I have been assigned the task of delivering terrible news to Virginia coach Tony Bennett. For guidance, I ask a few of his friends. “Oh, good luck with even getting that interview,’’ says associate head coach Jason Williford. Adds former assistant and current Charlotte coach Ron Sanchez, “I think you just have to tell him, ‘Tony, I have bad news.’ ’’
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So I start with an apology. “Tony, I’m sorry to do this, but The Athletic has named you its college basketball person of the year.’’ I try to soften the blow, tell him there’s no actual presentation involved. Hell, there’s not even a plaque. He can print and frame this article, but that’s about it. It does not help. Bennett asks if I am certain that he has to be the winner, if maybe there can’t be a recount or something. Sadly, I explain, there cannot be. He has won, and he must accept this horrific honor. Reluctantly, he caves, agreeing to answer questions about what clearly is the worst thing to happen to him in this calendar year.
This is exactly why Tony Bennett is The Athletic’s 2019 College Basketball Person of the Year. Not so we could torture him, but because he deserves it, and deserves it for so much more than winning a national championship. In college sports, people like to talk about molding others, about influencing young minds and turning boys into men. That happens, but it happens well beneath the surface, the business of winning too all-consuming to allow room for life lessons. Rarely are we handed tangible evidence. By trying desperately not to make Virginia’s national championship about him, by losing a gut-wrenching game with grace, winning a career-defining game with humility, and sticking to his principles and approach through both, Bennett offered everyone a life lesson in real time. “He’s truly trying to impact lives, not just win basketball games,’’ Sanchez says. “That kind of leadership is different, it’s legacy leadership, and not many people really think about that. When his time is done at Virginia, people will remember what he left behind and how it impacted the institution, not just that he won basketball games.’’
I assume Bennett is visibly cringing … if he has actually read this far into the piece (or even read it at all). “Stop being so humble, you’re not that good,’’ is the line Bennett parroted as he tried to diffuse the notion that he lacks ego. And he’s right, at least to an extent. There is no such thing as an ego-less head coach. The belief that you can be better than the other 352 men trying to what you do, that you can be the most important voice amid a cacophony of parents, high school coaches and hangers-on, and that you can do all of this in the glare of the spotlight requires a heavy dose of ego. And Bennett is hardly perfect. He can be willfully, even obstinately humble, concerned about cocooning his program from the lure of fame to the point of cloistering the Cavaliers. Nor is this meant to deify him. If we’ve learned anything, coaches are fallible humans. Erect statues at your own peril.
But if we’re going to go all Freud here, Bennett balances his ego with an equally heavy dose of superego. For those who’ve forgotten Psychology 101, that’s essentially your moral compass. Bennett has developed surely with the help of his heroes, his parents, Dick and Anne, but also purposefully and regularly tended by Bennett himself. “We all go through stuff,’’ Bennett says. “We all battle with pride and with insecurity, and you’re kidding yourself if you’re not clued into that. Coaching, building programs, doing what we do, you can be criticized or you can be praised, and both at unfair levels. This whole thing, and it can get so out of whack. That’s why, for me, I always have to lean in on what matters most. What’s my perspective? What really matters? I ask myself and remind myself of that all the time.’’
So perhaps you’ve heard, Virginia became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a 16-seed in the history of the NCAA Tournament. And then 341 days later, Virginia won the national championship. “Honest to God, I feel like I’m living in a 30-for-30,’’ walk-on Grant Kersey told me on the U.S. Bank Stadium court minutes after the Cavs ousted Texas Tech for the title. Everyone loves a good comeback story and the one the Cavaliers penned will never be matched. It was near Disney-esque in its neatness of plot, an agony-of-defeat-to-the thrill-of-victory story complete with antagonists (critics questioning Bennett’s stubborn reliance on his dad’s pack-line defense), drama (the Cavaliers fell behind by 14 to 16-seed Gardner Webb; beat Purdue in overtime only after Mamadi Diakite swished an improbable buzzer-beater in regulation; topped Auburn in the national semifinals on Kyle Guy’s three free throws with 0.6 second left and needed OT against Texas Tech to collect their title), and of course, ultimate validation.
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Bennett earned this award not because his team rode that impossible wave, but because of how he guided the program from one extreme to the other. Just three weeks after Virginia lost to UMBC, the United States Basketball Writers Association presented its Henry Iba Coach of the Year Award. For this one, there is an actual trophy and it’s presented at the Final Four. The vote was taken before the NCAA Tournament started and, on the merits of his team’s 28-2 record, 17-1 ACC mark and ACC title, Bennett was named the winner. The pain of the loss still fresh, he not only showed up to receive his award, but he also answered questions afterward. Peers marveled at his grace, some even insisting the sport was fortunate that Bennett lost as a 1-seed first, aware that not everyone in the profession would behave similarly.
