New PC Basketball Coach Bryon Hodgson PHOTO: Kevin Stacom for GoLocal
Things could not have gone much better at the introductory press conference for new Providence College basketball coach Bryan Hodgson on Tuesday afternoon at the on-campus Joe Mullaney facility.
There must have been well over a thousand people crammed into one half of the gymnasium, facing a stage that was about to host President Father Kenneth Sicard, Athletic Director Steve Napolillo, Master of Ceremonies John Rooke, and the newly hired head basketball coach, Bryan Hodgson.
The crowd was primed as the stout 6’6” Coach Hodgson, his fiancée, and their 2-year-old son made a grand entrance to thunderous applause, even before he was formally introduced.
He began his 45-minute speech with a sincere reaction to the reception he had just received.
"This is unbelievable. This is absolutely phenomenal. To walk into this room and see the amount of people that are in here...I can tell you I coached a game last week, in a conference tournament to go to the NCAA Tournament, the Champion game - there are more people in this building right now than there were in that crowd. So thank you very much,” said Hogdson.
This initial embrace of the crowd turns out to be directly related to the reason for his accepting this coaching position at this time at Providence College- the reputation this program has in terms of its importance to the school, to the City and State that it resides in, and most importantly to its extremely loyal and wide fan base.
The coach mentioned that he was pursued by other programs and had to take some time to sift through other impressive offers.
Offers from other major programs, such as Syracuse, which you would think might be tempting since he grew up in Upstate New York, the University of Pittsburgh, Arizona State, among others.
In addition to being very aware of the great fan environment at the home court, he gave a lot of credit to AD Steve Napolillo for his persistence, as he said, to put it mildly. He said if Steve wasn’t calling him X times a day, he was calling his agent in the interim.
He said that Steve’s enthusiasm and love for the school that he so earnestly communicated turned out to be a major factor in his decision. This, coupled with the idea that Steve grew up near and was a graduate himself of Providence College, made the situation a lot more attractive than at other schools, where the AD, in addition to the coach, ends up being a transplant himself, with not the same roots and loyalty, and commitment to the program that someone like Steve possesses.
From the beginning, Coach struck the perfect tone with the crowd. He was confident without being brash. Perhaps not since an even younger Rick Pitino outlined similar ambitious goals from the onset of his inaugural 1985 year, has such a direct pronouncement been made:
“We’re going to compete to win more than the Big East right away. We’re going to be playing in the NCAA Tournament, and we’re going to compete at the highest level- and I can promise you that!”
It’s interesting to note at this point and might be surprising to some that Coach Hodgson’s selection of Providence College over the aforementioned larger institutions illustrates an apparent inversion of reality- how could little PC compete with such behemoths? Primarily, it’s because those large Universities are saddled with the large budgets and restrictions that come along with the commitment to field a competitive football program, which inevitably dilutes the commitment towards basketball .
There is no such diversion of attention or commitment at a Providence College That’s not a small factor for a young coach seeking to establish his legacy Believe it or not, the financial resources that PC has to offer, while perhaps not quite at the level of a St John’s or UConn is very competitive with a lot of schools it is slated to compete against.
With regard to managing that budget, Hodgson noted that:
"We are going to be excellent stewards of every dollar that’s put into this program.. We are going to make sure that we put together a TEAM, that we didn’t just buy a bunch of guys because we were the highest bidder. I don’t operate that way. We are going to find the right men for PC basketball - and they are going to reflect that in everything they do in this community and on the basketball court.”
A great goal to counteract a college basketball world that is seemingly devolving into predominantly transactional relationships.
On Coach Hodgson’s initial comments on acquiring talent, he showed a bit of courage and a sense of humor:
“If you ever want to question my recruiting abilities, just look at my wife, Jordan!” Great delivery and taken in the right spirit by the crowd’s laughter.
In terms of his efforts to retain as many of the current players who have eligibility remaining:
“I sat in that room yesterday, and I told them something that I meant- if you leave here, if you leave Providence Basketball, I promise you, in about 4 or 5 months, you are going to regret that decision,” said Hodgson.
The Coach also hit upon the key points in his coaching approach and philosophy- uptempo offense but anchored in a “smothering” defense. Music to the ears of the knowledgeable Friar fans present!
When you listen to him speak you get the distinct impression that there is more than meets the eye, that the tenor in his speech is grounded in something real and the reason for that might be rooted in the story of his early life in foster care that he eagerly shares in many interviews in the hope highlighting the plight and helping other kids in similar situations.
Bryan’s basic story is that after being given up for adoption by his 15-year-old mother due to being abused by her older boyfriend, he was placed in a foster home by a loving couple that gave him his name and a solid home life in which he eventually flourished.
How Coach Hodgson summarized it back in a 2018 article in the upstate NY paper, The Observer, and how he relates it to his effectiveness as a coach:
“My childhood and my situation- being a foster child, being raised by an orphan mother and a son of a WW11 prisoner-of-war, developed me to be a relationship person”, Bryan said. “I think that’s the biggest thing in recruiting. It’s nothing else. It’s about being able to tell people you genuinely care about them… If you want to talk about rough childhoods and trust, I understand.”
That narrative of his upbringing might be more pertinent to his current hiring at Providence College than the last 3 years of his turning around two moribund programs at Arkansas State and USF, respectively.
Providence College’s program was never built on the institutional advantages of the “Blueblood” programs. As the name more than implies, it was always dependent on the fortuitous arrival of the right caretaker at the right time.
I think Father Sicard and Steve Napolillo got the right man for the job.
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