“They’ve got to understand one thing, and I want you guys to understand one thing as your new coach: Kevin Keatts is a winner.”
That statement came from NC State men’s basketball head coach Kevin Keatts at his introductory news conference on March 19, 2017, just days after he had been named the Wolfpack’s new bench boss. Keatts, taking over a program coming off two incredibly trying seasons, projected the kind of confidence that a beleaguered fan base needed to see.
It turned out to be a harbinger of things to come. Keatts took a hodgepodge roster of graduate transfers and younger players that most expected to finish near the bottom of the ACC and guided it to an 11-7 ACC regular season (tied for third in the league) that included wins over rivals Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill and ended with a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
Keatts, with a year of ACC basketball under his belt, is preparing for year two with a roster that includes many more of his “guys.” But how did a coach who has, in such a short time, won over one of the most difficult fan bases to win over in college sports and demanded the respect of his players, get here?
It’s a fascinating story, with several stops along the way.
One of the first and most important stops on Keatts’ journey was as the head coach of the post graduate basketball program at Hargrave Military Academy. Keatts spent two stints as Hargrave’s head coach, from 1999-2001 and 2003-2011, sandwiched around a stint at Marshall as an assistant.
Kevin Keatts was definitely a winner at Hargrave. The team won over 260 games and two National Prep Championships while he was head coach, and he sent a number of players on to have successful college basketball careers, including former NC State players Anthony Grundy and Lorenzo Brown.
Perhaps most importantly for Keatts, his time at Hargrave gave him the opportunity to grow as a head coach, to experiment, learn on the job and develop the system that’s allowed him to be so successful.
“It allowed me to be able to draw a practice plan,” Keatts said. “It allowed me to call timeouts. It allowed me to make a few mistakes as a young coach at that time, where it wasn’t as broad as it would be right now. It just gave me the foundation to develop a system that’s been very successful for me. It’s where it all started for me and it all started to come together as a head coach.”
The winning didn’t stop there for Keatts. After leaving Hargrave, he spent three years as an assistant coach at Louisville under legendary bench boss Rick Pitino. Keatts was a member of the coaching staff on Louisville’s 2013 national championship team. His time with the Cardinals gave him a chance to see what it took to win at the highest level and learn from one of the most successful coaches in college basketball.
“Just how hard that you have to prepare for all of your opponents,” Keatts said. “His attention to detail, how hard you had to work. The demands that everybody in the program had to be on the same level. We were all clicking at the same time. It was about chemistry, not only from the players, but from the head coach all the way down.”
UNC-Wilmington Director of Athletics Jimmy Bass first met Keatts on a football field in Minnesota at the 2012 Villa 7 consortium, an event for the top 50 men’s and 35 women’s basketball assistant coaches in the country to meet with athletic directors and officials to help them identify some of the next top head coach candidates.
Keatts and Bass were randomly paired for a cornhole tournament, and their quick defeat gave them a chance to talk and get to know each other. Fast forward two years later, after Louisville had demolished Rutgers in the first round of the AAC Tournament in Memphis in March 2014.
Bass interviewed Keatts in his room at the Peabody Hotel that night, and the two spent hours talking basketball, current events and life in general.
“What I remember about Kevin, he was immaculately dressed, shirt, tie, set,” Bass said. “Very confident, very cordial, very knowledgeable about basketball. He’s a very well-spoken and well-rounded individual … I remember walking out of the Peabody, going back to the parking deck to my rental car. ‘Boy I really like this guy, and I wonder if we can get him from Louisville to UNC-W.’”
The answer was yes, as Keatts started a three-year stint at Wilmington with the 2014-15 season. The “Kevin Keatts is a winner” quote started with an anecdote about Wilmington being picked to finish second to last in the CAA.
They tied for first in the conference in the regular season in his first year, and won the conference tournament in each of the following two, making the NCAA Tournament and giving both Duke and Virginia a fight.
Keatts left Wilmington with a 78-28 record, two conference titles and two NCAA Tournament berths, having elevated a program that went 42-80 and did not reach the postseason under its previous head coach.
As the sport administrator for men’s basketball in addition to his job as AD, Bass got to see firsthand what made Keatts such a successful coach on and off the court.
“Kevin has the unique ability to make everyone around him better,” Bass said. “He makes his coaching, his support, the players, the student athletes, the administration around him, the fans who support the program [better]. I’ve been doing this for a long time, almost 38 years. I’ve seen few and far between. I’ve been at NC State twice. I’ve been at Mississippi State. I’ve been at Pittsburgh. Kevin is one those unique individuals who can make everyone around him better.”
After NC State fired former head coach Mark Gottfried following a dismal 2016-17 season, Keatts, an up-and-coming young coach, emerged as a possible candidate.
He turned out to be the perfect candidate, signing a six-year deal to be the Wolfpack’s new head coach the day after Wilmington was eliminated from the 2017 NCAA Tournament.
“I think that what it boiled down to is shared values,” NC State Director of Athletics Debbie Yow said at the news conference introducing Keatts. “Coach Keatts mentioned that I’m a former coach, so I have very strong opinions about what it takes to be successful. The value systems simply aligned. He loves hard practices. He expects the best out of our players. He’s going to maximize whatever abilities they have. Academic values, grinding, player development, recruiting; he’s just the whole ball of wax. It’s rare to find this level of fit in this day and age.”