He often refers to his program’s pillars: humility (know who we are); passion (do not be lukewarm); unity (do not divide our house); servanthood (make teammates better); and thankfulness (learn from each circ*mstance). This does not make Virginia unique. Check out any locker room and you will find some message or theme painted on the walls, and most programs try to live by whatever mottos they coin. Following their coach’s lead, the Cavaliers nearly ingested theirs last season. From ACC media day through the final game, the players followed their coach’s lead, answering questions about the UMBC loss, no matter how tired the narrative became.
Bennett never sought to make 2018-19 a redemptive season. That wasn’t possible, he reasoned. What happened happened, and Virginia’s loss will forever be in the record books, no matter what the program does going forward. Instead, he asked his players to remember the loss but not carry it around like some albatross. That isn’t to say it didn’t eat at him. He is wildly competitive. When Jay Huff came on his official visit, rather than let his would-be player win, Bennett whipped him in a game of Ping-Pong. A loss of such magnitude after a season of such success stung him and stung him hard. When the Cavaliers beat Gardner-Webb in the first round, he memorably ran into the postgame locker room with a stuffed monkey, hurling the simian off his back with effect. He is, it turns out, human.
Yet when Virginia won the whole thing, when the circle had been completed, he stood off to the side while his players cut the nets, patiently waiting his turn while quietly talking with his wife, Laurel. Afterward, he gathered the people closest to him in his hotel room — a select group you could count on two hands. They celebrated, but it was no rager, more a satisfying quiet reflection of what they’d all accomplished. “That, to me, is the sweetest reward of the whole thing,’’ Bennett said. “Can you handle failure and success, and treat both as imposters, and still be the same person? Of course, it affects you, but can you stay true to yourself?”
So about turning down the raise, Tony. “Oh, that was way too big a deal,’’ Bennett says with an exasperated sigh. Except, of course, it was an appropriately sized deal because it happens exactly never. On the heels of her coach’s national championship, athletic director Carla Williams did the wise and prudent thing. She met with her university president, seeking his approval for a raise for Bennett. She got it. Bennett not only turned it down, but he and Laurel also pledged $500,000 toward a career development center for current and former Virginia athletes. “Why would he do it?” Sanchez says. “Because it’s so him.’’
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Bennett is hardly a pauper. Per USA Today, he ranks fourth among all coaches in compensation, making $4.15 million annually. When he says he has more than he needs, he’s not exaggerating. This, however, does not stop his brethren from fattening their wallets. He operates in a profession where coaches routinely dangle job opportunities elsewhere to squeeze more money out of their employers. They do not reject money.
The university put out a press release, announcing Bennett’s unorthodox decision. National outlets from The Washington Post to CNBC picked up the news, nearly mortifying Bennett. Alas, both things — declining the offer, and dying of shame because people know he had declined the offer — only add to the evidence that Bennett deserves to be our person of the year.
Understand, his is no Barney Fife, aw-shucks, faux humility. It’s all genuine. Bennett is wildly appreciative of everything he has received — the awards, the accolades, the attention — but he also firmly believes he is but a bit actor in a much larger cast. “It’s so funny, because he’s always running from the attention, but he turns a corner — and boom! It hits him in the face,’’ Sanchez says. “I mean, who isn’t attracted to that? Who doesn’t run to that or want that? It’s human nature to enjoy it and he does enjoy it, but he doesn’t want to live in it. That’s just not who he is.’’
When we finally got around to talking about this whole person of the year thing, I first asked Bennett why he coached. He took a while to form an answer, referring back to a Ted talk he has referenced frequently, Simon Sinek’s The Golden Circle. It’s about the why, why certain people inspire and others don’t, why people do what they do. It got Bennett to thinking about why he’s in coaching. The natural answer — the easy answer — is because he grew up at his father’s knee, played the game and loved the game. He sought a deeper understanding and discovered it was because he wanted to see if he could flout convention. “Can you build a program that’s built on what is valuable to you, that’s true to who you are?” he says. “Can you get guys that, of course, want to play in the NBA, but they want that blue-collar mentality, that Rocky poster? They want a chance at the title fight. I guess I wanted to see if I could build a program on what matters, or at least what matters to me.’’
That’s why Tony Bennett is The Athletic’s College Basketball Person of the Year.
For that, Tony, we are truly sorry.
(Photo: Ryan M. Kelly / Getty Images)
Dana O’Neil, a senior writer for The Athletic, has worked for more than 25 years as a sports writer, covering the Final Four, the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals and NHL playoffs. She has worked previously at ESPN and the Philadelphia Daily News. She is the author of three books, including "The Big East: Inside the Most Entertaining and Influential Conference in College Basketball History." Follow Dana on Twitter @DanaONeilWriter
