Mike Organ: UTC hoops coach's path had many turns
"Even though he never played high school basketball, Will Wade was determined to become a high school basketball coach.
“I got my degree in secondary education with an emphasis on history and geography, and my ultimate life go … More
"Even though he never played high school basketball, Will Wade was determined to become a high school basketball coach.
“I got my degree in secondary education with an emphasis on history and geography, and my ultimate life goal was to be a high school history teacher and to coach basketball,” Wade said.
It’s been 12 years since Wade graduated from Franklin Road Academy, and he’s still not reached his goal. In fact, he’s given up on it.
“You know what they say about the best-laid plans: They kind of go haywire sometimes,” Wade said.
Going haywire is not always bad.
Wade didn’t land a high school coaching job, but he was named the men’s basketball coach at Chattanooga earlier this week. He replaces John Shulman, who was dismissed in March.
Wade is only 29.
His unusual path to the college coaching ranks began when he was at FRA and didn’t think he was good enough to play basketball.
The next best thing in his mind was to serve as a manager on the basketball team. He also was a manager for the football team.
Wade continued to work as a student manager in college at Clemson and then took up Tigers basketball coach Oliver Purnell on his offer to stick around to be a graduate assistant coach while working on his master’s degree.
“When I was a manager at Clemson, I had a real good camaraderie with the assistants,” Wade said. “I saw the interaction and impact they had with players and thought this would fun, a neat thing to do.”
The assistants who mentored Wade were Matthew Driscoll, now the coach at North Florida, and Kevin Nickleberry, now the coach at Howard. In 2006, Wade became director of basketball operations and started working with new Clemson assistant Shaka Smart.
Wade got his first big break the following year, when Tommy Amaker hired him as an assistant at Harvard.
Two years later, Virginia Commonwealth hired Smart, and Wade was at the top of his list when he started putting together his staff.
In 2011, VCU advanced to the Final Four.
Wade used his lack of playing experience as motivation throughout his career.
“It kind of makes you work a little harder to prove people wrong,” he said. “I think it’s a positive, really, because usually when you’ve played, you look at things with a cookie-cutter mentality. I kind of think outside the box and bring a little bit of a different perspective.”
The week before hiring Wade, Chattanooga hired former Vanderbilt coach Jim Foster to coach the Mocs women’s team. Foster had just been fired from Ohio State.
Wade grew up attending Vanderbilt women’s games and got to know Foster by sticking around afterward and talking strategy and about his desire to coach."
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