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"...people
who win find ways to win,
and people who lose find
excuses."
-
Gary Waters
 If
you ask third-year Viking men's
basketball coach Gary Waters
about the sudden transformation
of the CSU program, he will tell
you that it has all gone
according to the plan.
In fact, he can even show you
the book where he first outlined
the steps that the Vikings would
go from being worst to picked
first.
In the 30 months since being
named the head coach at
Cleveland State, Waters has
systematically gone about
building a new program. He
painstakingly put together a
recruiting plan for the first
four seasons, knowing that he
needed to build the program with
a solid foundation and evenly
spread the resources in order to
help assure that success would
be constant instead of fleeting.
And his efforts have paid big
dividends.
Last year, CSU became one of at
least 18 teams in NCAA Division
I history to go from winning 10
games or fewer in one season to
20 or more in the next. And yes,
it was planned.
Waters sent CSU into the 2007-08
season with the goal of
"Flipping The Script", or taking
the 10-21 mark of the season
before and turning it around.
The Vikings, who were picked to
finish ninth in the Horizon
League last year, accomplished
their goal, shocking the league
by winning their first seven
conference games en route to a
second place finish.
Included in that opening run was
a 56-52 win over 12th-ranked
Butler that gave the Vikings
only their second victory ever
over a ranked opponent.
Cleveland State recorded 21 wins
during the year, marking the
sixth 20-win campaign in school
history and the first since
1992-93. The 12-6 league mark
allowed the Vikings to set the
school standard for league wins
in a season and by beating
Valparaiso in the semi-finals of
the league tournament, CSU
advanced to the championship
game for the first time since
joining the Horizon League.
Despite falling in the Horizon
League title game at 12th-ranked
Butler, Cleveland State was
rewarded for its performance
during the season by receiving a
bid to play in the National
Invitational Tournament, marking
the program's fourth post-season
appearance and first since the
1987-88 campaign.
The Vikings accomplished the
turnaround with hard work. CSU
finished among the top three
teams in the league in every
hustle statistic -- scoring
defense, rebounding, offensive
rebounding, steals and blocks --
and became the first team in
league history to go from
finishing last in rebounding
margin one season to first the
next.
Waters was rewarded for his
effort by being tabbed as the
Horizon League Co-Coach of the
Year, marking the third time
that he received the honor
during his coaching career.
More importantly, Waters saw
some of the most important
building blocks -- fan
attendance and exposure --
improve as well. Attendance at
home games was up over 26
percent, with the average crowd
size being the largest since the
1999-2000 season and the total
home attendance being the most
since 1998-99.
Twelve of the 34 Viking games
were televised, eight as part of
CSU's partnership with
SportsTime Ohio and four more on
the various ESPN platforms,
giving the Vikings the most
exposure of any team in the
Horizon League.
The over-night success of the
Vikings has made the rest of the
league take notice as CSU enters
the 2008-09 campaign as the team
to beat in the Horizon League
this year in a preseason poll of
the league's coaches, sports
information directors and media.
That is a far cry from the
season before when the Vikings
were tabbed ninth in the 10 team
league with only one of the 46
voters picking CSU to finish in
the upper half of the league.
Waters' accomplishments at
Cleveland State are nothing new.
A 12-year head coaching veteran,
he has amassed 202 wins and led
teams to post-season play seven
times during that span, he has
rebuilt programs before, first
at Kent State and then at
Rutgers.
Named the 15th head coach in
Cleveland State University
history on April 6, 2006, Waters
gave a little insight into his
plan for the program at his
hiring press conference.
"Cleveland is a great city and
has great resources," he told
the media. "To get this done, we
need to make a commitment to the
City of Cleveland and let it be
part of this program. We have to
build this program around
players from this area so that
we can give our fans something
that they truly can be proud
of." Waters has wasted no time
in implementing his plan, using
his first 30 months on the job
to do exactly what he told the
press. He has:
• brought in a
seven-player recruiting
class for the 2007-08
season that experts rated
as the second best class
in Ohio, trailing only
national runner-up Ohio
State;
• added transfers Cedric
Jackson (St. John's),
Chris Moore (UC-Santa
Barbara) and George Tandy
(Eastern Illinois), who
proved to be the backbone
of the 2007-08 squad,
providing experience and
leadership to a generally
young squad;
• backed up his commitment
to build the program with
student-athletes from the
Cleveland area by signing
six players in his first
two CSU recruiting classes
who played their high
school basketball in the
Greater Cleveland area and
a total of nine from Ohio;
• was the driving force
behind the creation of the
Viking Basketball Report,
a weekly half-hour show on
CSU Basketball that airs
on SportsTime Ohio.
