Scott Cacciola writes about how basketball prodigy Josh Pastner became the head coach of the Memphis Tigers - from 14-year old AAU basketball scout, to student player/assistant coach at Arizona, to recruiting guru for Lute Olson (Arizona) and John Calipari (Memphis).
As a young teenager, he started writing "The Josh Pastner Scouting Report", which he sent out to every Division 1 coach in the country.
Whenever the Hoops hit the road for a tournament and had an off day, most of the players would head to the mall or back to the hotel. Hal Pastner would drop his son off at the gym at 8 a.m., then return at 10 p.m. to pick him up. In the meantime, Josh would scout games and make evaluations.
"He never got more excited than when he saw a great player nobody knew about," Hal Pastner recalled.
He was a self-made high school player, and worked himself into a roster spot at Arizona, where he was a freshman classmate of Mike Bibby. He often worked out together at 5 a.m.
"We'd sneak into the gym, sometimes we'd set the alarm off," said Courtney Pastner, Texas' high school player of the year in 1999. "He was just my role model, someone I idolized. He always told me, 'Friday nights, when your competition is out having fun, that's when you get ahead.'"
Not only did he have a roster spot at Arizona, but he became a coach within the team - getting standouts Bibby and Dickerson to work out with him.
His first week at Arizona, he called home. Pastner had enrolled because he wanted to be mentored by coach Lute Olson, who had recruited him as a sort of player/coach (more of the latter, less of the former). Pastner was living in an athletic dorm, and the football players were giving him a hard time. Plus, he was taking eight classes. His father offered some familiar advice: Just work harder.
"Josh is a carbon copy of his father," said Jim Rosborough, a former assistant at Arizona. "Three cell phones on the interstate, driving with his knee? That's father and son. We've all kidded Josh about being obsessive, a little compulsive. But he learned everything from his dad."
Josh Pastner has long referred to his father as his "best friend," and his advice resonated that first week of school. Buoyed by some tough love, he befriended fellow freshman Mike Bibby, a McDonald's All-American, and they started shooting baskets at 7 a.m. Pastner then recruited Michael Dickerson, the team's high-scoring guard, to work with him at 11 p.m. He assured both that the extra time would pay off.
"A lot of the guys were like, 'Who does this kid think he is?'" said Justin Wessel, a backup forward. "Here's this 5-10 walk-on getting Mike Bibby out of bed. But everything he did was so perfect, so he wanted everyone else to be perfect. The fact that the two stars bought into it so fast changed everything."
Not only had he developed into a credible coach on the court, but his tireless networking allowed him to generate a reputation as a top recruiter as well.
During his four years as a student, he earned two degrees -- his bachelor's in family studies and his master's in teaching -- and started work toward a Ph.D. But he never lost sight of The Goal. To that end, he somehow unearthed two hours each afternoon to man the pay phone outside the locker room at the McKale Center with a jar full of quarters. These were the days before he owned a cell phone, and Pastner would dial and dial and dial.
Asked whom he was calling back then, Pastner said: "Just people, staying in touch. Keeping up on calls."
Pastner understood better than most the power of networking, the importance of reaching out to coaches, associates, players, friends, former teammates, distant cousins -- anyone and everyone. He sensed that maintaining those contacts would prove valuable someday.
He worked his way up the ladder, from player to undergraduate assistant to video coordinator to recruiting coordinator to assistant coach. His reputation as a top-tier recruiter ballooned. He helped land and develop Chase Budinger, Nic Wise, Jordan Hill and Jerryd Bayless.
Having high expectations for yourself and your program, as well as placing high demands on everyone around you, are two key components for success. Knowing that, Josh Pastner is well on his way for carving out his own niche at Memphis.
He continues to push forward, the only way he knows. His life has always been consumed by rigid discipline and mind-numbing extremes. Little sleep, all work. He spent 22 years working toward the past seven days, when the dream turned real and he became the second-youngest head coach in Division 1.
So now, after all that striving and planning, he has his own program, his own team, and he will continue to choke the minutes out of every day, burdened not by Calipari's legacy but by his own expectations, the life he always wanted.
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