CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Davidson basketball coach Bob McKillop, this week’s star of “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” is the first person I’ve interviewed two separate times for this series.
I first sat down with McKillop in late May, shortly after he had finished his 33rd season as the head basketball coach at Davidson. It had been a successful year by all measures — Davidson won 27 games and made it to March Madness, where it lost a 74-73 thriller to Michigan State in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
In that interview, we talked mostly about the past — McKillop’s background, his recruitment of future NBA MVP Steph Curry and his coaching philosophy.
But 17 days later, in mid-June, McKillop retired in an emotional press conference and announced he would be replaced by his son, Matt McKillop, who had been his lead assistant at Davidson for years. With that in mind, Bob McKillop, 72, and I sat down again to speak a few weeks later to talk about why he decided to retire when he did and what comes next.
This interview contains a transcript of what he said and is the fullest explanation McKillop has publicly given for his retirement. It has been edited for clarity and brevity.
— Scott Fowler: Why did you make your retirement decision when you did?
— Bob McKillop: If I proclaim that we were a program constantly in the quest for excellence, I’ve got to live that message. And as we’ve gone through these last couple of years, I saw the evolution of Matt being a bit more advanced than me. Being able to get out on the court — I could not do that as much as I love to. Being more in tune to the changes in the culture of college basketball. Being able to relate a little bit better to the changes in the culture of the contemporary basketball student-athlete. So he checked all those boxes that I was struggling to check.
And I probably could have weathered another year or two or three. But it wouldn’t have been right. It wouldn’t have been right for Davidson College basketball in the quest for excellence that I always aspired for us to have. Nor would it have been right for Matt, who so patiently turned down other opportunities and decided to stay here. So I think from the standpoint of “Do what is the best thing for Davidson” — it was the best thing for Davidson College.
— SF: No one else probably would have realized this sort of an internal dialogue you were having with yourself.
— BM:It was an internal dialogue that has transpired in momentary experiences over these past 2-3-4 years. I’d come home and of course you know I walk home, because I live across the street from the campus. And Cathy (McKillop, Bob’s wife) would say: “How’s practice?”
And I would say I was miserable. She would say, “Is it time to retire?”
But the next day, we’d go out to practice and it’d be sensational and uplifting and inspirational…. And so you’re wrestling with those highs and those lows, but that’s the nature of this profession. The wins, the losses, the joys, the sorrows. They come. They go…. The staying power that a coach must have to maintain a sense of sanity, and a sense of consistency, throughout the process is one that you have to carry with you. And I saw that slipping away.
— SF: With Matt, you’re in such a unique position. We talked in the first interview about how you had coached him at Davidson…. Then you had him for 14 years as an assistant. How did that relationship change?
— BM: My hope for every assistant coach I have is to prepare them for their journey. And in most cases, it’s to be a head coach. I found myself giving Matt more and more responsibilities and the more responsibilities I gave to him, the better he handled it. And there were some intimate aspects of this particular position that I shared with him that I never, ever shared before, because of our relationship as father and son. And he embraced it.
— SF: When did you finally make the decision to retire, and what prompted it?
— BM: A year ago in April (2021) I discussed it with (Davidson athletic director) Chris Clunie. I discussed it with Matt. I discussed it with (then-Davidson president) Carol Quillen. The message from the leadership here on campus was: “Go through the year and see how you feel. Don’t make a knee-jerk decision.”
That was right after we had lost in the NIT to North Carolina State (in March 2021), when I met with Chris and Carol.
And I shared that conversation with Matt and told him I was going to put some more stuff on his plate that year… It’s interesting, and I think this is not just coaching but it’s life — when you start thinking about an end, you start approaching an end. So that maybe sped up the process.
— SF: When you lost to Michigan State in the first round of the 2022 NCAA tournament in March, did you know at that time you were walking off the court for the last time?
— BM:I certainly did. I had made that decision maybe in January or February…. Here we were in the midst of a tremendous season, filled with joy and filled with young men who were a joy to coach. I relished going into the gym each day to work with them. How lucky was I to have that experience as the final one?
— SF: So did you think at every landmark: “This is the last time I coach a home game at Davidson? This is the last conference tournament?”
