Memphis Coach Josh Pastner: We aren't worthy.

I like to think I’m a pretty successful guy. I’ve won a bunch of awards in my sales career and I actually have both an Associates and a Bachelors degree.  Most days I have that positive, conquer the world attitude.  And then just when I feel good, along comes that damn Josh Pastner.

Pastner is the 33 year old coach of the Memphis Tigers.  I’ll recap his story briefly in case you aren’t familiar. He walked on at Arizona with the intent of becoming a coach one day. He was on the 1997 Wildcat National Championship team. After graduation he was an assistant at both Arizona and Memphis, getting the head coaching job for the Tigers when John Calipari went to Kentucky. Pretty impressive, right? Oh, we’ve only scratched the surface..

Josh’s father, Hal, was a high school and AAU coach in Houston. Josh knew he wanted to be a basketball coach by the time he was in 5^th grade. I didn’t know what I wanted to do over summer vacation when I was in 5^th grade.

At the age of 13, Josh created his own publication that offered scouting reports on local Houston high school players. When he was 16 his father turned over the AAU team to him. Josh coached future NBA’ers Emeka Okafor, TJ Ford and Daniel Gibson. Hate him yet?

I knew that Josh walked on at Arizona, but I didn’t know how he got there until hearing him on ESPN today. As with most stories, we find out that not everything we hear is true. Josh didn’t actually write every Division I coach asking for a walk on opportunity.  No, of course he didn’t stop there.

Oh, he wrote every Division I coach all right. And Division II. And Division III. Not done yet. He then proceeded to write every NAIA Division I and II coach. Every single one. 1000 letters in all. Well, only a matter of a few hours with copy and paste, right? Now would that be good enough for our Josh? HE WROTE THEM ALL BY HAND! He asked for a walk on opportunity and offered to help work players out and run drills. He pointed out that while there are NCAA regulations about number of  coaches and hours they spend with players, none of that applies to another player.

Now, I don’t have an explanation as to why, but Josh took 23 credit hours his first semester at Arizona and 22 his second. 21 both his third and fourth semesters. So after two years Josh had 87 of the 120 credit hours needed to graduate. Naturally he took the 33 needed during his fifth semester. After two and a half years he had his Bachelors. Over the next three semesters he earned his Masters and started work on his doctorate. Hate him YET??!!

For crying out loud, my Associates isn’t real since I changed majors and never did take all the core accounting courses that I needed for the degree. Then when I transferred, I got credit for a course I never took so my BA isn’t real either.  I’m such a loser.

None of us should hate Josh Pastner obviously. Quite the opposite. As impressive a young man as I have seen. Driven, Focused. Articulate. Bright, Respectful. Not giving up my Orange, but Memphis has a new fan.