also proved that it wasn't going to be easy.

[16:50] You get in cycles, where players are available or not available to you, and you get in a good cycle, which we've certainly been in some of those, and then you are going to get good players. Then there are some cycles where there aren't very many "student athletes" out there, and then you just struggle a little bit.

[17:06] So, I just think he looked at an opportunity, and maybe the timing was such that he felt that, "Maybe I better take this thing while the getting is good." He loved it here. He loved living here.

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Murphy: [17:19] Loved the golf.

Montgomery: [17:20] He did love the golf, and still does.

Murphy: [17:22] He's better than you. He it right to left. You hit it just right.

Montgomery: [17:28] And sometimes real right.

Murphy: [laughs] [17:30]

Montgomery: [17:31] I just think the timing was right for him, and I don't think he meant anything negative. Like anything, when they ask you a question, you have got to answer it, and he tried to answer it as best he could, and I don't think it was any one thing. I just think it was real hard.

Murphy: [17:45] Tom had gone, in the '86, '87 season, he had gone 14 and 16, just barely on the losing side. You came, and you turned it around, 15, 13. You had a player, who you inherited by the name of "Todd Lichti." That strikes a cord, doesn't it?

Montgomery: [18:02] Yeah, but I also inherited a bunch of guys; Eric Revino, Eric Wright, Greg Butler, Terry Taylor. We had a real good nucleus of kids, whose attitude I really think added to Y's fit a little bit more of what I was selling, hard work, and let's get in a weight room, and the style of play seemed to fit with what we inherited. [18:28] Certainly, Todd was a special kid, and everybody here felt that way. Todd was a tremendously hard worker, and he set the tone for everybody else. The more I asked, the more they gave, and then we had a little bit of success. Not a lot, but a little bit.

[18:45] I'll never forget going nine in nine that first year in conference, which is average. nine in nine is 500, that is average. Wow! You would have thought we had really done something. We hadn't been nine in nine around here for a long, long time, and taken in that perspective, I guess it was a pretty good deal.

[19:04] We played some people tough, but we had the majority of that group back. They had tasted just a little bit of success, and they just weren't going to settle for anything less than winning games.

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Murphy: [19:15] Mike, talk a little more about Todd, because I remember one day being over at Maples, and I watched him--I still can't believe this, throw a basketball from one end of the court to the other right-handed, and then turn around and do the same thing left-handed. He was absolutely ambidextrous. What a remarkable athlete that guy was!

Montgomery: [19:32] Yeah, he really was. I thought you were going to say that he threw it from one end to the other, and caught it.

Murphy: [laughs] [19:36]

Montgomery: [19:38] He didn't do that, although people probably thought he could. He was a remarkable athlete. He was 6'4", maybe 207, 208, 209 lbs, really well built. A very good jumper. He won the dunk contest, for example, at The Boston Shootout, which is typically not reserved for white kids. Todd went and did that. [19:59] But probably more importantly, Todd was extremely motivated. He just was a kid that really was a perfectionist. I remember talking to his mother. She called and said, "You know, Todd thinks he can take 18 units in engineering and play basketball, and you've got to talk him out of it because he can't do it. He'll kill himself."

Murphy: [20:17] Didn't want you to talk him out of basketball? [laughs]

Montgomery: [20:19] Well, no.

Murphy: [20:21] 18 units. Maybe 15, huh? [laughs]

Montgomery: [20:23] The point being that when he accepted a challenge, he was not going to admit that he couldn't do it. He would drive himself to do it, and he was really a motivated kid and just a pleasure to coach. Hardheaded at times, certainly like all good athletes. And the kids loved him. He wanted to share the attention, and he just wanted to win. That's what we built a foundation around. [20:48] I will never forget he and Sean Elliott going head to head and both getting 35. I think Todd had 27 in the second half. We won that game, and they were number one. The crowd poured on the floor. All of a sudden what you were seeing is people excited about basketball, generating the kind of

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excitement and enjoyment that you should have in college basketball. But it had been a long time in coming here at Stanford.

Murphy: [21:14] Well, your post-season. This is your second year, and boy! Did you turn it around in a hurry! 21 and 12 back in the NIT and beat number one Arizona as you just said. But winning 21 games going into post-season play for the first time since '41-'42 when Howie Dallmar was playing!

Montgomery: [21:30] Yeah, and the interesting thing is you know now that the NIT was kind of a reputation thing. If we win 21 now, we go to the NCAA because of our reputation. That's how things change. It's hard to get in. You don't really realize how hard it is to get in. I remember the NIT, and that was exciting for us because that was the first time post-season. [21:52] We actually won some games there, and that was the start of it. Again, we had most of those guys back, so there was no reason that we couldn't try to do a little bit better.

