By: Jon Kingdon, Lamorinda Weekly

MORAGA, Calif. — Going into his 25th season as the head coach of the Saint Mary's Men's Basketball team, it's easy to see how the plaudits keep coming Randy Bennett's way. Since taking over a team that had gone 2-29 in 2000, Saint Mary's has appeared in 11 NCAA tournaments and seven NIT tournaments. After going 9-20 and 15-15 in his first two seasons, Saint Mary's has had a winning record each of the next 22 seasons for a combined record of 562 and 222 with a winning percentage of 71.78 which ranks 48th among all Division 1 coaches in history. 

Bennett's story began in Mesa, Arizona, where his father Tom, an Indiana native, became a legend in the area coaching high school basketball and then becoming the head coach at Mesa C.C. where he finished with nineteen consecutive winning seasons and 442 victories. Combined with the wins from the high school teams he coached, he finished with 771 victories, and has been inducted into numerous Halls of Fame in Indiana and Arizona. 

However, that was not what was most important to Bennett. "My father was a very successful basketball coach, but he was just my dad. We ran a fishing lodge up in Canada every summer from third through eighth grade. We cleaned the cabins and boats together and it was just me working alongside him, learning and not even knowing it was happening, and then you're fifty years old and you wonder how you got to this place as a person. That's why I say that being a dad is the most important job you'll ever have, making your child into what he will ultimately become." 

For Bennett, it really began at Westwood High School in Mesa, playing under Buddy Doolen: "Coach Doolen was one of the best people that I've ever been around, and I was blessed to be able to play for him. The year after I graduated, I coached my high school team in a summer tournament, so I was starting on a coaching track without even knowing it."

Bennett would go on to play for his father for two years at Mesa C.C. "He was a very disciplined, organized coach who worked us hard. He was a teacher all the way and really cared about his players and had lots of success. I got the best of both worlds, playing for a good coach and being around this great dad."

When Bennett began to consider a career in coaching, he raised the issue with his father. "He was very much on the fence, not wanting to push me there because he wanted it to be what I wanted to do. His advice to me was simple: "Do a good job academically and get good grades which will give yourself some options."

After Mesa, Bennett was recruited and went on to play point guard at UC San Diego. When informed that he is still ranked tenth overall at UCSD in averaging 4.2 assists per game, Bennett responded: "They need to get some better players."
In 1985, with a year left in college and having used up his eligibility, Bennett took his first career step, becoming a volunteer coach for Hank Egan at the University of San Diego. Egan was the first of four head coaches that Bennett would work for, all of whom contributed to his ultimate success as a head coach. 

One year later, Bennett became a graduate assistant for two years at the University of Idaho under Tim Floyd. "I learned more in those two years in coaching than in any other year. I really knew little at that point and I learned how to start, run, and build a program and how to run basketball camps. It was the whole deal and I soaked it up."

When Floyd took another job, Bennett went back to San Diego as an assistant coach from 1988 to 1996, under Hank Egan and then Brad Holland. "Everything was focused on winning and making the kids better. That was huge in my formative years and was really critical to me." 
  
Bennett learned more than basketball from Egan. "Integrity," Bennett said. "Hank's word was his word. In this business, you have to decide who you are going to be. He had a huge influence on me, in doing things right and in the way he was with his players. He was a very good coach that knew how to win with lesser players and was one of my big mentors."

After Egan left for the San Antonio Spurs, Brad Holland, who played at UCLA and in the NBA, replaced Egan. "Brad was a really good guy and I was really appreciative that I was able to stay for the next two years. He was very secure about himself and it was a good experience to see how he carried himself. That summed up my first ten years of coaching."

It was also time for Bennett to move on: "I saw that it was going to be hard for me to get the head coaching job there and, for the first time, I had to figure out how to get a job, and it was a professional and life lesson for me."

Bennett became an assistant coach under Lorenzo Romar at Pepperdine where they stayed from 1996 to 1999. "I became friends with Lorenzo when he was an assistant at UCLA and I needed to put myself in a position where I could possibly become a head coach."

Pepperdine proved to be a valuable learning experience for Bennett because Pepperdine was not unlike what Bennett would first see at Saint Mary's. "Pepperdine was a good program that was down at the time but we were able to turn it around in the three years."

Romar then took the head job at Saint Louis University with Bennett as his assistant coach, and in their first year, they won the conference tournament and made it to the NCAA tournament. "Lorenzo is a terrific person and I've been so fortunate to be around really good people all the way."

Bennett was actively looking for a head coaching position when he heard that the Saint Mary's job had opened up. "I threw my name in there and had my first interview with their Athletic Director, Carl Clapp at a Holiday Inn in Minneapolis sitting next to a pool with lots of kids but it went great."

After a second interview at Saint Mary's, Bennett concluded that Saint Mary's was where he really wanted to be and Clapp reached the same conclusion, naming him the head coach in 2001. "It was the visit to the campus that sold me," Bennett said. "I hadn't realized how nice the campus was. At San Diego, I knew what it was like to not have the sexiest facilities and how you could overcome it. All the Saint Mary's people I met were great and the school just suited me. I made it clear to them that I knew what a championship team looked like and somehow it worked out."

