Four unassuming men occupy the seats closest to the scorer’s table.
Assistant coaches take up three of the seats, while head coach Jim Christian paces the sideline and Chip Cunningham, the Bobcats’ director of basketball operations, mans a clipboard at the end of the bench.
Cunningham — a stocky, bald man who typically looks like he has something pressing on his mind — is more often than not dressed in an Ohio polo, sweatpants and sneakers, rather than his game day suit.
Of the crew, he has the most limited perspective of the collegiate game, but he desires to lead a Division I program someday.
He knows there’s no set, secure path he can choose to do so. But when he’s looking for guidance, all he has to do is look over his shoulder.
THE WILD CARD
CHIP CUNNINGHAM had never met Christian until the day he walked into the coach’s office at Texas Christian University more than three years ago.
Prior, he had received more rejection letters (“every junior college team in Texas”) than the number of schools he enrolled in (five) while searching for a student manager position. He can rattle off the names of the schools he’s called home without pausing for breath.
His first basketball gig had been coaching AAU ball in his hometown of Athens, Texas, when he was just 18-years-old. His team comprised of fellow 18-year-olds.
“Needless to say, I wasn’t very good,” Cunningham said.
After lending a hand to a Catholic school program, he saw his window of opportunity slowly closing and approached Pat Smith, then-coach of Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Texas, saying he’d “do anything to get (his) foot in the door” while he was a student there.
The season started with sweeping floors and drew to a close with Cunningham filling what he called “essentially an assistant coach” role. As a token of his appreciation, Smith cold-called Christian, then-head coach of TCU, on Cunningham’s behalf.
Christian asked what would make him valuable.
“No task is above him,” Smith said.
Christian bit on the pitch and took a chance on Cunningham by offering him an open-ended volunteer position with little responsibility but no defined ceiling, either.
Basketball became his chief priority, as he shaped his TCU class schedule so he could be at the office from early morning until past dark.
“In college basketball, like most businesses, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” Cunningham said. “I knew absolutely nobody. All I knew how to do was work.”
And work he did, initially cutting film for free and later being placed on a partial scholarship for a similar role.
During his sixth year of undergraduate studies, he earned a sociology degree and was promoted to a graduate assistant in his third season with the program.
“By that time, I knew the ins and outs of TCU,” Cunningham said. “I knew coaches, athletic directors, all that. I wasn’t really treated like a grad assistant; I was treated like a full-time staff member.”
It was the kind of boost that a small-town, low-experience basketball junkie needed.
Because of his dedication, Cunningham, who now makes $32,000 annually, paved the way for a new crop of inexperienced talent to try their hands at the tricks of the trade.
“I use him as an example to my coaches now,” Smith said. “I always try to bring one ‘Chip’ in per year. Most of the time they’re not as good as him, but who knows?”
CHANGE IN PLAY
ANTHONY STEWART knows a thing or two about cold calls, as it took several of them to lure him to the coaching ranks from a leadership position with Snyder International, which he labeled, “The largest trucking company in the world at that point in time.”
After graduating from University of Mount Union, where he starred as a dual-sport athlete, he went on to throw fastballs for the Merrillville Mud Dogs in Indiana, but quickly burnt out — athletics was not his calling.
More than 10 years later, he found otherwise.
“I ran into a guy I played against in college,” Stewart said. “He’s like, ‘Hey, what are you up to?’ I’m like, ‘Nothing — working — just managing about 400 employees.’ He’s like, ‘I’m the AD at this little junior college called Columbus State. I’m hiring myself, why don’t you help me coach?’ ”
Anthony Ghoulston, who was only shopping that day, not looking for new coaches, recounted that Stewart was emphatic in his response, saying there was “no way” he’d consider the offer.
But Ghoulston was persistent and several phone calls later, Stewart — whom he refers to as “Stew” — agreed to a part-time, one-year position.
Twelve seasons later, Stewart makes $90,000 per year — a fraction of the six-figure salary he earned with Snyder International, but a far cry from the $1,500 a year Ghoulston said he initially offered him at Columbus State Community College.
What brought him back to basketball? The same principles that drove him from the transportation industry.
“Dealing with the people he had to at a daily basis, for example, blue-collar people that didn’t understand education, I think the frustration came in and he saw an opportunity to do this and have a different mindset,” Ghoulston said.
Being that his prior position pitted him alongside everyone from Chicago teamsters to roundtable executives, that train of thought makes Stewart an effective “player’s coach” who thrives on personal connections.
