Jan. 20, 2015
Tom Garrick is in his sixth season with the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team and second as the associate head coach. Garrick, who led Rhode Island to the Sweet 16 in 1988, was drafted by the Los Angeles Clippers and played in the NBA for four seasons and overseas in Germany, Turkey and Spain for five years. A native of Rhode Island, he coached at his alma mater for 11 years, including two years with the men’s programs and five years as head coach of the women’s team.
Was getting into coaching always the goal?
It was kind of a natural progression. The longer I played, the older I got, the younger the new people got, I felt like I was being a coach any way. As a point guard on the professional level, it is your job to pretty much know what everybody is supposed to be doing when they’re supposed to be doing it. So you have to know the plays not just from your perspective but from all five positions. I really feel like I got a good indoctrination into what a coach would be as a player later in my career.
What was that experience like to play in the NBA? Any memories stick out?
The main memory I will always have and always draw on is that it was a dream come true. It is a fantasy almost. But it is my reality. Very few people ever get to experience it so I’m forever grateful for that opportunity. I’m proud to say I was in a league where you have to be one of the best in the world to compete. I was able and fortunate and God blessed enough to do that. It was a dream come true… Once I got to the league, my mindset was I’m not a fan of anyone. I’m a competitor. Even walking out on the court with Michael Jordan, it didn’t move me in the sense I was in awe of him. It was just another guy who was the best of all us and we had to try to figure out a way to win the game that night.
After your playing career ended, you shifted straight to coaching at Rhode Island?
I coached with Jim Harrick with the men my first year out. That was a great experience. I learned a lot from Coach Harrick. He was one of the better basketball minds I have ever been around but he was a good person. That is one of the things he taught me as a coach – you can be an advocate for the kid and push them at the same time. You don’t have to give on either end. It’s just like parenting. There are going to be times where you have to discipline your child but you’re always going to love them.
What was it like to be a head coach, to run a program?
It was good. I thought I was very well prepared. I’ve always been a good soldier, I like to say. I think as an assistant coach you have to be a good solider. You have to follow the lead of the head coach. You have to understand what they want and what they’re trying to get across. You have to be able to convey that to 12 to 15 18 year olds, which is never easy but it is a good experience. It is a good teaching mode. Changing the culture of young kids is not very easy but they jumped on board and they felt pretty good about it and I thought we were going in the right direction.
What excites you about coming to work every day?
I think that is what excites me the most – being able to be an extension of my mom and dad. Of what they were for me, I want to be that for any young person whose ears are open to listen. The kids are the No. 1 drive for me every day and then working with a great staff who are all pulling in the same direction. It is not just that I am coaching basketball, the game that I have loved my whole life, and I get to come to work with sneakers on every day, it is that the people I am working with have the same goals and same ideas. It doesn’t have to be that way. That is what I realize. In life, it never has to be the way you want it to be. You just have to get through every day. But it is really fun when it is more the way you want it to be than not. In whatever you do. Trust me, I understand just how fortunate I am.
What do you like to do with your free time?
I might be the most boring person in Nashville. I go from behind this desk, to the court, to practice, to meetings after practice to access practice and then I go home. Whatever is on the DVR I watch. I speak to my children (daughter, Ryane, 28, son, Tom, 20) every night because they are away and just live through them a little bit and help them with their lives. My son is playing college basketball up in Rhode Island (at Division III Johnson & Wales). I talk to him every day about his experiences and how I can try to relate to him through that and help him through that. Those are probably the best parts of my day. The other best parts of my day is hearing what his day was like. I’m kind of boring and I like it. n