Murphy: [22:02] Well, you did! How about the next year, when you went 26 and 7? Now, forget the NIT. You're in the NCAA tournament! How about that?

Montgomery: [22:09] We were really good. People ask and I'm not so sure that wasn't our best basketball team. I really am. That was the one year I knew, when we went on the floor to play, that the kids were going to be ready to play. I never worried about those kids' preparation for a game. We were really good. [22:26] The one thing we didn't have was a lot of depth. We were not as deep as we've been with teams since then. But boy! My starting five that year was good. I think that, granted, we stumbled in the NCAA Tournament for a variety of reasons. There are reasons why things happen, but that was a very good basketball team.

Murphy: [22:46] Well, you think about those and, of course, people are listening to us right now. Lichti was over 20 points a game. Howard Wright was 14 points and seven rebounds a game. Reveno, who's one of your valuable assistant coaches now, was so big and tough inside. And boy! Could Terry Taylor shoot the threes! What do you think?

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Montgomery: [23:02] Well, more importantly than shooting the threes, he was a great percentage three-point shooter as he just never turned the ball over. He was a tenacious kid, and not a tremendously talented kid as we evaluate kids today. In other words, he wasn't the fastest kid. He wasn't the quickest kid. He couldn't free himself up with his quickness to get away from pressure. [23:21] He just, by God, had to be tough mentally, and he was. He was extremely tough mentally. He just wouldn't turn it over. I don't recall the statistic, but it was an incredible statistic. Something like 34 turnovers in 32 games, and that's almost unheard of. He just would not turn the ball over.

[23:37] Now some of his teammates would question the fact that he wouldn't take a gamble on a pass. But if Terry didn't feel like he could make it, he wasn't making it if he didn't feel like it was going to get there. He was kind of the glue that held us together and ran all that talent.

Murphy: [23:50] His first three years had something to do with recruiting a kid by the name of Adam Keefe--showed up back in the NIT in '89 and '90. Keefe was 20 points and nine rebounds a game. Pretty strong!

Montgomery: [24:01] Yeah, Keefe was the first kid that I can recall that we actually beat somebody on as far as recruiting. Adam could have gone pretty much where he wanted to go, and it ended up being us and North Carolina. Notre Dame was one of his choices, and there was a fourth one. I'm trying to think. It might have been Duke. It was Duke, North Carolina, Notre Dame, and ourselves, and they all wanted him. [24:25] As compared to a token deal, yeah, they wanted him. It was because of his toughness, because of the way that he played the game. Certainly, his skills, but it was just who wouldn't want Adam Keefe just the way he played? He chose Stanford, and that was a tremendous breakthrough for us.

[24:43] I remember one of the things that he had said back when he was in ninth or tenth grade that we used, and I think maybe he said, "Gosh, if you had a chance to go to Stanford, why wouldn't you?" or "How could you pass that up?"

Murphy: [24:58] You used that.

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Montgomery: [24:59] Oh, boy!

Murphy: [laughs] [25:00]

Montgomery: [25:00] That came back. Why did you say that? The things that you believed at the time still hold true. I can't imagine a better place for Adam. Met his wife and had a great career and is an extremely well rounded kid and really had some great experiences.

Murphy: [25:15] Mike, what was interesting about that team, I think, is that you had Adam Keefe but you had a whole bunch of new guys from the previous years. A great big kid from Perth, Australia, Andrew Vlahov; you had the Deshon Wingate with that little touch of silver in his hair; and a great three-point shooter by the name of Kenny Ammann.

Montgomery: [25:35] We definitely had a makeshift group of kids, but we had some toughness. Keefe and Vlahov inside were very good. We played UCLA and they had Trevor Wilson and Don MacLean, of course two basically All Americans. Just physically and mentally Vlahov and Keefe took those kids out. Vlahov, extremely tough, and everybody loved Andrew. [25:58] He's one of my favorites, and I think anybody that played with him would tell you the same thing. He dominated people mentally. He went up and told MacLean that "I'm pretty much going to kick your ass for you."

Murphy: [laughs] [26:08]

Montgomery: [26:10] And the kid thought he might. So he [laughs] wanted no part of Andrew. That's just the way Andrew played. That's the way, you know, the old rugby mentality from Australia, but just an unbelievable kid. Those two guys inside, Andrew's ability to pass, and Keefe--their knowledge of the game and how well they worked together. [26:26] Of course, we augmented that with some pretty good shooters. I would say we ham-and-egged it as much as anything because one game John Patrick shot it in. The other game Kenny Ammann shot it in, and it was just a fun group. Not an extremely talented group, but a fun group to play. Andrew was hurt, came back at the end of the year, and allowed us to go through there. Was it the next year I guess we won the NIT?

