DAVIDSON, N.C. — On Friday, Bob McKillop announced his immediate retirement from Davidson College. At age 71, McKillop left the job after 33 years as Davidson’s head basketball coach and will be replaced by Matt McKillop, his son and top assistant. It was the succession plan Bob McKillop had hoped for, given that Matt had coached alongside him for 14 years and played for him at Davidson for four more.
On May 31, 17 days before that announcement, Bob McKillop sat down with The Charlotte Observer in the practice basketball gym at Davidson for an unusually revealing hour-long interview about his career.
The elder McKillop was reflective and self-deprecating. Although he gave no strong indication of retirement, in retrospect McKillop sounds very much like a man committed to lifelong earning but also at peace with his legacy.
“When you think you know it all,” McKillop said during the interview, “you’re writing your own obituary.”
Here’s a transcript of that conversation, edited for clarity and brevity.
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Scott Fowler: Tell me where and how you grew up.
Bob McKillop: I grew up in South Ozone Park in Queens, New York. My dad was a New York City cop. My mom was not a high school graduate. She was a homemaker. A wonderful mom and housewife.
I went to Catholic grammar school and spent my high school years living in Long Island. Growing up, my best friend was the legendary future All-American for South Carolina, Kevin Joyce.
At the end of my senior year, I was going to go to Siena College on a bit of an academic scholarship. I had no basketball scholarships. I was working out every Saturday at Archbishop Molloy with Kevin Joyce. And Mr. Jack Curren, a Hall of Fame coach, approached me and said, “Where are you going to school next year?”
And I said, “Siena,” and he said, “How would you like a scholarship to East Carolina?” And I was shocked and blown away. He made one phone call and (ECU coach) Tom Quinn brought me down on my first airplane ride.
Q: How did that trip go?
McKillop: They actually tried me out, and during the tryout I got into a fight and got like four or five stitches. They couldn’t take me to a doctor, so the trainer did it because they couldn’t have a record of any kind of medical issue, because it was an illegal tryout.
Q: Why would you get into a fight in a tryout for a scholarship?
McKillop: One of their starting guards was a little bit aggressive, and I became aggressive, and one thing led to another and we hit each other. So I had the stitches. And Coach Quinn offered me a scholarship anyway.
I played two years there. But I was a very young, immature kid who felt very homesick. So that’s why I transferred to Hofstra (for his final two years of eligibility).
Q: What was your style as a basketball player?
McKillop: I was a playground player. I did not have a great IQ. I had very good toughness. I was more of a scorer than a shooter. I took playing defense very personally. So I was just a guy who competed very hard.
Q: When did you know you wanted to be a coach?
McKillop: When the New York Yankees said I wasn’t good enough. I always dreamed about playing center field for the Yankees.
Q: So you played high school baseball too?
McKillop: Yes, I played third base. I played left field. Sometimes I pitched. So I was sort of a utility player.
But unfortunately, the Yankees didn’t know who I was. I did have the fortune of getting offered a contract with the Mets for $500 a month, to play on their class D team. That was the lowest echelon of minor-league baseball. So I weighed the two options — $500 a month for the summer with the Mets or a full scholarship to East Carolina University.
Q: When did you first become a head coach?
McKillop: My second year of teaching at Holy Trinity (a high school in New York) … It was 1973, and I was 23 years old.
Q: And so what sort of coach were you then? How tough were you?
McKillop: I had too much toughness and not enough tenderness. Because of the (slight) age difference, I felt that I really had to be a disciplinarian. And as much as I cared about those young guys, and as much as I stay in contact with them still to this day, I could have been better to them in terms of being more aware of what their needs were.
But it was my way or the highway.
There was one particular player named Tim Timlin, who I locked out of the gym one day because he was late for practice. I wound up making him run the next day. And when he wouldn’t run anymore, I cut him from the team. And to this day I’ve regretted that.
And as much as I regret the experience I had with Tim Timlin, I equally regret those first three years here (from 1989-92, when McKillop’s Davidson teams had three straight losing seasons to begin his college head-coaching career). I had young men who were just sensational. They did whatever I asked, but I did not have enough tenderness for them.
Q: If you looked back at 23-year-old coach Bob McKillop from your current vantage point, at age 71, what would you tell him?
McKillop: Open your eyes. Open your ears. Be insatiable about taking notes and creating memories and growing and learning. The world is ever-changing. There’s a great need for adaptability. But there’s also a great need for creativity. When you think you know it all, you’re writing your own obituary.
Q: You coached both your sons at Davidson. Did that help change your style?
McKillop: Matt and Brendan both wore Davidson on their hearts and grew up wanting to be Davidson players. So that was unique. I saw how hard they worked. I knew how much they competed. They were perfect fits for our style for our system.
But they didn’t have the same kind of athleticism that some other players had. I was tough on them. Very tough on them.
