There are several ways for a coach to gauge whether he’s having success. More wins. Improved recruiting. Rising attendance. But in Ron Hunter’s world, none of those achievements compare with what he experienced the other day.
“I got a free lunch,” he said. “I walked in and the guy says, ‘Coach, this is on me.’ I was thinking, ‘You know what? We made it. I got a free sandwich.’”
It’s March. This is when college basketball in most of the 49 other states get serious, and we turn our attention to spring football. But Hunter’s three-year building project on the concrete campus of Georgia State has made the program relevant.
In this state, relevancy makes you the shining light in college basketball. The Panthers are 23-7. They’ve already clinched the Sun Belt Conference’s regular season title with a 16-1 record, entering Saturday’s season finale against Western Kentucky at the third-floor gym.
Georgia Tech and Georgia are counting on a string of improbable occurrences, or voodoo, to reach the NCAA tournament. Georgia State just needs to keep doing what it’s been doing. Win two games as the favorite in the conference tournament, and it’s in.
For Hunter, who took the job Georgia State job three years ago without ever stepping on campus and against the advice of his friends, only to regret the decision soon after, he now finds himself giddy at thoughts of being the state’s torchbearer.
“In the first April recruiting period, I would wear a shirt that says, ‘The only school in Georgia in the tournament,” he said, laughing. “I would really love that.”
Only two previous coaches led Georgia State to NCAA appearances: Bob Reinhart (1991) and Lefty Driesell (2001). Hunter left his previous job at IUPUI, where he coached for 17 years, mostly because he wanted a chance to coach his son, R.J. The move has worked out well for both. The father has won 60 games in three seasons. The son, a guard, leads the team in scoring at 18.8 points per game. Ron Hunter also has borrowed Driesell’s blueprint of counting on transfers, with three in the starting lineup.
Two of them, Ryan Harrow (Kentucky) and Manny Atkins (Virginia Tech), are from metro Atlanta. Expect that to become a trend. Hunter is confident enough in his recruiting abilities to say, “If I can sell IUPUI, I can sell anything. But I know the best player in the state is not coming to Georgia State. I won’t get him the first time. But I can get him the second time. We’ll recruit those kids who want to come back home. Lefty did it.”
He thought about leaving IUPUI over his last two seasons there. But his agent had to call him twice to interview with Georgia State in 2011, and the only reason he was mildly interested was because the Panthers then played in the Colonial Athletic Association (which had sent VCU and George Mason to recent Final Fours).
“I talked to seven people about Georgia State,” Hunter said. “All seven said, ‘You’re better off where you are.”
Some of those same friends have been phoning him with congratulations over the past two weeks. “Some might even want my job now,” he said.
The view has changed significantly. Hunter’s initial thoughts were that the job had the makings of a grease fire. He believes Georgia State didn’t want him anywhere near campus for fear it would scare him off. He was picked up from the airport for the interview and driven straight to the offices of the Parker Executive Search firm in the Perimeter area.
Following the interview, Hunter tried unsuccessfully to get the driver to spin through downtown, past the campus, before taking him to the airport. “I tried to bribe him,” he said. “I pulled $100 out of my pocket and, ‘Here, take it.’ But he was like, ‘No sir, you don’t want to miss your flight.’ They must’ve been paying him more money than me.”
Hunter was asked to return to Atlanta for a second interview the next day. Again, he tried to convince the driver to go by campus. Again, he was told that just wouldn’t be possible. But when the job was offered, he decided to take it anyway. He felt a draw, for some reason, whether it was the CAA or the new challenge of building another program.
He soon came to learn something: “IUPUI might be the hardest job in the country. But I’m pretty sure Georgia State is in the top 10.”
The first time he stepped on campus: 10 minutes before the introductory news conference.
His reaction: “I was shocked,” he said. And not in a good way.
He saw the facilities. He saw the arena. (Move the “Hickory High” gym in the movie “Hoosiers” to downtown Atlanta.)
He saw the campus — art-less, endless blocks of concrete. He walked around with his wife and son and came to an expected conclusion: “What struck me is you would never know you were on campus.”
That wasn’t the worst of it.
This was: “There was no pride. I remember thinking later, ‘This is going to be tougher than I thought.’ After two weeks, I was ready to go back. It was such a negative culture. It was tough because I’m a high-energy guy.”
Driesell told him that he would never draw fans, no matter how much success he had. “Lefty probably scared me more than anybody,” Hunter said.
But a long conversation with then-football coach Bill Curry calmed him down. He had some early success, which he’s built on. The arena remains one of the worst, but there’s new locker rooms and students are showing up for games. The hope is that non-student fans will follow.
Imagine what an NCAA tournament bid would do for his little project.
“We don’t want to be one-year wonders,” Hunter said. “We don’t want to be the guy who dunks the ball and then beats his chest because that means he doesn’t do it very often.”
Turns out, the job wasn’t a grease fire. And if the wins continue, Hunter might even experience the next level of success and have a sandwich named after him.
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