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Murphy: [26:52] Yeah, the very next year '90 '91. You won 20 games. Like you say, you would have been in the NCAA in today's game probably. Went back and won the NIT. And remember that game? Coach Tubs left early [laughs] in Madison Square Garden? You beat Oklahoma 78-72. Adam had averaged more than 21 points a game and almost 10 rebounds a game. What a season!

Montgomery: [27:14] Well, we wouldn't have gone to the NCAA that year because we were 15-13 going in and won five straight games in the NIT. Despite the fact it was the NIT, that was I think a memory that stands out because traveling. They sent us on the road. We got a home game, and we won. [27:36] But then they sent us to Wisconsin clearly with the idea that we were going to lose, and we won that game at Wisconsin in front of a sold-out crowd. Then they sent us directly from there to Southern Illinois.

Murphy: [27:46] Carbondale. [laughs]

Montgomery: [27:49] Yeah! And we went down and stayed in St. Louis and rested for a day and went on to Carbondale. The big joke was that we hadn't brought enough pairs of skivvies to make it through. So we did our wash in St. Louis to make it through and...

Murphy: [28:01] Stayed at Adam's Mark Hotel, and great practice! Remember how well they treated us at--was it St. Louis University?

Montgomery: [28:06] Yeah, yeah.

Murphy: [28:07] They were just wonderful.

Montgomery: [28:08] Yeah. The reason we started winning was we got Andrew back off injury, and just he and Adam then started clicking again. We went down to Southern Illinois, and I'll never forget Paul Rundell. Of course, if we win that game we get to go to the Garden. Paul Rundell, who'd been around the game for 40 years, was their kind of a walk-on assistant coach. [28:27] Great guy, just said, "You know, Coach, one of my lifelong dreams was to play in Madison Square Garden." And we won that game. At the end of the game I looked back in the back of the locker room, and Coach Rundell was crying because it meant so much to him. Those are the things that people don't see. We

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went there, of course, and the circus was in town so the elephant smell was definitely there. You ride up the service elevator. Beat John Calipari and Boston College as I remember it and then a good Oklahoma team. As you mentioned, I think Billy had play tickets, and so he managed to leave at half and he was out of there. It was a big play because I think it was about an eight-point swing right there right before the half.

Murphy: [laughs] [29:08] Do you remember the funniest thing that happened on that trip? We were staying at the Marriott right there at Times Square, and the guy's doing the shell game out in front of the hotel. The kids looked up to Andrew because he was just a little bit older and a little bit tougher and a little bit wiser. So all the kids kind of idolized him. Andrew's going to show them how to win money quick, and he puts down 20 bucks. [29:26] The guy moves the shells around a couple of times. Andrew lost the 20 about the same time he put it on the table. Then he had the game figured out, and he put down another 20. He lost that even faster than the first one. Andrew's [laughs] stock! In basketball it didn't fail, but on the streets of New York his stock went down, and [laughs] he'll forget it. He was shocked. [laughs]

Montgomery: [29:44] Well, yeah. Those guys make a living doing that and they see kids like that coming but it was a fun trip. They treat you real well, you go to Tavern on the Green and you get to go to a play, and they do treat you real well and for a lot of the kids it was the first trip to New York. So as an experience you can't beat that.

Murphy: [30:03] Mike, we're going to move a little faster now. NCAA again, 18 and 11 in the '91, '92 season, 10-8 in the Pac-10, lost Alabama in the NCAA and then we're skipping over the NCAA like it means nothing now because you've been there so many times. [30:18] Adam Keefe was gone the next year and that was a losing season -- the only season you've only experienced in your coaching career. It was a tough one but what was amazing, you lost 18 games the season before, came back and won 17 in the very next year -- turned it around in a hurry.

Montgomery: [30:34] Yeah, one of the goals you kind of set is -- you set little things to yourself to kind of keep you motivated -- was never to have a losing season but it also pointed up by having that season and - well when you had a losing season - we had a

p.16 dandy of one. With the kids we lost and the kids that got injured we just didn't have enough players to compete but it also points up how important it was to win. [30:56] I mean how hard it is and how fragile this whole thing is and I thought that the main thing there was that the kids really hung together. We didn't make it such a negative that it was a miserable season. The kids have a lot of fond memories of each other.

[31:09] But to bounce back then at that point the thought was, well, we've had our run now, is that it for Stanford? Because I don't think there was enough confidence that had been built up about our ability to win still. Even though we had had some wins I don't think people thought that maybe this thing was for real.

[31:28] Along came a young man by the name of Brevan Knight that kind of saved our bacon. Here's a kid that really nobody wanted. It was us and Manhattan in the recruiting process and at 5'8", 140, believe me he was a gamble. He was quick but not a great scorer, not a great player. Certainly had a presence and we needed a guard badly and Brevan came in here and really just turned this thing around. I think that having him and a whole lot of things that he represented really changed a lot for us.

