alt=Jay DrewA lot of people conspired to get 42-year-old Kevin Young to the place where he was at Wednesday night, standing at a podium in the middle of the Marriott Center floor and being introduced as the next head men’s basketball coach at Brigham Young University.
Chief among them were BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe, BYU deputy AD Brian Santiago, BYU basketball legend Danny Ainge and BYU booster Ryan Smith, owner of the Utah Jazz.
But let’s not forget Roger Kvam.
Roger who?
Kvam was Young’s high school coach, and “the whole reason I wanted to be a coach, and … the most impactful person of my life when I was in high school,” Young said at his introductory news conference.
“I wanted to be like him. He had a great life. He had five kids and he coached basketball and taught P.E. every day, and that seemed pretty cool.”
Young has three children — Jude, Van and Zoey — and has also built a great life in his chosen profession, which has taken him from his hometown of Marietta, Georgia, to a brief stint as a low-level assistant at nearby Utah Valley University to an overseas coaching gig in Ireland to 17 seasons in professional basketball in the United States.
“I was really lucky as a player; I always had really good coaches,” he said.
So that’s when Young decided he wanted to be a coach. When did the thought of being the head coach at BYU cross his mind as a “lifetime member” of the faith that supports and operates BYU, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
That didn’t happen until about five years ago, when BYU was looking to replace Dave Rose — eventually deciding on now-Kentucky coach Mark Pope.
Young was interviewed for the position in 2019 when he was a member of the Philadelphia 76ers coaching staff.
“In terms of ever thinking I could be a coach at BYU, I got connected with Brian and Tom about five years ago through a mutual connection when I was out in Philadelphia, and some seeds were planted in the back of my mind, and I thought maybe someday that is something that will happen,” Young said.
“But never in a million years I thought it would happen on the timeline that it did. I am a firm believer that everything truly does happen for a reason and it is amazing how everything lined up.”
Amazing, indeed, considering that 16 years ago, during the 2005-06 season, Young was an unpaid assistant on Dick Hunsaker’s staff at UVU, thanks to another coach in Georgia that sent him Hunsaker’s way.
After former BYU interim coach Tony Ingle coached Kennesaw State to a Division II national championship in 2004, he asked Hunsaker if the former interim Utah coach and then-current UVU coach had a spot for Young on the bench in Orem.
Hunsaker told Ingle to send the kid out.
Young was a decent enough college player — first at Middle Georgia College and then Clayton State, which just happened to be KSU’s biggest rival.
“We actually played them in the conference championship game the year they won the national championship,” Young said. “I have known Tony and his boys forever. A great guy, a great coach.”
Young said he always wanted to get back out West — he was born in Salt Lake City and has five siblings, who were all present Wednesday in Provo, along with his parents and immediate family — and begin his pursuit of a coaching job.
“Tony reached out to Dick for me all those years ago. It is crazy how all those things came full circle,” he said.
After his televised introduction, Young met with smaller groups of reporters and said the last 72 hours have been “overwhelming, but in a good way.”
He said his off-court temperament is different than his on-court demeanor, and that was evident as he calmly chatted, made a few self-deprecating jokes and told some stories — not as well as Ingle used to tell them, but close.
He figures he’s received six or seven technical fouls in his coaching career, fewer recently than before. For that, he credits his wife, the former Melissa Bailey of Omaha, Nebraska, a then-BYU student whom he met when he was living in on-campus housing at BYU and coaching the Utah Flash of the then-NBA D League (now the G League).
“Honestly, not that many (technicals) because that hit the pocketbook and my wife scolded me for that,” he said. “All jokes aside on that, what really helped me in my temperament, I would say, is just having kids.
“That made me a much more patient person and truly helped me become a much better coach of just dealing with the insanity of kids and what they bring. That has truly helped me kinda deal with a lot of stuff — refs, players and what comes with it.”
Many people who know Young have waxed eloquent the past few days about his personality, coaching ability and what makes him successful in the profession he picked more than a dozen years ago.
What does he think are his greatest attributes?
“It goes back to relationships with the players. That is always where it starts and ends, I think with any coach, but certainly with the way I view the world,” he said. “Where I have been able to make headway there is just how I communicate with the players. What I have learned at the NBA level is that clarity is king.
“Let guys know what you expect and then hold them accountable, and that has been my recipe that has gotten me to be able to forge these relationships that we referenced and I look forward to doing it with these guys.”
As for BYU’s current players, Dallin Hall was in attendance Wednesday, although he is in the transfer portal. Dawson Baker, Trevin Knell, Jared McGregor and Tanner Hayhurst were also there, along with lots of former players and coach Rose.
“Our expectation is to win. We want to win,” Young said. “Specifically, get to the NCAA Tournament and give ourselves a chance to win the national championship.
“That’s why I am here. That’s why the guys want to play, and I have yet to see anything with this program that it can’t achieve that in terms of the resources that we have.”