I have to admit I was a little surprised, well, a lot surprised, when I walked into the conference room at Lindenwood where Brad Soderberg was being introduced as the new coach at Lindenwood on Friday. Ten minutes before the news conference was to begin, there must have been 40 people in the room. Three TV cameras. Assorted other people from the St. Louis sports scene. Where did all these people come from? When he was the coach at SLU, I recall at least one SLU basketball lunch where I was the only media person there.

So I don’t know if people were expecting him to rip SLU, or people were just interested to see a guy who had pretty abruptly dropped off the radar without giving many of us a chance to say goodbye. (I should also add that a lot of the people in the room were Lindenwood officials and trustees, who were on campus for graduation. Still, I doubt any previous Lindenwood coach had gotten this much attention.)

Some highlights from Soderberg’s comments to the media, because he said way more than I could fit in the paper:

“I want to thank Linda (his wife) and my three children. You don’t know what they’ve been through. I have thick skin now, they don’t. They’re young, my wife is very sensitive. It’s been an unbelievable two years. For Linda and I, it’s been an unbelievable 24 years.

 
I want to thank God, not just because I’m a coach again, but because of the last two years. It’s easy for us to give thanks when things are great, but when things are tough it’s hard to give thanks. I’m thankful for what’s happened the last two years. I’m a better man right now than I was two years ago. I hope you don’t have to go through the uncertainty we did as a family, but if you, don’t despair. Good things come from it.” 

On making the decision to come to Lindenwood: “I never make any decisions without Linda. We talked and talked and talked. I wanted to be sure. I’m 47, this was literally the ultimate fork in the road. I felt if I didn’t get back into coaching, then I would have to retire because a third year outside of this business, out of sight, out of mind. So I wasn’t just making a decision about Lindenwood or Loras College, I was making a decision about being an athletics director or being a basketball coach. Once I was settled on that it was easy. And thank goodness I had such a quality place to go to on that fork on the left.”

About Kramer: “First I’m a dad. If they’re happy, you’re happy and my son’s very happy at Miami of Ohio. I had a harder time with his season than he did — he played only nine minutes a game — and as a dad I feel that’s damn wrong. Play him more. But he loved it. If he told me he’s thinking about transferring, quite frankly I’d try to talk him out of it initially becaue I think he’s made a commitment to Miami of Ohio and I want him to honor his commitment. Secondly, I want him to earn what he gets. I would be disappointed if he said, I got nine minutes, I want out. I would be disappointed in him. I want him to earn it. If he said, Dad, I’m coming, I’m not going to stop him. But I’d be surprised if he says he wants to transfer. I think he’s got a good thing going there. I really respect the coaches there and it’s a fine institution.”

On recruiting: “To some extent (he’s lost track of recruits), but I’ll do a crash course over the summer and I’ll be right back in step shortly after. In basketball coaching, recruiting is the game and if you step away from it for a year, let alone two, you lose track of that pulse. Give me a month of calls, I’ll be up to speed on where the best players are.”

On the pros and cons of resuming his coaching career in St. Louis: ”It was a big factor. This is home. This is home, particularly for my children. Kramer’s in Dubuque right now, he’s done with school for the semester, but he’s not at home. He’s with his mother, brother and sister, but he’s not at home. My daugher texts me since Monday, texts me on the hour, I want to go home. Our little boy is 11, and he lived seven years in St. Charles. This is home, they feel very welcome here. This is my second home, after Wisconsin.”

I asked him about coming back to a city where he got fired: “I’m well beyond that. I think I’ve done a really good job of keeping that behind me. When we talked, if we did talk, I was pretty standoffish at the time. [I’ll explain this below.} It’s a business. That is the business of Division I basketball and when I left Loras College 15 years ago, I knew that. I remember having a conversation with my dad, he was very upset when I got fired at St. Louis, and I said, don’t you remember when I left Loras, I said I could stay here until I retired because the pressure and the everything that goes around Division I isn’t there. I chose to go to Division I and it was their decision to make a change. That’s their choice. I accept it. I don’t have to agree with it, but I accept it. I really mean I’ve accepted it. I’m ready to move on. I’m ready to win a national championship here.”