Murphy: [31:58] And a guy who could shoot threes by the name of Dion Cross.

Montgomery: [32:02] Yeah, and it took a while for Brevan to know how to use Dion because Dion could really shoot the ball and Brevan had a lot to learn. He wouldn't let you know that he didn't know but he figured out that he couldn't score every time on penetration. He learned to kick the ball to Dion and once he figured out how to run offense and we were all of a sudden pretty good again. [32:23] But that was a great guard combo and Brevan was so much fun to coach. He was hard because he was a hard kid to manage and I had to change some things about the way I coached to accommodate him a little bit. But he did grow through that and then those last two years were just a pleasure.

Murphy: [32:40] Mike, that was a historic year because it was the founding of the Sixth Man Club and you had great following with the students but they weren't really organized and they were seeking something I think. They sure found it with the Sixth Man Club and

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boy, did that build into something and it didn't take very long. They were excited about the winning attitude you'd established and boy, did they rally around it.

Montgomery: [33:01] I think the kids here have really always related to our basketball players. I think our kids have done a good job of integrating themselves into the student body. They're not kids that run around thinking they're special. They make friends in the student body. They make friends with all kinds of kids that go to school here and I think the students look at them as "Hey, these guys are like us. They're smart and they're very capable". [33:23] So giving them something to get excited about and of course there's nothing better than the atmosphere inside of a college basketball facility because you're right there and you can yell at the officials and you can yell at the opponents and you can jump up and down and you can see the players. I mean they don't have helmets on. You actually can relate to the kids. You're 20 feet away from the guys. It's just a lot of fun. I mean it's a great escape from the pressures that college students have, the studies. You can go out an hour and a half, yell, sweat, scream, be silly and then go back and get back to do what you normally do.

Murphy: [33:57] Now how about the next year? Another 20-win season; 20-9 that next year, 10-10 in the Pac-10. You would have liked it to be better than that. You had Darren Allaway, Tim Young, Andy Poppink, and of course Brevan, and Brevan, what a great player you've said it so many times. [34:13] Back in the NCAAs you beat UNC Charlotte and then lost to a really good team, but 20-9 NCAA tournament again.

Montgomery: [34:22] Well if I'm not mistaken now. That win was the first time we had won in the NCAA, so that was significant. We had been there a couple of times and not won and as I recall that Charlotte game, unless I'm mistaken, that's the first time we won a game in the NCAA and so that made it pretty special. [34:41] Again, Brevan was the main thrust in that team - that was the start of John Calipari's - we got handled pretty good in that game. They were very physical and they pretty much took us apart inside. We couldn't do much about it. But here we'd won a game in the NCAA and I may be wrong on that and I'm trying to think if it was Bradley was the first game we won, it may have been.

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[35:06] But that was getting to the point where still winning in the NCAA was a pretty big deal. So going and then playing a great team and it was back east as I recall. We had flown east again for the NCAAs but we were starting to make some inroads now. Now something was starting to happen with this whole thing where gosh, you started to look forward to maybe going to the NCAA again because we had these good players back.

Murphy: [35:31] Well you had a good team again - another 20-win season. As a matter of fact you weren't going to lose less than 20 the rest of the way to where we are right now. 12-6 in the Pac-10, Brevan had a fabulous season. You beat UCLA. Remember that day? You beat UCLA, the defending national champions right here at Maples. That was on January 9, '67-'66. The place went absolutely crazy. Dion averaged 16 points a game and you had a kid, one of your all time favorite guys by the name of David Harbour.

Montgomery: [36:02] Well, ole' Harbour.

Murphy: [36:03] He starts smiling. [laughing]

Montgomery: [36:04] He kind of typifies this whole thing. Harbour was just an unbelievable competitor and I'd had a couple kids like him in some other places that, you know - he was so competitive in practice he would cause problems some times. He just hated to lose and he would compete. He started playing a small forward for us at 6' 1.5", but he would block off and he would rebound and there wasn't a loose ball that he wouldn't get. [36:26] He's probably as tough a kid as I've ever coached. He just competed his tail off and of course he lost his thumb in a ski accident and bounced back and ended up playing a lot of basketball for us with a thumb missing. So Art is one of the favorites. Anybody that played on that basketball team, you can start talking about David Harbour stories and we all get a chuckle.

Murphy: [36:48] The next year was a legendary year, 22-8, 12-6 in the Pac-10. Beat Oklahoma and Wake in the NCAA tournament to go to the Sweet Sixteen. That was a milestone.

