He has hired an assistant who once wooed a recruit by sitting in the front row at every game that his AAU team played one summer. He has made recruiting visits all over metro Atlanta, to about four states and the Canary Islands. Now, Brian Gregory just needs to learn his way around Georgia Tech.
“I know how to get to my office from here and from here back to my office,” said Gregory, relaxing on a black leather couch in a lounge in Alexander Memorial Coliseum. “Anywhere else on campus, I’m lost.”
His navigation issues aside, Gregory has begun to gain his bearings and re-direct the program in his direction. Hired a little over a month ago from Dayton, Gregory has met local coaches, recruited, chatted up boosters and former players and, not least, gotten a feel for the roster he inherited from former coach Paul Hewitt.
Said Gregory, “We’ve got a lot of work to do here.”
The hires of Josh Postorino and Chad Dollar as assistants were among his first moves. Both have logged heavy miles recruiting in metro Atlanta. Postorino, who came to Tech from DePaul, previously was in charge of recruiting Atlanta for Clemson. That was how he ended up watching about 50 Georgia Stars games three summers ago, to make an impression on then-Westlake High star Marcus Thornton. (Clemson ultimately signed Thornton, Georgia’s Mr. Basketball in 2010, but released him when coach Oliver Purnell left for DePaul. Thornton is now at Georgia.)
He lured Dollar from Wichita State. Dollar is the son of former Douglass High coach Don Dollar and has hard-to-match credibility in state coaching circles.
“I’ve been knowing Chad Dollar since he was a little kid,” said Phil McCrary, coach of powerhouse Columbia High. “I think that was a great hire right there.”
Gregory said he has visited with about 20 high school coaches and spoken on the phone with at least another 40. Gregory called it “very important” to recruit Georgia, which was part of his rationale for hiring two assistants with connections in the state.
Said Gregory, “We have to be in the mix on all the best players.”
Gregory is putting a high priority on the 2012 class, considered to be particularly strong in the state. It has such depth that he does not plan to offer scholarships he has available for this year. Gregory should have four scholarships available for that class. (His in-state focus did not prevent him from using some of his allotted recruiting time to fly to the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, home to a prep school loaded with European prospects.)
Gregory likely is free of the unusual case of Bobby Parks, a Hewitt signee living in the Philippines. Since his hiring, Gregory repeatedly tried to contact Parks and his father, a 1984 Hawks draft pick, but was unsuccessful. Parks’ father, Bobby Ray Parks Sr., told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an email Thursday that he intended to request a release from his son’s letter of intent. The younger Parks reportedly is playing for a college in Manila.
Gregory called it “the most bizarre recruiting situation that I’ve ever seen” and said he doesn’t expect Parks to be at Tech in the fall.
Gregory’s focus on starting quickly and recruiting well makes it highly unlikely he will complete his staff with a candidate such as former Tech star Mark Price, advocated by many fans to be head coach. Gregory said he had spoken with former players “with an interest in going into coaching,” but declined to name Price specifically.
Gregory envisions eventually hiring former players, but said, “Battle-tested experience is very imperative right now to have.”
That experience will be needed to develop a team that finished 13-18 and was last in the ACC in field-goal percentage. Gregory has completed individual workouts with the team and met with players individually this week. Asked if there were a player he felt he could really develop, Gregory named center Daniel Miller, who started every game and averaged 4.4 points and 5.0 rebounds.
“I think Daniel Miller has a chance to be a very, very good player in this league,” he said. “He has a chance to be as good as he wants to be.”
Gregory said he didn’t foresee any transfers out of the program, “but you never know.” Point guard Iman Shumpert’s status is uncertain, too. Shumpert’s father Odis Shumpert II said his son plans to take until the May 8 deadline before making a decision. The elder Shumpert said his son is 50-50 on returning.
Gregory, who since his hire hadn’t returned to see his family until last weekend, doesn’t sugarcoat the work that lies ahead, for him, his staff and his team. Gregory said he will demand a lot from players, from academics to “putting the trays away when you’re done eating in the cafeteria.” The hardest part will be creating a culture and identity. He used words such as “blue collar,” “high energy,” and “not perfect, but really solid in everything that you do.”
It will take more than the GPS device that helps him navigate Atlanta’s roads to get there.
“The blueprint is out there; there’s a foundation,” Gregory said. “We’ve just kind of got to get through the rubble to get down to that foundation to build it back up again.”
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