January 9, 2009

Tim O'Shea is glad to take challenge of coaching Bryant

Providence Journal
by Jim Donaldson

Bryant University has a losing record in this, its first season playing Division I basketball. The Bulldogs will almost certainly have one next year, too. And, probably, the year after that, as well.

But in the long run, it's a win-win situation in which Bryant and its new coach, Tim O'Shea, find themselves.

It's a win for Bryant, because O'Shea is exactly the sort of man you'd want coaching your basketball program. Assuming, that is, that you want a man who's both highly competitive and highly intelligent; who can identify not just talent, but also potential - which, if you're trying to build a program, is much more important; a coach who can X-and-O with the best in the business, both in practices and during games; who is cerebral, articulate, and has a value system that doesn't put winning and being a good player above being a good person and a good student.

And how, one well might wonder, is it a win for O'Shea, who has taken a step down, both professionally and financially, from his previous coaching job at Ohio U. - where he resigned after averaging 20 wins a year over the past four seasons, won the Mid-American Conference championship in 2005, and upset the likes of North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia - to take the job at Bryant, where he'll probably lose 20 games this season?

"You can quantify a pay cut," he said this week. "But I don't know how you can quantify improvement in quality of life. I'm working at a great university, for a great president, with a great bunch of kids, and living in the best place in America.

"I wake up every day looking at Newport Harbor," said O'Shea, who lives in a restored, 18th-century colonial in the Point section and commutes to Smithfield from Aquidneck Island.

"It's exhilarating for me to drive over those bridges twice a day," he said.

For those who find it baffling why a coach would take a pay cut and leave a successful, mid-major program to take over the newest program in Division I, O'Shea has a simple explanation.

"A lot of people," he said, "thought I was crazy."

But the truth is, O'Shea may be the sanest coach in college basketball.

"It comes down to values," he said. "What good is it if you're making a lot of money, but living in a place that doesn't feel like home?

"I've always felt Rhode Island is the greatest place in the country to live - especially Newport. I've never lived anywhere else I've felt this way about."

Read more from Jim Donaldson on Tim O'Shea here: http://www.projo.com/sports/jimdonaldson/sp_bkc_jim_donaldson09_01-09-09_UJCT564_v10.8df50b.html