Montgomery: [36:59] Yeah, that was the first time I'd been in the Sixteen and I think that was significant for a number of reasons. Of course Wake Forrest had been number

p.19 one in the country early in the year - for a long time because they had Tim Duncan. Brevan and Tim Young had played on the 22 and under national team with Tim Duncan, which I coached that team. [37:19] So when we played that game there was a lot of - we knew Tim Duncan and he knew us and Brevan and he were very good friends and we beat them in Tuscan. Tuscan people jumped on our side, helped us out. But more significantly than that perhaps in some ways was - well, there's two memories.

[37:38] One was after the game Tim Duncan and Brevan Knight hugging each other, tremendous mutual respect for one another and then us coming to San Jose to play in the regional. I think that did as much for our program - you can pick Adam Keefe, Todd Lichty, and then you could pick Brevan Knight, but people had not seen the NCAA. All our trips to the NCAA had been the east.

Murphy: [38:04] All someplace else, yeah.

Montgomery: [38:06] Yeah, nobody got to go. Nobody ever saw - you know, NCAA that's great, but -- you know, out early and now all of a sudden we're in the Sixteen and it's San Jose Arena and so now tickets become very difficult to get. Everybody wants to go. They can get in their car and drive and so we had a lot of people down there. We play Utah to an overtime game. Brevan has a chance at a three pointer at the buzzer to win it. [38:33] They've got of course, Keith VanHorn, and I'm not so sure we shouldn't have won that game but everybody saw an NCAA tournament at its best. Now all of a sudden people became hungry. Wait a minute, we want more of this. How do we do this? It was like you had been telling them how good college basketball could be but they never understood. Now all of a sudden a lot of people understood that this is a pretty big time deal.

Murphy: [38:58] You're exactly right because as you say that I start thinking about the lights and the noise and the music and just the atmosphere that the NCAA brings with it. It is different.

Montgomery: [39:09] Oh, yeah, that is what people had never experienced here - they didn't know that was what it was about. They're thinking games in Maples in December

p.20 with small crowds, not much excitement, students not there and that's kind of the recollection. All of a sudden you're in a packed arena where you can't get a ticket and it's a premium and you're watching the best basketball players in the country. You're watching the pros - the guys that are going to be pros play basketball.

Murphy: [39:35] Well, as good as it was, then it changed, and it changed in a very happy way the next year, '97-'98. The NCAA is just a matter of fact now. Nothing very special anymore. 30-5, 15-3 in the Pac-10. Top ten all the way. A team of Madsen, Sauer, Young, Weems, and Art Lee, and Final Four San Antonio.

Montgomery: [39:59] Yeah, that was a great team. Great chemistry. Everybody played their roles so well. Weems the shooter, Art the real leader, and Tim Young, a big, physical presence. Sauer a very smart player at the three or four, and Madsen, of course, just a physical presence and a wonderful kid. [40:16] Not our best team, I don't think, but to that point, probably one of our best. But we got some breaks in the NCAA, which you have to have. People that were seeded higher got beat. And so Kansas, who was the number one seed in the regional got beat. We played Rhode Island, and, of course, if you remember that game, but we probably wouldn't have beat Kansas. But, they got beat by Rhode Island, and we'd already beat Rhode Island. So, the thought was that we could beat them.

[40:48] Clemson, out of the ACC, was in our original bracket, and they got beat by Western Michigan. We could handle Western Michigan because we guarded their two perimeter players.

[40:59] So, we just got some breaks, and lo and behold, we show up at San Antonio in the Final Four. Again, all the people that went got to experience a Final Four and participate in that. It really, really was something.

Murphy: [41:14] Michael, a little more about how you got there, because you mentioned Jim Harrick a long time ago when we started, way back at the beginning of your career. Jim Harrick, Art Lee reaching in for a steal, Madsen with the stuff, and he was fouled, by the way. [laughter]

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Montgomery: [41:30] So you say. Jim might have a different approach on that. He was fouled, and the comeback was unbelievable. I think if you take great comebacks in college history, other than maybe the fact that Rhode Island was not a household name and probably we weren't either, but there's never been a better comeback than that, to be down as much as we were in the last part of a game. [41:55] I guess the only thing that would have made it better, if it would have been for the national championship, but that put us in the Final Four, and watching those kids cut down the nets.

[42:03] I remember the significance of that, I guess. I try to keep a pretty even keel. I was doing fine. I remember watching my family, my two children, of course, John and Annie who have followed basketball so closely, were kind of crying because it looked like we were going to lose. And then, as little as two minutes later game clock time, not actual time, their tears of sorrow had turned into tears of joy.

[42:30] That really made me understand how much it meant to everybody. That was a highlight. It was a great group. We want to go again. That just got us hungry. We'd like to get back there again. That's the ultimate goal.

