A players’ coach

As the story goes, it was during the first exhibition game of the 1999-2000 basketball season, when Tony Bennett showed his true colors. At the time, Bennett was working as a manager for his father, Dick, then the head coach at Wisconsin.

Tony, who had finished his playing career and was just getting his feet wet in the coaching business, was sitting on the bench next to Wisconsin players when a fellow manager handed him a cup of “BadgerMAX,” Wisconsin’s version of Gatorade.

Instead of passing the drink on to the players, as his managerial duties required, Tony guzzled it down without a second thought.

“He was so used to being a player,” recalled Dick Bennett, “that he failed to pass it on.”

And that’s kind of how it’s always been for Bennett since he got into coaching. Bennett was, and still is, a player at heart.

As Bennett prepares for the first game of his Virginia tenure on Friday night against Longwood, that mentality should serve him well. Being able to relate to today’s players is one of the most important aspects of a coach’s job.

It’s an ability that Bennett’s predecessor, Dave Leitao, sometimes struggled with.

When Leitao took over for the entertaining yet sometimes lax Pete Gillen after the 2004-05 season, he proved to be just what the doctor ordered — a stern, no-nonsense guy who demanded discipline.

However, when the team’s performance started to spiral, Leitao’s style took its toll on players. A little bit of Gillen’s approach might have served Leitao well.

With Bennett, Virginia may have found a more balanced combination of the two.

“[Bennett’s] whole demeanor is different than coach Leitao’s,” said Virginia sophomore Sylven Landesberg, during the team’s recent media day. “Coach Bennett is more laid back. If you mess up, instead of yelling at you, he’ll pull you over to the side.

“He’ll talk to you personally and won’t put your whole business out there…I guess it’s better because we’re not afraid to mess up or anything, because we know if we do, Coach Bennett will talk to us in private and not in front of everyone.”

What’s interesting about Bennett’s style is that it differs dramatically from his father’s.

“I think Tony has considerable more poise than me,” Dick Bennett said. “I tended to be a bit more intense on the sidelines.

“Tony is more of a players’ coach.”

Hardball

Tony had one heck of a ride as a player. He played under his father for four years at Wisconsin-Green Bay, then enjoyed a brief career in the NBA.

It was coming out of Preble High in Green Bay, Wisc., that Bennett — a first-team all-state pick two years running who was named Wisconsin’s “Mr. Basketball” his senior year — had a little fun with his “intense” father.

During his senior year, Tony had still not committed to Wisconsin-Green Bay, even though it was widely assumed that he would. Tony let his dad squirm a little. He talked of taking official visits to warm-weather locales like the University of Hawaii.

“I was getting a little antsy because [four] other guys had committed and he was the central piece to that recruiting class and he was delaying,” Dick Bennett recalled. “I tried to put a little heat on him.”

Tony remembers one particular father-son conversation.

“He comes in and says, ‘Son, the other four guys have committed. I need to know. You have two days to give me an answer, otherwise the scholarship’s coming off the table,’” said Tony, smiling. “He said, ‘I’ve got to move on.’ He was playing hardball with me.”

The next day was Parents Night at Preble High. Tony, with an anxious coach and father in the stands, poured in 42 points. “After every basket,” Tony recalled, “I would just glare at him.”

Tony wound up committing to Wisconsin-Green Bay the next day.

Over 20 years later, Dick Bennett said he never really had any doubts. “I felt all along he was going to commit to us,” he said.

Love and basketball

It wasn’t until the summer after his sophomore season that Bennett believed there was a chance to fulfill his lifelong dream of playing in the NBA. That summer, he played on the Pan-Am team with the likes of Kenny Anderson and Bobby Hurley.

Two years later, after finishing his college career as the NCAA’s all-time most accurate 3-point shooter at 49.7 percent — a mark that still stands today — Bennett was selected in the second round of the 1992 NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets.

Bennett wound up backing up former Wake Forest standout Mugsy Bogues.

“You realize that it’s a grind — physically and mentally,” Bennett said. “You go through some of the rigors and realize, ‘Boy, it’s not everything it’s cracked up to be.

“But, playoff basketball — you can’t touch that…I just loved it.”

It was while playing for the Hornets that Bennett attended his first ACC tournament in nearby Greensboro. Bennett remembers Randolph Childress tearing it up for the Demon Deacons in one of the games he saw.

It was also while playing for the Hornets that Bennett met his wife, Laurel. An LSU graduate, Laurel had moved to Charlotte to attend graduate school and was working at a church when she met Tony, who had stopped by to give a talk to a group of children.

The two didn’t begin dating until about a year-and-a-half later. On their first date, they went to see the movie, “Shawshank Redemption” and went for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream afterward.

“I still have the spoon, although I don’t know if you should print that — it sounds sick,” said Laurel Bennett, laughing.

Laurel said there were many things she loved about Tony from the get-go. One Valentine’s Day she made him a tape that listed all of those attributes.

“He had an innocence about him that I loved and still do,” Laurel said. “And he was a very sincere, real person. He played in the NBA, but you would have never have known that by talking to him. He is just very real, which is important to me as anything else.

“[And] his faith was most important to him and was something really important to me, and still is.”

About nine months after a movie and ice cream, Laurel and Tony wed.

At his introductory press conference in April, Bennett recalled a conversation he had with Laurel, as they were sitting on the airplane, on their way to their new home in Charlottesville. The couple discussed how the press conference that they were about to take part in was similar to a wedding day.