 ”I didn’t know (the firing) was coming, but I wasn’t shocked, for two reasons. One, I didn’t lead a team to the NCAA tournament in five years. Two, it’s Division I basketball. That’s the bottom line. Billy Gillespie got fired in two years (at Kentucky) and he went to one NCAA tournament. It’s the nature of the business. Maybe I’m being naive, and I did a crappy job, but I don’t see it that way. It just didn’t work out and the people at Loras (he meant SLU, but he said Loras) who make the decisions wanted to go in a different direction and that’s their prerogative.

“It’s not their fault, that’s how it is. I really don’t have any animosity toward St. Louis U. I really don’t.”

“I was very disappointed and it was hard to watch how much my family suffered. The hardest part of the whole thing was my son was going to come to St. Louis and play and I wanted to be his coach. That blew up. That was real hard. In my whole life, I’ll remember when I told him, in his room. I said, ’It’s over boy.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I’m not the coach at SLU any more.’ It was very, very hard. But like I said, I think it’s made both of us stronger. He’s been through some things.

“The first year off, when I was doing nothing, I couldn’t land a position, that whole year just being at home every day, when you don’t have a place to get up and shower and go to work, it’s weird. You run out of stuff to do. You get bored. I didn’t watch any (SLU) games, just because it was too hard because those were my guys. Now it would be easier to watch because there’s not many of them there that I remember. (Actually, there aren’t any there that he would remember.) It was weird being away from the game for that time. Last year was better. At least I had some place to go to work. Basketball season was weird because I’d go to every game and I was a non-factor.”

In addition to being the coach, Soderberg will have some duties in the admissions department. Everyone in the school seems to have two jobs. “I”I’m not so proud I can’t call a mom and dad and say come to Lindenwood. I’m happy to do it. I think that will add to the enjoyment, be a little diversion from coaching. In Division I, you’re in it so much, it consumes you. I look forward to the challenge.”

Soderberg was offered the job at Detroit last season and turned it down, saying “it didn’t feel right.” He interviewed at Cal Poly and Seattle this year, with the Seattle job ultimately going to Cameron Dollar.  He said he hadn’t really thought about coaching outside of Division I when Lindenwood called him.

I spoke to Dr. Rick Boyle, Lindenwood’s dean of facult and VP of human resources, and the guy who decided to call Soderberg about the job. I figured he had met Soderberg somewhere along the way, but he said, no, the two had never met. He just knew about him from what he’d seen and read and thought he would be a good fit at Lindenwood.

“I always admired and respected Brad Soderberg for the kind of person he is,” Boyle said. “His qualities were what we were looking for in a basketball caoch. When this situation arose, and our former basketball coach left, I called Coach Soderberg, and told him that we would like him to come down and talk to us. We had several conversations on the phone and he called and said it was time for me to visit St. Charles. We’ve had over 150 applications for this position and it was only advertised on one website. When he came in and we started talking, I felt good, I felt a real sense of connection.”

xxxxx 

The last time I had seen Soderberg in person was the day after he was fired at SLU. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t returning my phone calls, so I drove out to his house. I knocked on the door. There was no answer. Soderberg’s house was at the end of a long cul de sac in the back of the housing development. There were no houses nearby, and not a tree for me to park under. I left and came back and an hour later. Still no answer. I made a third try an hour later and he answered the door, which led to two of the most awkward minutes in my life.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Do you think you’ll want to talk in a few days?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“When you’re ready, do you want to give me a call?”

“No.”

I thanked him for the courtesies he’d shown me on the beat, and he thanked me. I think we shook hands, him standing uncomfortably in the foyer of his brand new custom-made house he was going to have to move out of, me standing uncomfortably on his front porch. He shut the door, and I walked down the driveway to my car.

I reminded him of that as we spoke after the news conference on Friday.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I couldn’t talk then. It was a little fresh. I just didn’t want to talk about it. I was appreciate of your efforts.”
Then he asked how my daughter, who sometimes would accompany me to practice, was. “Tell her I said hi.”