• filled his coaching
staff with 47 years of
experience by hiring
Jayson Gee, Larry
DeSimpelare and Jermaine
Kimbrough as assistant
coaches; and
• proudly displayed the
CSU campus to countless
high school and AAU
basketball coaches and
players. |
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Waters is
quick to point out the three
characteristics that a
successful program must have to
find success. . . a vision, a
plan and quality people. Every
decision that he has made has
kept those three points in mind
as he began the process of
building the Viking program.
"Part of the foundation was
already in place here at
Cleveland State," Waters said.
"We had quality people -- both
in the program and supporting
the program -- already here and
ready to take this team to the
next level."
Using the insight of legendary
UCLA head coach John Wooden,
Waters personally taught a class
in success to the CSU players in
2006-07, using Wooden's Pyramid
of Success as the textbook for
the class. Waters uses the
course to instill upon the
Viking players what is necessary
to become a winner, both on the
court and in life. He challenged
them to build their own pyramid,
identifying the traits and
qualities that are needed to
bring the CSU program to
national prominence.
Year two of the success class
had Waters using John Maxwell's
manuscript, Talent Is Never
Enough, to teach the Vikings
that people are never successful
by talent alone, outlining the
13 crucial things they can do to
maximize their natural talents
to become a "Talent-plus"
person.
This year, Waters has turned to
Indianapolis Colts head coach
Tony Dungy and his book, Quiet
Strength, as his inspiration,
deriving from it this year's
team motto, `Do what we do, but
do it better.'
Ever the teacher, Waters also
used the end of the summer to
take the Vikings on an 11-day
tour of Spain, going 3-1 against
club and professional teams in
the country while more
importantly, giving the CSU
players a bonding and cultural
experience that he hopes will be
remembered for the rest of their
lives.
"This is a special group of kids
who are capable of doing special
things," Waters said. "Their
intensity during the practices
leading up to the tour was
unbelievable and that attitude
carried over to everything else
they did during the preseason."
Waters is also known for his
personal style, annually ranking
among the nation's top dressers
on the sidelines. In fact, he
edged Villanova's Jay Wright to
win the national title in the
2008 Runway To The Fashionable
Four, an online fashion rankings
similar to the NCAA Tournament
that is conducted annually by
CollegeInsider.com. In 2007, he
lost in the national
semi-finals.
A Gary Waters-led basketball
program places a strong emphasis
on character and discipline and
his family-oriented approach,
combined with an up-tempo game
that relies on fundamentals and
relentless defensive pressure
have paid huge dividends during
his coaching career.
Waters, who has coached at the
collegiate level for the last 34
years, first came to northeast
Ohio in the spring of 1996 when
he took over as head coach at
Kent State University. He led
the Golden Flashes to a 92-60
record in five seasons from
1996-2001, including a 70-25
mark over his final three
campaigns.
Inheriting a program that had
managed just one winning season
in the previous seven years and
had never been to the NCAA
Tournament and made just three
NIT appearances in its first 80
seasons, Waters went to work
building a program that
continues to win even seven
seasons after he left the
campus.
Waters' impact on the Kent State
program became evident in his
third season (1998-99) when he
guided the Golden Flashes to a
school-record 23 wins (23-7),
winning the Mid-American
Conference tournament
championship for the first time
and receiving its first-ever
NCAA Tournament bid. The Flashes
went on to drop a 61-54 decision
to 20th-ranked Temple in a first
round game in Boston.
Kent State matched the program
record for wins in 1999-2000,
posting a 23-8 record that
included a trip to the NIT
quarterfinal round. Waters is
one of only three coaches in the
history of the Mid-American
Conference to earn MAC Coach of
the Year honors in successive
seasons, receiving the award in
both 1999 and 2000.
Waters made his last season at
Kent State (2000-01) a memorable
one, leading the Flashes to a
school-record 24 wins (24-10
overall) and the Mid-American
Conference regular season and
tournament championships. KSU
provided the NCAA Tournament
with one of its biggest upsets
that year as the 13th-seeded
Flashes upended fourth-seeded
Indiana, 77-73. KSU fell to No.
2 seed Cincinnati in the second
round.
Even though Waters moved to
Rutgers for the 2001-02 season,
his impact on the Kent State
program is still evident today
as the Golden Flashes have won
20 or more games in each of the
seven seasons since he left.