“It’s a celebration,” said Bennett, in his opening remarks that day. “There’s a lot of promise. A lot of excitement. But what really matters, quite honestly, is the marriage, and that’s the daily investment. It’s the promise over time, and that commitment, and I think that that is what it takes to build a program…

“You have to ask my wife if our marriage is good, so hopefully it is.”

To that end, Virginia fans will be delighted to hear that Tony and Laurel, who have a young daughter (Anna) and son (Eli), are doing just fine, thank you.

“I would say our marriage is doing very well,” said Laurel Bennett, laughing, “and that’s not just an interview answer.”

Laurel says communication has always been the key.

“We do a good job of talking about where we are in life,” she said. “We can talk about anything. I feel like we’re in a really good place. We’re both excited about this new job and the place where we’re going to be to raise our family.”

An unexpected career choice

Funny thing is, Tony Bennett, a humanities major at Wisconsin-Green Bay, never thought he’d be a coach. Not in a million years.

He had watched his dad coach all his life. In addition, he had seen his sister, Kathi, coach at the University of Evansville.

“I said, ‘That’s the last thing I ever want to do,’” Bennett said.

But then Bennett’s NBA playing career was cut short by a series of injuries. Suddenly, he found himself in New Zealand of all places, serving as a player-coach, and then the team’s general manger.

“I realized that it’s the next best thing to playing — coaching and influencing guys,” Bennett said.

That led to Bennett serving as a volunteer coach (and drinking all that “BadgerMAX”) on his father’s Wisconsin team. That year, the 1999-2000 season, the Badgers went to the Final Four.

“I said, ‘Now this isn’t too tough. I could enjoy this,’” said Bennett, smiling. “I think I got suckered into it.”

Bennett worked under his father and then subsequent Badger coaches Brad Soderberg and Bo Ryan. When his father decided to return to coaching at Washington State, Tony joined him — with the understanding he would be his successor.

In his three years at WSU, Bennett, who had recruited every player in the program, compiled a record of 69-33. In the 2006-07 season, he took the program to the Sweet 16 en route to being named National Coach of the Year.

Bennett said he owes a lot of his success to his father.

“I’ve learned so much from him,” Bennett said, “but we have different personalities.

“He was a head coach from Day 1 — his whole career. I’ve been a player in the NBA and an assistant under so many different influences.”

Dick Bennett agrees that he and his son are cut from a different cloth in many ways. While the two share many of the same defensive principles, their offensive beliefs vary.

“I think he has a far better mind offensively and a better handle offensively than I did,” the elder Bennett said. “He’s a bit more creative.”

Bennett says that poise has always been Tony’s biggest strength, even as a player. He recalled a conversation he had with former Charlotte Hornets coach Allan Bristow.

“I remember him telling me that as a rookie, he often tried to have him in the game at the end. That was with [Alonzo] Mourning and Larry Johnson.

“He said, ‘I like him in there because he’s just very poised late in the game.’ He’s just always been that way.”

Laurel, who played some high school basketball back in her day, said Tony has always been very even-keeled.

“After a win or after a loss, he’s always the same guy,” she said. “You have to appreciate that because I think it’s a very volatile profession.

“I think he’s a players’ coach. He loves the game and cares about people. He wants to teach and care about people.

“He wants to have relationships with players, not just coach-player ones. It’s kind of like, ‘I’m a person, you’re a person.’ He knows he can’t handle each player the same way — I think he’s very aware of that.”

The “E” word

Just before Bennett agreed to take the job at Virginia, he asked Athletic Director Craig Littlepage a question.

“I said, ‘What are your expectations?’” Bennett said.

To Bennett, it was of vital importance.

“If you’re going to build a program with a good base that is hopefully going to last, you have to have the ability to build it step by step,” he said. “Get a group of young men to come in, mature them, get guys who buy into your style and play in a way that gives you a chance, and that does take some time.

“Now, does that mean you don’t go after it your first year, your second year, your third year? Can you have success? Absolutely. You can. But there is a process that takes place.”

Dick Bennett, who will be on hand to watch his son’s first game on Friday versus Longwood, has confidence that his son will get the job done at Virginia — eventually.

“I know that in time he will,” he said. “It will be difficult early. I have enough feel for what he’s facing to know that he has his hands full right out of the shoot. I do know that.”

The elder Bennett has viewed video of the team’s recent closed-door

scrimmage against Marquette.

“He doesn’t have anywhere near the talent that he left at Washington State — or at least not the kind of players who understand what he wants,” Bennett said. “That’s probably as big of an issue as raw talent.”

In Dick Bennett’s third and final year at the helm at WSU, the team finished last in the conference.

Tony took over the following season. After being predicted to finish last again, Bennett led the squad to a second-place finish. WSU finished 26-8 — the 26 victories were a school record.

But Bennett, who had spent three years recruiting the players on that team, is the first to admit things aren’t about to change overnight in Charlottesville.

“There’s a building process that needs to take place,” Tony Bennett said. “Do fans understand that? Do media? Do alumni? Not all, but you have to have a plan and stick to it. That’s my plan.

“My expectations are that it’s going to take three or four years to get your guys in place.”

Bennett knows full well that there will probably be plenty of rough times ahead.

“There were some brutal losses [at WSU] and they looked awful at times, but they really stayed together,” he said.

One of Bennett’s favorite sayings is one he picked up from his father.

“He said, ‘I’ve got to recruit a group of guys who I can lose with before I can win,’” Bennett said.

“The point being that you will go through adversity in this building process and you better have the kind of players, whether it’s really going good or not going good, they’re going to stay together.

“Because eventually when they mature, some good things are going to happen.”