Murphy: [42:44] Well, it's such a routine now. NCAA every year. The very next year after that Final Four, it was 26-7, won the Pac-10 again, 15-3. Lost to Gonzaga in the second round. You were Coach of the Year, but you were the Naismith Coach of the Year the next year. Casey Jacobson, all of a sudden shows up.

Montgomery: [43:04] Yeah, and that's the kind of thing you have to have happen. One is you've got a kid that excels in the classroom that takes his schoolwork... Casey just likes doing well at everything, and so, here's a kid that you feel like you have a chance to get in school, that always had an academic side to him. [43:22] Watching him mature as a player, you feel like you have a chance. He's from California. Certainly, he knows the Pac-10 and he sees Stanford as probably a place that makes sense to him, right from the get go. For all the right reasons, and that's what you have to have. That's what's going to allow us to win, is having kids like that, that have seen us, watched us, understand Stanford, and take a great deal of pride in the fact that they are student athletes.

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[43:47] So Casey comes, and he makes an immediate impact. He comes in here, and one of the few freshman who have started, and ends up starting for us, and boy, can he score points. Having Casey, again, allowed us to stay up there near the top of the Pac-10. I think we won three Pac-10 championships in a row, which is somewhat unprecedented. For Stanford to do that, really I think speaks volumes. It was a lot of fun through the run.

Murphy: [44:17] A lot of people have tried to compare Casey with Todd Lichti. Awful tough to do. Both great players. How similar were they?

Montgomery: [44:26] Really not similar at all. Todd was a great athlete. He could really run and jump. Todd, as one of the guys said when they asked him about using both hands, he said he's amphibious.

Murphy: [laughs] [44:41] Water polo?

Montgomery: [44:45] Definitely amphibious. There was a difference there, but the one thing they did have in common is a tremendous desire to excel. They were willing to work. They were willing to both do whatever it took. Refused to lose. They refused not to be successful. That's the one thing they did have in common. [45:05] Casey wasn't the fastest guy. He had to work, whereas Todd could really run and jump. But Casey, I can't tell you how many hours he put on the court learning to shoot the ball. Casey was a scorer. You weren't going to keep him from scoring. If he wasn't scoring out, he'd go in. He'd find a way to score. There are those similarities, but I think their impacts were similar, in terms of All-Conference, leading scorer, ability to carry a team.

Murphy: [45:32] A couple of guys by the name of Jaron and Jason showed up here about that time.

Montgomery: [45:37] Well, they were ahead of Casey, and they were huge. Obviously, we're looking at records. I don't know where you are chronologically, but 27-4 or 31-3. You know, 26-7. Those were our best teams. Conference championships. [45:54] God, you look inside, we had Jaron Collins at 6' 10 1/2", 6' 11". Jason at 6' 11 1/2", 7'. Mark Madsen, Tim Young. Inside, we were something. We had four first round draft picks, and then when you added Curtis to it, we still had four first round draft picks.

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[46:12] Really big and strong and imposing inside with good perimeter players. That stretch was just an incredible stretch. That put us on the map. We were number one for the better part of two years. We were on television. We went into the NCAA tournament as the number one seed twice. That's top four in the country. That was really something.

[46:35] Jaron and Jason, that's just not going to happen. Number one, how many do you see twins like that, with that size, and they played so well together. Complementing each other position wise. Great kids. Good students, and wonderful kids. That was a godsend getting those two kids, but again, that was what has to happen for us to be successful.

[46:58] Southern California kids. Mom from Northern California. Family here. Mother really appreciated the value of an education, and in fact, I think one of the telling things in the signing of them was the fact that their mother wanted to come to school here, wasn't able to get in, and always held Stanford to such a high esteem. And so, for her kids to go here, it was a huge deal.

Murphy: [47:18] One guy that we haven't talked about, and there are all kinds of overlaps here with Jaron and Jason and Casey. Mende, Ryan Mendez came up here from Texas and what did he score? 72 points in a high school game or something like that? We couldn't believe him, but boy could he shoot threes.

Montgomery: [47:32] Yeah. He did have 72, and they were playing a box and one, so obviously that didn't work. Ryan was a tremendous kid, and because he loved basketball. But you go back, how many kids are we forgetting? I mean, Mosely, and Mike McDonald. The list goes on and on and on. The kids that made tremendous contributions in their own way. [47:55] Ryan was just another kid that could really shoot the ball. In fact, we don't get out of the first round the year we won the Final Four if it's not for Ryan Mendez coming in and hitting three threes against a College of Charleston team that kind of had us stymied. That was the first round, and that team went to the Final Four.

[48:12] That's what makes teams, and that's what makes the history of, and the lore of a program and what you're talking about.

