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ELON, N.C. – Elon University Director of Athletics
Dave Blank introduced
Mike Schrage as the 18th head coach in the history of the Elon men's basketball program Monday evening, April 8, inside of the Gill Room in Schar Center.
Schrage joins the Elon men's basketball program after spending the last two seasons as an assistant coach at Ohio State for head coach Chris Holtmann. He has also worked with two of the best college basketball coaches of all time, spending nine seasons with Mike Krzyzewski at Duke and four seasons at Indiana when Bob Knight led the Hoosiers.
In his two years as an assistant at Ohio State, Schrage helped the Buckeyes exceed expectations with two trips to the NCAA Tournament Round of 32. In 2018-19, Ohio State went 20-15 and beat Iowa State in the first round of the Big Dance. The previous season, the Buckeyes posted a stellar 26-9 record and earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament, beating South Dakota State in the first round before falling 90-84 to Gonzaga. Schrage was instrumental in helping the Buckeyes sign a top-25 class in 2018 and a top-10 class in 2019.
Before going to Ohio State, Schrage spent one season on Holtmann's staff at Butler in 2016-17. There, he helped the Bulldogs to a 25-9 record and a second-place finish in the BIG EAST while reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time since its 2011 run to the national championship game. Along the way, the fourth-seeded Bulldogs beat Winthrop and Middle Tennessee State before falling to eventual national champion North Carolina. Schrage also helped Butler sign its highest-rated class in program history.
Prior to Butler, Schrage spent eight seasons as an assistant coach for Johnny Dawkins at Stanford. During his time with the Cardinal, he helped sign 15 players ranked in the top-100 nationally. Four Stanford players were selected in the NBA Draft after their collegiate careers during Schrage's time in Palo Alto and five played in the NBA. In Schrage's eight seasons, the Cardinal appeared in the postseason five times, including a Sweet 16 appearance in 2014. It also won at least 20 games on four occasions.
Before going out west with Dawkins, Schrage spent nine seasons at Duke in serving as the director of basketball operations for head coach Mike Krzyzewski from 2002 to 2008 and the program's academic and recruiting coordinator from 1999 to 2002. Schrage was involved in all aspects of the program's administration, including scouting, scheduling, camps and planning. In Durham, Schrage was part of Duke's 2001 national championship run with two Final Fours. While at Duke, Schrage spent time as video coordinator for the USA Basketball Senior National Team at the 2006 World Championship games in Japan and the 2007 Tournament of America in Las Vegas.
Schrage graduated from Indiana in 1998 with a degree in Kinesiology and served as a four-year student assistant for then-Hoosiers men's basketball head coach Bob Knight. After graduation, he spent the 1998-99 season as a director of basketball operations for head coach Rod Barnes at Ole Miss.
Schrage's Introductory Press Conference
Reaction to Schrage's Introductory Press Conference
Transcript from Press Conference (More coming soon...)
Head Men's Basketball Coach Mike Schrage
I am absolutely honored to be your head basketball coach. I think I have to give back some of my salary to Dave based on all that he said about me. First of all, I want to thank all of you guys for being here today. I wanted to thank President Book and certainly Coach Blank. I call him Coach Blank - once a coach, always a coach. You can tell he's a coach, just by his talk right there. I love the fact that President Book was a long-time faculty member and Coach Blank was a coach. There's no better profession in the world than teaching and coaching. You can make a difference in people's lives no matter what you do, but when you teach or coach, it's meaningful every single day and those guys are going to see that from me, I promise you that. This is a dream come true for me. No place I'd rather be. This E right here means a lot. This isn't just a good university, this is a great university. This is a tight-knit community. I love that around here - beautiful campus, beautiful area. The best basketball state in the country - high school, college, no matter how you look at it, it's a hoops state. We're going to recruit this state at a very high level with great players and great coaches. And [Elon has] made a big commitment to athletics and basketball. We're here in the Schar Center. This is a big-time arena. I've been in some big-time places, I've been very fortunate in my path. When I came here for my visit and I saw this place, I was blown away. I commend everyone in this room who's been a part of this process. This is an amazing building. We're going to fill it and create a lot of excitement, I promise you that.
Most important for me is the people. I'm very relationship driven. I want to meet everyone, get to know everybody. I've been so impressed by everyone I've met already. By admission, today being on campus, I took more pictures this morning than I did on my wedding day. And I walk in here and I see these big photos of me, which is great and I'm very excited. But last night I probably met the most important people, and those are my guys. And I told them right away when I walked in the door that they're my guys now. We have something in common. We both chose Elon, and Elon chose you. And this place is special, that's a connection we have. By the way, I think they're going to be really amazed by how much time and how much energy I want to spend with them to build these relationships and build this family culture right away.