One slight surprise at that conference was that the Lynchburg, Virginia native grew up an NC State fan. Keatts enjoyed watching NC State legend David Thompson and the team’s magical run to the 1983 national championship under head coach Jim Valvano.
Keatts is now trying to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Valvano, Norm Sloan and Everett Case as great NC State basketball coaches.
“I’m honored,” Keatts said. “I’m excited to be the head coach at NC State; I never take it for granted. Every day I wake up and am proud to be the Wolfpack basketball coach. I grew up in Virginia, but really because I was close enough to watch NC State, I really enjoyed NC State over the years and some of the great players and coaches who have been in this program. So for me, it’s an honor to be able to lead the Wolfpack.”
Now that Keatts has a year under his belt to learn what coaching in the hotbed of college basketball is all about, the work continues on building NC State into an elite program.
Keatts brings some of the lessons he learned from his mentors along the way, including his high school football coach, former Marshall basketball coach Greg White and Pitino.
Keatts knows that with today’s college-aged players, it’s important that he can have a good time and joke around with them.
He likes to play Ping-Pong and video games, including Madden and NBA 2K (which senior guard Torin Dorn said he’s never seen his coach lose at) with the players. The players know they can approach their head coach with any issue, whether it be on or off the court.
“Especially with today’s age kids, I think it’s important that your door is always open,” Keatts said. “My players can come in here and talk to me about anything. Same thing with assistant coaches; I want to make sure that every assistant coach offers their time and doors are always open for our players.”
At the same time, Keatts has to be able to flip the switch, so to speak. Once practice starts, he can go from joking around and laughing with the guys to being serious and running the show.
“It’s important to have a great balance,” Keatts said. “They know when I’m serious, and they know what I’m expecting out of them. And practices are very intense. But there’s also a time when you’ve got to be able to sit down and talk with them, be able to joke with them about different things and everything, because I want them to feel comfortable to be able to talk to me about anything that may be going on in their life.”
Is it difficult for Keatts to strike that balance between being a serious head coach when he needs to be, and also being able to have that close relationship and joke around with the guys off the court? Not for a head coach with two boys at home, who has learned lessons about coaching from fatherhood and vice versa.
“I don’t think so, if you’re genuine about it,” Keatts said. “And I try to be very genuine with those guys and everything else. I don’t think it’s any different than if you were raising [kids]. I’ve got two boys. And at times, I’ve got to obviously crack down on them because I’m their daddy, but also I’ve got to be able to put my arms around them and smile with them, joke with them and have fun.”
NC State sophomore point guard Braxton Beverly comes from a similar background to Keatts. Beverley played at Hargrave before starting his college basketball career. He had originally planned for that to be at Ohio State, and even enrolled in summer classes there.
However, when the Buckeyes fired head coach Thad Matta, Beverly decided to transfer to NC State. Because he had taken summer classes, the NCAA said he had to sit out a season. NC State appealed that decision, and Beverly was declared eligible early in the year, but at times it looked like he wouldn’t get to play.
Throughout that process, Keatts was a calming voice for Beverly, helping him keep his head up and not get worked up over things he couldn’t control. Count Beverly among the players who’s grown to love Keatts for his dual nature as a serious head coach on the court but one that can be a friend to his players off it.
“Look at him, right now,” Beverly said at NC State media day at Dail Basketball Center, as Keatts, dressed in a full suit, prepared to shoot a trick shot off the balcony overlooking the court to impress the media.
“That’s the kind of guy he is. That’s no show; that’s how he is every day. He’s always messing with people in there, trying to play Ping-Pong. He’s always talking crap. He’s the best one, so he’s always challenging people, wishing people would work on their game so he can challenge them. Just the personality he has off the court and the way he’s able to turn into the serious coach on the court to really push you, and he really wants you to be successful on the court and in the classroom as well.”
It’s important for Keatts to be able to unwind and relax away from the basketball court to help that demeanor as well. He does that by relaxing and spending time with his wife and two sons, going to the movies, shooting baskets or playing monopoly.
Keatts’ time with his family leads into an important aspect of “Kevin Keatts is a winner.” Those words became a sort of rallying cry for NC State fans and students throughout Keatts’ successful first season, and Wolfpack faithful are no doubt hoping to utter them one day after Keatts leads NC State to its first national title since that 1983 run.
But what do those words mean to Keatts? It should come as no surprise to those who know him and are getting to know him that they mean he wants to succeed, and help his players to succeed, in all parts of life.
“What my message was is that I think you should win in every aspect of your life,” Keatts said. “I think you should win off the court. I think you should win as a person. I think you should win as a husband; I think you should win as a father. But also, when you get on the court, if you compete and you work hard every day, then you’re going to see great results. And so when I said that, which has absolutely taken off, I meant it in a way that, it’s a lot [more] to life than just basketball, and if you try to be the best you can be in every area of your life, then you can be a winner. And that’s the way I approach every day.”