“Hell, back in ’04, I was sitting in a corporate boardroom,” he said. “Now I do this. I’m a lucky guy. I’m probably that 99.9, that millionth of a percentile, that actually gets to do this. I’m the exception to the rule. This typically doesn’t happen.”
RECRUITING TIES
Before coming to Ohio, Stewart followed a recruit to Long Beach State, spent four years at Wyoming and had a one-season stretch with Southern Illinois.
As a result, his recruiting base expanded from its initial Ohio and Pittsburgh roots to cross-country ties that are similar to but more modest than those of fellow Ohio assistant BILL WUCZYNSKI.
By little exaggeration, “Coach Woo” is the alderman of Ohio’s staff. He’s the program’s most experienced and highest salaried ($105,000) assistant coach and has known Christian for 17 years — longer than Cunningham, Stewart and fellow assistant coach Aaron Fuss’ cumulative coaching careers.
He once coached NBA talent Lamar Odom during summer ball and also worked with future Olympic gold medal winners while at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he was on staff for a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances.
At the top of his resume is a pair of recruiting classes he helped the Runnin’ Rebels land in 1997 and 1999 — the first of which was ranked best in the nation by The Sporting News.
He carries those kinds of recruiting connections, arguably stronger, today.
“I have not only people who I trust, but people who trust me — regardless of the school I’m at,” he said. “This is my fifth school, and if you look at the kids I’ve recruited, it’s from the same general areas or from the same general people.”
What he took away from his five professional-capacity seasons with UNLV, his alma mater, cannot be simply translated into a laundry list of accomplishments, though.
Wuczynski credits then-UNLV assistant coach Glynn Cyprien for lending him the most important counsel of his early coaching career.
“He gave me the advice: ‘don’t be heard, just be seen working, be in the office as much as possible, always try to be asking a lot of questions,’” Wuczynski said.
THE PROTÉGÉ
Those same words of advice can be best passed on to AARON FUSS, who, in the most literal sense, is the lone member of Ohio’s staff who had no ties to Christian prior to his arrival in Athens.
He didn’t shake hands with Christian for the first time until the head coach’s introductory news conference at Ohio and agreed to work several weeks thereafter without a new contract in order to convince the new coach he was worth keeping.
As a result, he was promoted from director of basketball operations to an assistant coach, at a salary of $65,000.
He hitched a ride to Athens in 2009 on the coattails of former Ohio coach John Groce, under whom he served as a student manager and graduate assistant at Ohio State University.
His knowledge of regional recruiting, along with the connections he made with staffers from the previous coaching regime, gave him a unique set of intangibles that hollowed him a spot on Christian’s staff.
Groce and Ohio State coach Thad Matta, both of whom Christian knows personally, served as necessary references during his hiring process.
“Everyone in this business is extremely qualified,” he said. “Everybody works hard, and there are a lot of similarities. It was right place, right time. (Christian) came into a situation where he had an opening and thankfully I fit the mold of what he was looking for. In a different season with different circumstances, who knows how that would have worked out?”
PIECING THE TEAM TOGETHER
Cunningham aspires to soon be in Fuss’ shoes while Fuss hopes to establish a reputation similar to the one Stewart has built. Stewart is well on his way to gaining the pedigree that Wuczynski brings to the practice floor. Wuczynski might lead a team of his own.
No one coach specializes in a leading a specific position group, but Wuczynski often works with the guards, Stewart scopes out the wings and Fuss focuses on post play. Cunningham takes care of everything off the court.
And Christian has brought them all together — not formulaically, but because they reflect a balanced skill set that has a countrywide recruiting base.
It’s a puzzle with which no coach can be completely satisfied, but one Christian assembled with purpose in mind.
“One of the things I really admire about these guys is they’re just worried about outcomes,” Christian said. “They don’t care, ‘Whose recruit is that?’ and that’s what happens when you have a good staff. Bad staffs become egotistical.”
He said players have a special respect for and take notice of their coaches’ commitment.
Cunningham still works long, irregular hours. Stewart continues to bring contagious commitment. Wuczynski picks up what Christian lets fall through the cracks. Fuss is the master of all things Ohio, and is the only coach who can dunk — albeit on a hoop with a loose rim.
Christian gives his coaches a lot of room for expression, as he said they all want to run their own programs in the future and he wants to prepare them for that day.
That kind of loyalty pays off.
“I say there are four men in my life that I try to live up to their standards every day,” Cunningham said. “That’s my dad, coach Christian, coach Woo and Pat Smith. Three out of the four are basketball coaches that have been father figures to me.”
jr992810@ohiou.edu