Kent State has also made three
more NIT and three NCAA
appearances, including a trip to
the Elite Eight of the NCAAs in
the first season after Waters
left (2001-02).
The move to Rutgers led to some
quick results as the Scarlet
Knights went 18-13 in Waters'
first season (2001-02), making
only their third post-season
appearance in 11 seasons when
they faced Yale in the first
round of the NIT.
Two years later (2003-04),
Rutgers won 20 games for the
first time since 1981-82,
claiming wins over Temple, West
Virginia, Villanova and Iowa
State to advance to the
championship game of the NIT.
In his final season in
Piscataway (2005-06), Waters led
Rutgers to 19 wins and its third
NIT appearance in his five
seasons, upending Penn State in
the first round before falling
to Saint Joseph's in the second
round.
With Quincy Douby ranking sixth
in the nation in scoring (25.4
ppg), the Scarlet Knights
claimed four wins over NCAA-bound
teams (Marquette, Seton Hall
twice & Kent State) and when
they knocked off No. 22
Louisville, it marked the eighth
time that a Rutgers team coached
by Gary Waters defeated a ranked
opponent.
Douby would go on to become a
first round selection (19th
pick) of the Sacramento Kings in
the 2006 NBA Draft.
A native of Detroit, Mich.,
Waters received honorable
mention All-America as well as
all-region and all-conference
honors while playing two seasons
from 1970-72 at Oakland (Mich.)
Community College. He
transferred to Ferris State in
1972, becoming an NAIA
all-district selection and first
team all-league choice in
1973-74.
In his two seasons at Ferris
State, he helped the team to a
47-10 record, winning a pair of
Great Lakes Intercollegiate
Athletic Conference (GLIAC)
titles.
Waters attended the preseason
camp of the NBA's Detroit
Pistons in 1974 before
eventually playing
professionally overseas in Spain
that year. He returned to Ferris
State to earn his bachelor's
degree in business
administration in 1975. He later
earned a master's degree in
educational administration from
Central Michigan in 1976 and a
second bachelor's degree in
business education from Ferris
State in 1978.
Waters returned to Ferris State
in 1974-75 to begin his coaching
career, starting a 15-year
tenure as an assistant under
head coaches Jim Wink (1974-78)
and Tom Ludwig (1979-89).
The Bulldogs amassed a 267-144
record with Waters as an
assistant coach, making four
NCAA appearances, earning six
GLIAC titles and winning 20 or
more games six times. Waters
also coached the FSC junior
varsity team from 1975-78.
Waters moved across the state in
the spring of 1989 to join the
staff of Ben Braun at Eastern
Michigan University. Waters
served as the assistant head
coach from 1989-93, and was
associate head coach for the
final three seasons. During that
time, the Eagles compiled a
127-87 record and captured two
Mid-American Conference titles.
EMU earned two NCAA Tournament
bids during his tenure,
defeating Mississippi State and
Penn State to advance to the
Sweet 16 in 1991 and knocking
off Duke in the opening round in
1996.
Kent State beckoned shortly
after the Eagles were eliminated
by top-seeded Connecticut in the
second round, giving the 22-year
assistant coach his first head
coaching opportunity.
Waters' coaching experience also
includes leading an all-star
team to the 1988-89 Mexican
International Tournament, where
the squad won the event with an
8-0 record. In 1981, he coached
the Detroit AAU national team
that won all eight games en
route to winning the Canadian
National Tournament. Waters also
has been a speaker at numerous
camps and clinics around the
country, including a clinic for
FIBA, the International
Basketball Federation, which was
held in Frankfort, Germany.
In June, 2001, Waters had the
distinction of serving as one of
eight court coaches for the 2001
USA Basketball Men's National
Team Trials at the U.S. Olympic
Training Center in Colorado
Springs, Colo. The following
year, Waters also served as an
assistant coach for the 2002 USA
Junior World Championship
Qualifying Team, which competed
in the Confederation of Pan
American Basketball Associations
(COPABA) Men's Junior World
Championship Qualifying
Tournament in Venezuela.
Waters is a member of the
National Association of
Basketball Coaches and the Black
Coaches Association and is
involved with many charitable
organizations, including Coaches
vs. Cancer. He represents the
Horizon League on the NABC
Congress, serving as the liaison
between the NABC and the league
head coaches. He was inducted
into the Ferris State Athletic
Hall of Fame in 2002 and the
Kent State Varsity "K" Hall of
Fame in 2006.
Waters and his wife, Bernadette,
have two grown children, son
Sean and daughter, Seena, and
four grandchildren. They reside
in Westlake.
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