Former Indiana Assistant Steve Mcclain Brings a 'Relentless' Style to UIC
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Former Indiana assistant Steve McClain brings a 'relentless' style to UIC UIC head men's basketball coach Steve McClain watches his team practice at the UIC Pavilion. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune) Teddy Greenstein Contact Reporter Chicago Tribune New coach Steve McClain's goal for UIC basketball: "Gonzaga of the Midwest." Practice is in session at the UIC Pavilion. The only thing that moves faster than the ball is first-year coach Steve McClain. Wearing an untucked gray T-shirt and black sweats, McClain pinballs around the court, barking at and demanding maximum effort from his players. The whistle blows. The Flames will play mainly man-to-man defense once the season starts Nov. 13, but now they're using a 1-3-1 zone, with senior forward Jake Wiegand in the middle. "Jake!" McClain calls out. "You've got to move! Fan out! Find somebody!" Wiegand understands, later saying: "He wants me to fly around. If you're going to mess up, go hard all the time and it will cover up the mistakes." The frantic pace continues for two hours. "You can't come to practice without energy," sophomore forward Tai Odiase says. "You can't fake it either. He'll see right through that." Asked to describe a McClain-run practice, Wiegand replies: "Oh, man. Some would see it as crazy. But it's the right kind of crazy." The right kind of crazy? McClain can live with that. "At times, it's chaos," he says. "I want chaos." 'A relentless recruiter' McClain is so enthusiastic about UIC, he's neglecting his plate of mini waffles and fruit. We're at Hashbrowns, the breakfast nook where he takes recruits, near the corner of South Halsted and West Maxwell. You might think of this area for what's on the other side of the Dan Ryan Expressway — the UPS hub, a Metra yard, Manny's Coffee Shop & Deli. Warehouse-y. Just west is a beautiful area called University Village, dotted by single-family homes, tennis courts and the ballpark that faces Willis Tower and now bears UIC alumnus Curtis Granderson's name. There's ample shopping and a Bar Louie under construction. "I bring kids on campus whose parents have lived here all their lives, and they look at me and say, 'I had no idea,' " McClain says. "They didn't even know we have a campus." Long a commuter school, UIC didn't play Division I basketball until 1981. Bob Hallberg's solid run from 1987 to '96 gave way to NCAA tournament berths in 1998, 2002 and 2004 under Jimmy Collins. Collins stepped down in 2010, and the school turned to Howard Moore, a protege of Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan. Moore had a promising third season (18- 16) but was dismissed after going 16-49 over his final two. "With three years left on my contract, I would have liked to have finished what I started," says Moore, now a Big Ten Network analyst. "Obviously I didn't get that chance. I can't cry about it, but it's unfortunate." Jim Schmidt, in his 20th year as UIC's athletic director, sought advice on the new hire from three friends in the business: Bulls general manager Gar Forman, Grizzlies assistant coach and UIC alumnus Jeff Bzdelik and Matt Lloyd, a Magic executive and former college scouting director for the Bulls. All arrows pointed to McClain, an assistant under Tom Crean at Indiana who also had success as Wyoming's head coach from 1999 to 2007. McClain, 53, who manages to resemble Pat Riley, Kirk Douglas and Dennis Hopper's character Shooter from "Hoosiers," grew up on a hog farm in southwest Iowa. But he recruited Chicago while at Wyoming and as an assistant to Bzdelik at Colorado. And all three of his UIC assistants have strong Chicago ties. When McClain and assistant Deon Thomas visited nearly 40 high schools in the spring, many coaches were more familiar with McClain than with Thomas, a former Illinois great and a holdover from Moore's staff. "He is a relentless recruiter," Schmidt says of McClain. "It's 24/7." That's an accurate way to describe McClain's immersion into the UIC culture. He lived in university housing for five months and even had his wife, son and toy poodle move in with him until their purchase of a nearby townhome was completed. "It was a blessing," McClain says. "It allowed me to talk to the students. I'd say, 'Do you go to the (basketball) games?' " The answer, invariably, was no. 'We have to win' Last season UIC averaged 2,913 fans at the Pavilion, a number Schmidt hopes to double. To get there, the athletic department plans to spend a half-million dollars on marketing — billboards, radio ads, CTA advertising, on-campus branding. McClain has met with student groups. He's having UIC's six freshmen live on campus. While living on campus, he learned about Channel 33, a UIC station that will show Flames basketball highlights for free. "Fans in Chicago are hungry for a college team," he says. "The Bulls, Cubs, Bears, Sox ... they have their deal. "Those young adults who went to Michigan State or Indiana … can I figure out a way to grasp them? They can't go to East Lansing or Bloomington, and now they have young kids and want them to grow up going to college basketball. That's the niche." This also helps: The home schedule is loaded with local flavor — Roosevelt, DePaul, Illinois (at the United Center), Illinois State and Northern Illinois. Nearly every home game is at either 3 or 7 p.m., better for planning. The 34-year-old Pavilion needs renovation — or UIC might build a new facility for basketball and concerts across the street for around $85 million to $90 million. In the short term, McClain wants more fan entertainment during timeouts, like what the Bulls have. "At the end of the day we have to win," McClain says emphatically. "I get it. I get it." Schmidt has beefed up the recruiting budget and salary pool for assistants. The program added a director of player performance and a new video system. The Flames will take some chartered flights this season, and the team bus, Schmidt says, is more like John Madden's "Madden Cruiser." And, as he did at Indiana, McClain will have use of a golf cart to shuttle parents and recruits around campus. The stylish six-seater is decked out in UIC red and navy. "I have everything I need to get this program back to where it should be — top one or two in the Horizon League with a chance to go to the NCAA tournament every year," McClain says. "I don't know why we can't be the Wichita State or Gonzaga of the Midwest." .