— BM: I have a tremendous sense of discipline. And the discipline that I brainwashed myself about was don’t think about this relative to me, and the last time. Think about this relative to what’s the next step for our team and our program. I did not want this to be focused on my last time.
— SF: Which is why you never announced it while it was happening?
— BM: Correct.
— SF: At the press conference to announce your retirement, you choked up. Matt choked up. It was a very emotional day. Has it been wrenching, or have you felt more of a sense of relief after it’s all been done?
— BM: Sometimes I have a day in which the reality doesn’t set in. I’m still coaching. But to a degree, we are all coaches in whatever capacity our lives appoint us. Coach as a husband, coach as a father, coach as a sibling, coach in the community. And I never will take that hat off.
And then there are days in which I feel relieved. For example, I just came back from doing a clinic in Hungary. What a wonderful experience those trips have been for me over my entire career. And (when he was still Davdson’s head coach), I would feverishly occupy myself on that 8-hour flight, writing notes in preparation for the clinic, and then analyzing practice when I got back. Thinking about recruits. Thinking about rosters, game plans, strategies.
Well, on these two 8-hour flights, I think I watched seven movies. I had never done that before.
So the reality of having free time is a new reality for me.
— SF: What are you going to fill that free time with, do you think? Take up golf? Write a book?
— BM: I feel like I’m a coach. And I’ve spoken with new Davidson president, Doug Hicks, and he’s asked me to come on board in a part-time capacity to assist in the leadership opportunities here on campus. I’ll do that. I’ve got multiple clinics scheduled. I’ve got a couple of corporate speeches scheduled. Other than that, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Maybe I’ll watch more movies.
— SF: Let’s fast forward a little bit. Say it’s November, and Matt has gone through the preseason and is about to coach his very first game. Where will you be watching that game from?
— BM:I am making myself very distant. And I really want to respect Matt’s territory. So I will get his approval for whatever it might be. I know I want to watch the game.
Will I sit in the arena and watch it? Will I sit in one of these rooms (at Davidson) and watch it on closed-circuit TV? I don’t know. We have been very clear and very open about the need for him to have space and have freedom, and not have the shadow of Bob McKillop overlooking what he’s doing.
— SF: Will you still keep your office at Davidson?
— BM:I will not. Matt is taking it over. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of my stuff in there. In 33 years, I’ve never moved before. So where do I put it? Cathy’s not wanting me to bring it home. I do have an office at home, but I don’t think having nine basketballs in a glass case is going to do much justice to the furnishings in the house.
— SF: How good of a coach do you think Matt will be?
— BM: Well, first of all, he wears Davidson on his heart. There aren’t too many kids in the 1990s and 2000s who grew up wanting to be a Davidson basketball player, but he did. And he accomplished it and he was a good one. And he was a great teammate.
He’s got the internal passion for Davidson and so he’s going to have both feet in the door. And that is absolutely critical for this job in particular, you can’t be having one foot in the door of Davidson and looking for the next job.
And the second thing is he’s got an edge. He’s not going to back down from a challenge. Whether it’s fighting for more money for his budget, higher salaries for his assistants or better opportunities for his players. He also knows something that it took me years and years to learn — tenderness and toughness. He’s got a lot more tenderness about him than I had (early in his career).
I think his biggest challenge is going to be not having called timeouts before. Not having been in a huddle in a very intense final moment. Being in the locker room. and not having spoken to a team that has just stunk the court up in the first half… In the heat of battle, I think that’s where he’s got to get his experience.
— SF: In your news conference announcing your retirement, you said Matt had been “a pain in the butt” the past few years, but you said it fondly. What did you mean?
— BM: That’s the toughness aspect of him. He was not afraid to challenge me. I had been calling timeouts before he was even conceived, and I’d been here so long. As a player, he never challenged me. But as he emerged as an assistant coach and started to invest himself as passionately as he did, the confidence started to flow into his veins and he began to express that confidence by challenging me.
(He’d say): “Put this guy in. Substitute this guy. Don’t speak to the players like that.”.... And sometimes, it got to be very unnerving for me, because he was relentless about it. And that’s why I said in an endearing way, he was a pain in the butt. But again, it showed me a really positive side of him.
— SF: In our first interview for “Sports Legends,” before you retired, you said of Davidson: “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.”
And now you have stepped aside.
— BM: But I know Lancelot is ready.