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Murphy: [48:18] Well, we should pause a little longer on that 2000-2001 team, because that team won 31 games. You went 30-5 back in '97-'98. We already talked about that. Now 31-3. That was absolutely incredible. We kind of felt you might go undefeated.

Montgomery: [48:35] Yeah, we just kept winning, and there was really no reason why we shouldn't. a lot of games weren't close. We were able to get away from people and get up, and so we were able to rest people. [48:45] It always seems like injuries play such a major part. That team could have won a national championship. That team legitimately was poised to win a national championship, and then, as I recall, Jaron got hurt, or Borchardt got hurt.

[49:02] So, we lost a big part of what we were doing there as we got against Maryland in the Elite Eight. We weren't the same team, because we were so good inside that we didn't have the same power and the same strength that we needed going into that thing.

Murphy: [49:16] Do I remember it right? Against Maryland, when Borchardt got hurt, the big guy from Maryland did a lot of tough work inside.

Montgomery: [49:21] Yeah, Tahj Holden. Well, Baxter. We had had a tough game the game before that with Cincinnati. Anytime you play Cincinnati you know you're going get a physical game, and that was the game that, I remember, that Jason Collins just took over. I can remember him shouting from the court, "Give me the ball!" That was unlike Jason, but he wanted the ball and he just scored it every time. [49:41] That was a tremendously physical game and a very taxing game. We turned around two nights later and played Maryland, and no excuses. We did not have Curtis at that point, and so our depth at the post was diminished. They had Baxter, and they had real good big guys as well. It was a tough match up.

[50:00] But the guy that hurt us was a guy off the bench, who ironically wanted to come to school at Stanford, named Tahj Holden who hit three trail threes that we hadn't really anticipated and he hadn't done much of that. We still had a chance to win that game, but we just couldn't muster it.

p.25

[50:15] That was really disappointing because that was a team that legitimately could have won a national championship. I'm not so sure we weren't the best team in the country.

Murphy: [50:22] 20-10 in 2001 and 2. 20-10 and that 12-6, second in the Pac-10. That was Borchardt and Casey reviewing that. Tony Giovacchini, of course, played on that team. Then we go to 2002, 2003. Once again 24 and nine. 20 wins for the ninth year in a row? Ninth year in a row. 12 NCAAs you've been to. 12, Coach! And never been there since 1941, [laughs] 42 before you got here.

Montgomery: [50:54] Well, there's some reasons, of course. One is they expanded the tournament. [laughs] I can remember back when UCLA used to win the league every year, and SC had had several years in a row where they were very good. You couldn't go unless you won your league. Of course, that's changed, and they will take five, as many as six, and sometimes even seven teams from a league now. [51:17] But we've established ourselves I think as one of the premier teams in the country, and that's the good news. That's what you want to do if it's at all humanly possible. Last year's team, the 24-9, was special because we'd lost Curtis and Casey to the draft a year early, which is something we really hadn't anticipated happening at Stanford very much.

[51:41] But it certainly is a sign of the times and something that we're all going to have to live with. So people pretty much wrote us off. But the chemistry of that group, really their ability to play well together and their unselfishness made them a very special group. We were behind in so many games where they just found a way to come back and win, which made it pretty neat. Seeing these kids respond like that makes it an awful lot of fun.

Murphy: [52:07] Tell me what it's like after being turned down for the Walla Walla Junior College job to sit where you [laughs] are now having received all these Coach of the Year Awards and the Naismith Award. [52:19] Your latest, by the way, is the John Wooden Legends of Coaching Award. The only others to have won that are Dean Smith, Coach K, your old friend Lute, Roy Williams, and Denny Crum. That's a pretty heady group for a guy that couldn't get a job in Walla Walla.

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[laughter]

Montgomery: [52:36] Well, yeah. I'm a little bit pragmatic about awards because what I've figured out over the years is they keep adding awards, and they've got to find recipients for all these awards. I think I've been a beneficiary of a little bit of that. But being at Stanford and running a good, solid program with good kids I think has held me in good stead. [53:01] But this Legends thing is pretty special because as you mentioned the people that have gotten it are all people that I respect. This has to do with longevity and the way that you've run your program and all of those kinds of things. Of course, I grew up with Coach Wooden, so that's kind of special. That's a single award, and that's going to be pretty special when that happens.

[53:27] So you know, who'd a thunk it, Bob? You just try to do the best job you can, and I'm involved. Somehow some way I've gotten myself politically in the middle of college basketball in the national scene. I certainly never set out to do that. It's just one thing has led to another.

[53:47] I'm going to be President of the National Association of Basketball Coaches here pretty soon. I'm Chairman of the Ethics Committee. I'm on a special ad hoc committee with the president of the NCAA about college basketball. So I think my background with being around athletics all my life I've got a pretty good perspective as to how it fits.