In Matthew’s freshman year, his roommate was Brendan Winters — son of the legendary South Carolina Gamecock and NBA player Brian Winters.
A poignant story: We’re playing VMI. Four seconds to go. We have the ball, down two points. Timeout. And I’m all set to call a play for Matt, who was a terrific shooter. The decision was Matt or Brendan Winters to shoot it.
And then I said (to myself), “Gee if Matt shoots it, and he misses it, he’ll feel awful. And I’ll feel awful, as a Dad as well as a coach. So let’s call a play for Brendan Winters.”
I kneel in front of the bench, all set to design the play, and glance up. There’s Brian Winters, 4-5 rows back. The immediate thought that came to my mind was: “Everyone is somebody’s son.”
I wound up calling a play for Matt. He missed. He felt awful. I felt awful. But I learned an incredible lesson.
I started to see each player on the team as a son rather than a player. Having a son on the team forced me to see that and then I began to treat them as a son. And that’s where the toughness balanced with tenderness came into play as a coach.
Q: You got the Davidson job in 1989. What was it like to have those three losing seasons at the start?
McKillop: I couldn’t have been more fortunate to have my initial years at Davidson College under the mentorship and leadership of (college president) John Kuykendall and (athletic director) Terry Holland. They were classy gentlemen and great representatives of Davidson College. I was incredibly lucky because my butt could have been in Macy’s window after two or three years of losing like we did.
Q: What does that mean — “My butt could be in Macy’s window?” Is that a New York saying?
McKillop: (Hall of fame coach) Louie Carnesecca used to always tell me that. “You don’t want your butt in Macy’s window, because everyone’s going to see you. It’s gonna be very embarrassing.” Macy’s is in Manhattan (laughs).
Q: I do know that. “Miracle on 34th Street,” right?
You never went back to New York, though, after taking the Davidson job. You began coaching here in 1989, and now it’s been 33 years. What is it that has kept you in this place?
McKillop: This is Camelot to me. There’s an extraordinary intimacy here.
Q: And just as an example of that, you’ve always walked to home games, right?
McKillop: I live right across the street from the campus. We lived there since we moved in, in 1989. I don’t often walk to campus on a workday because I need the car to get from one place to another. But game day, I walk to the games and I walk home from the games. It’s been a 33-year tradition.
It’s about 200 yards. In my better days, I could throw a baseball twice. It would probably take me two throws.
Q: You had a life-changing player come to Davidson in 2006. Tell us about the recruitment of Steph Curry.
McKillop: It actually started with a mentality that we had in our recruiting process. I’ve always believed that genetics play a big part in the development of players. So we would try to recruit the sons of ex-players and had great success with that. And Steph had, obviously, genetics. His mom played volleyball at Virginia Tech. His father was one of the greats of Charlotte (Hornets) history. We first became friends when Stephen was a 10-year-old playing for the Charlotte Heat baseball team. And on that team was our youngest son, Brendan. So Brendan and Stephen were teammates.
And as Stephen went to Charlotte Christian from there and became a very, very good high school player. We immediately gravitated toward him because what we had learned about him in the baseball playing days, but also because of the genetic aspect of the future development.
And if you were to see him back in those days, and there are pictures that certainly portray it this way, he was boyish, baby-faced and very frail, and looked oftentimes as if he was wearing Dell’s uniform. But he had every character trait that we wanted. And we decided we were going to offer him a scholarship.
In September (2005), (Davidson assistant coach) Matt Matheny and I drove to Charlotte in late afternoon to visit with Stephen, Dell and Sonya in their house and just explained to them every aspect of Davidson.
And before we could really get through our presentation, Steph stood up and said, “I’m coming to Davidson.” And we were just elated. Matt and I could have not even used a car to get home. We were flying home.
Q: When did you realize how special he was?
McKillop: When he came as a freshman, we had lost seven seniors that graduated. We had a young team, though, when we began workouts in late August, early September. You were limited to three guys to work out and what he showed in those three-man workouts. We were just thrilled beyond belief when we saw him. He was more attentive, more skilled, tougher.
We had an annual event at Myers Park Presbyterian Church in which I give a prognosis for the season. And I went in that morning and it was a breakfast meeting with maybe 150 or so alums and pronounced very boldly, “Stephen Curry is going to go down in history as one of the greats in Davidson College basketball history.” That’s how confident I was, but that’s the kind of confidence that he gave you.
Q: What does age mean to you? A lot of your coaching peers have already retired.
McKillop: Whenever there comes a point where it’s not that I lack the excitement, but I lack the confidence that I can do that. It’s a point where someone better can do it than I can do it. If I honor my commitment to the excellence of Davidson College’s program, then I have to be willing to step aside to allow that to happen. So whenever I have that sense, that will be what will happen. We want to be Camelot.
We want to be different. We want to be unique.
So when that happens that I’m not the best to play the role of King Arthur, I’ll step aside.