I've been preparing for this for a long time. I do need to thank some of the gentleman that Coach Blank mentioned earlier. There have so many people along my path that mean so much to me. First of all, I have to introduce my family. I'll be in trouble if I don't. They made the trip here today and they're so supportive. No one has a better basketball family. First of all, my wife Amanda. North Carolina is really special to me. We got married in North Carolina, we left in 2008. Her job in Cary, they allowed her to work remotely in Stanford, California. In Indianapolis, Indiana. In Columbus, Ohio. She is so excited, but she's a little bit worried that she has to go back to the office. Next I've got my son, 14-year old Andrew. We are going to try and live as close as possible. I told the guys last night - I believe in family. I believe that you guys are going to see them a lot. I believe that you'll come to my house and you'll have access to me and my family all the time. The challenge is you guys better be getting up more shots than he does because you're going to be seeing him there [in the gym] a lot. And last is my daughter Sophia, she just turned 11 last week. I think when we've moved, and we've moved three times in four years all for great reasons, but you worry about the youngest and how she's going to handle the move. She loves Columbus, Ohio, we all did. Her birthday was Wednesday. We had a cake and candles. 'Make a wish, what's your wish?' She said, 'I want to move to North Carolina.' So thank you President Book and Coach Blank for making my daughter's dream come true.
After that, I want to just quickly go through my coaching path, because all of these people deserve so much from me. It starts with me being from Atlanta. I grew up in Atlanta playing basketball for so many coaches who touched me. These guys will hear a lot about Atlanta. North Carolina and Atlanta, those are my two favorite places in the world. I've loved everywhere I've been. My time in Indiana with Coach Knight, so thankful. I learned so much basketball, he's like an encyclopedia of basketball. The preparation day in and day out on how to be your best. A phrase that's been ingrained in my head is the care to win is more important than the will to win. You can't just be ready at that jump ball. You have to have the juice now. A lot of guys don't have the juice when that ball goes up. You have to have that juice all the time and I'm going to have you guys prepared. I promise you that. I'm going to teach you responsibility, resourcefulness, and being a better man.
My next step, and this sometimes is forgotten, but whoever gives you that first opportunity outside of college, you don't forget that. So a man named Rod Barnes in his first year at Ole Miss gave me that opportunity. He taught me about family, literally about family right away. He did not know me. We had some mutual friends, but he took me into his house. I lived in his house for a whole year in a joint bedroom with his two sons. I cannot repay that man for the opportunity that he gave me.
After that, just down the road here, Duke with Coach K for nine years. I don't think I need to say a whole lot about that. He's the best, and I love the fact that he's going to be down the road and so many friends from that relationship and that experience are here as well. After Coach K, there are three assistants there that meant a lot to me. Steve Wojciechowski, who's now the head coach at Marquette, Chris Collins who's now the head coach at Northwestern. Those guys taught me a lot and we became dear friends. They helped me every step of the way, even once I left Duke. The last assistant coach was the associate head coach, Johnny Dawkins. I'm thankful for him because I was the Director of Basketball Operations at Duke and he gave me my first opportunity to coach. I followed him all the way out to Stanford, that's how much I believed in him. No California roots, my family is like 'California? That's really far away from our families and our connection.' I had a wonderful experience with him. He was an elite player. He taught be so many intricacies beyond the X's and O's. There's no way I'm in front of you if he did not give me that opportunity.
You guys are all a part of our team. I'm going to be a really positive, high-energy coach. We better be tough, and we better be together. I don't care who's on your schedule, you've got a chance to win. We're not going to go undefeated. Are we going to learn from that loss? We're not going to be perfect. It's about getting better. I hear people raving about the Elon experience. You're going to see it from me, and I need to see it from you. Unconditional energy is a phrase that they're going to hear from me. You're either getting better, or you're getting worse. We're going to give you a year-round plan for development. I need you to have that fire inside. Every decision you make has to be a smart one.
I'm not going to stand up here and make promises or guarantees. The byproduct of that is going to be winning. I know why we are the Phoenix. We are going to feel that heat. That heat is just going to keep rising. We're going to break through and we're going to have an amazing moment in Schar Center in March. We have a plan to make it happen. I'm so thankful that you guys came out here in the rain and I'm excited to get started.
-- ELON --