[54:07] I do think that being at Stanford has been a real blessing because there's a lot of stuff going on in basketball now and not all good. All the things you're reading about, and Stanford really just doesn't allow you to get caught up in any of that stuff. The kids we deal with, the people we deal with, all the safeguards and all the checkpoints that you have [laughs] here, you just deal with good kids.

[54:30] So you don't run across people with their hands out in terms of cheating to get kids or any of that stuff. So as frustrated as you get sometimes, because you don't have a very large pool of kids all the time, you have to look back and really count your blessings for where you are and what you're allowed to do.

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Murphy: [54:46] Mike, you touched on it a little just then. What is it about this place? I've been trying to figure it out for a long time, but here we are talking to you about this enormous success in basketball. You look at Tara over on the women's side. We're sitting here as we're talking, looking out on a magnificent swimming complex. [55:04] Think about Skip Kenney. He's won 22 Pac-10 Championships in 24 years at [laughs] Stanford. He's done the same thing in swimming that you've done in basketball, and he's won seven national championships. Richard Quick on the women's side, Dick Gould over on the tennis side along with John Whitlinger and Lele Forood.

[55:21] And of course, Frank Brennan--I don't know how many national championships Frank won. I mean on and on, everywhere you look. Don Shaw with women's volleyball--just incredible stuff. What is the chemistry around here? How does this all happen?

Montgomery: [55:35] Well, that's a question that could really take a long time to answer. There's a lot of things that go into making athletes what they are and making them successful. All the sports are not the same, so everybody has a little bit different issue to deal with. [55:53] I mean if you look at it logically, football and men's basketball have probably had the hardest time over the years for socioeconomic reasons for lack of a better way to explain it because it's a different sport with different kinds of kids. The swimming, the tennis, the golf, and those sports, it's just perfect. Where else? They're outdoor sports. Baseball. I mean where else can you find...

Murphy: [56:16] Mark Marquess! Got to mention him.

Montgomery: [56:17] Oh, unbelievable!

Murphy: [56:18] Wow! Incredible.

Montgomery: [56:19] Where can you find climate? If you're going to play these sports, are you going to go play in Wisconsin? Of course not.

Murphy: [laughs] [56:24]

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Montgomery: [56:26] But the climate here, the facilities here, the commitment, the athletic department to really all sports, not just the major sports, has allowed those people to be successful. I do think that there's a real something about the kind of kid that you generate here that tends to achieve at a very high level. This attracts that kind of person. [56:47] So it's no secret that a person that has done well academically tends to do well in everything because if they're good at sports and they've done well academically, they know how to discipline themselves. They know they have a great deal of pride in their performance. I think it carries over into sports. But Stanford has been fortunate in a lot of ways.

[57:08] One is that they have the people that have helped us raise money, build the facilities, and give us the opportunity. We can fund a lot of sports. By funding a lot of sports we give a lot of kids an opportunity, and that's been huge. Don't overlook that because there's people around the country that do not have the ability to scholarship the number of kids that we have here and give them the opportunities. I think you've got really great coaches here.

Murphy: [57:34] Mike, as we conclude this thing this is a real tribute to you and Stanford basketball, I believe. They're going to redo Maples. We're speaking in the present time here. I think that's a big move here.

Montgomery: [57:46] Well, it's a little overdue I think, Bob. Going back, I don't really just don't think people thought basketball could be successful here. I don't think they thought over history that there'd ever be a demand for tickets, and that it was something that we were going to be able to do what we've done and throw in women's basketball and the volleyball who all play in Maple's Pavilion. [58:09] But you know, the demand and the fact that we were all able to go out and generate the dollars to get this thing done in a fairly short period of time, I think it's going to be great. As you know we've always got political issues here, and I think we're going to turn to the football stadium next and try to get that done.

[58:25] Then we'll have facilities across the board that are going to begin to be as good as anybody's in the country. To have the ability to make that place user friendly, where you

p.29 come in and you take pride in Maples and sitting in there--what it represents and so forth--it's going to be pretty neat.

Murphy: [58:46] Well, we hope you've enjoyed this with Mike Montgomery. 25 years in coaching, over 500 wins. How many basketball coaches have averaged over 20 wins a year? Been here at Stanford for 17 years, nine straight NCAA appearances, 12 overall here at Stanford. [59:05] The 2004 John Wooden Legends of Coaching, and that is a magnificent award. Only Dean Smith, Coach K, Lute Olson, Roy Williams, and Denny Crum have also won that award. So a magnificent chapter in the history of Stanford sports. Hope you've enjoyed it, and we'll catch you the next time. Mike Montgomery says that he's now headed back to the golf course to work on that left or right shot that he does so well.

Montgomery: [laughs] [59:34]

Transcription by CastingWords