Despite a nearly winless season the previous year, Bennett was not intimidated. "I felt we had some of the type of players that we needed to win here – guys that were hard workers, students and just really good people."

Bennett established things quickly. "I wanted to set a foundation laden program for what we were going to stand for and be about. My first meeting with the team was about work ethic, attitude, leadership, and team."

Bennett's first assistants were Kyle Smith, Lamont Smith and Dan Shell, a staff that was crucial for him: "The number one thing, when taking on a head job, is hiring a good staff. The second thing is to get good players. If you get a good staff, you can get good players that have the intangibles we wanted. I asked for the best leadership we could show as coaches and we put in the time and made the sacrifices to make it successful and it's hard to fake that."

Not surprisingly, the confidence level for Bennett's first team was down. "Getting those guys to believe in themselves was one of the toughest things I've had to do as a coach, but we did it and it was fun. They are one of my most special teams because of what we went through together and the growth that they made."

From day one, Bennett hit the ground running. "I knew what I wanted to do defensively and we just evolved the offense. We still tweak it all the time, like in 2009, using the pick and roll, which really changed the offense. We also evolved defensively. I still remember my first win when we defeated Sacramento State and broke a twenty-two-game losing streak, carrying over from the prior season."

Bennett never forgot his roots, carrying over the camaraderie he experienced at Westwood High School. "I've always wanted our players to be able to have those same kinds of relationships, friendships, and experiences in their careers. That's the direction I chose and we've been different from a lot of programs because of that."

Associate Head Coach Mickey McConnell played for Saint Mary's from 2007 to 2011 and then played professionally overseas for nine years. When McConnell took his recruiting visit to Saint Mary's, the familial atmosphere was obvious. "I could feel it on my visit to the school, seeing that everyone was close knit, and seemed to enjoy being around each other and the coaching staff. Once you're here, you get immersed in the program and you get the sense of why this place has been special, not just with the program but with the school as well."

Last season, that feeling was as strong as it ever was in any of Bennett's 24th seasons. "Our three graduating seniors, Augustas Marciulionis, Mitchell Saxen and Luke Barrett, were our first group to make the NCAA tournament in four straight years. I don't know if I'll ever coach a trio of seniors better in terms of leadership, productivity, winning, and toughness. Our goal is always to leave the program in a better place than when you came into it and what these seniors did wasn't easy. We had good players, but I think we won games because of our senior leadership." 

Bennett takes great pride in the number of players that have gone on to play in the NBA and overseas. "It's hard as heck to make the NBA and we have about thirty guys playing overseas and it's a serious adjustment for an American," Bennett said. "We concluded that we had to double down on being responsible, disciplined and mentally tough. We want to make sure they can maximize their career in something they love to do."

When playing overseas, McConnell always fell back on what he took away from Saint Mary's. "The main reason our guys have had such long-term success overseas is due to the intangible things we got hammered with every day. Having those habits ingrained in me carried me more than anything. It enabled me to adapt to situations and helped my teams win."

Bennett also cites players like Anthony Woodards (2001-2003) who was named the WCC Defensive Player of the Year as a senior and did not consider playing pro basketball. "Anthony came to us out of Richmond and now he's the Battalion Chief for the Richmond Fire Department. He was the first guy I took in at Saint Mary's and he learned the discipline we had and never had a problem with working hard. He took the education he got from Saint Mary's into the real world and has had great success. I'm as proud of Anthony as I am of any of our players."

Four of the five assistant coaches on Bennett's current staff played for him and E.J. Rowland played 19 years overseas, McConnell nine years and Joe Rahon three years. With each having played under so many different systems, they've all been free to make suggestions to Bennett. "We all played under a variety of systems and coaches and have brought up ideas that we felt would work for different players and the team," McConnell said.

Bennett has always been amenable to their suggestions. "E.J., Mickey and Joe were all point guards and that is a big part of our offense. They will bring me plays they've run, ways to defend things and new ideas, particularly on offense. They've brought me some of our best plays and sets."

With the Saint Mary's basketball program, the more things change, the more they stay the same: "Randy's got the core foundation of how the offense is run but if you watch us each year, it's always a little different depending on the players we have," McConnell said. "Randy's ability to adapt the team to our players' strengths is a key reason he has been able to have so much sustained success." 

21 consecutive winning seasons, NCAA and NIT tournament appearances and often being on national TV, the ancillary benefits have come along as well. "We 're an example of how you do it, a little piece at a time over the years. The renovation of Madigan Gym enabled us to turn it into a practice facility so we would no longer have to practice some days from 6:30 to 9:00 in the evening. Now we can have access to those facilities twenty-four hours a day. That was a huge deal, along with getting a new weight room among other things. The success of our teams has helped make all that possible."

The support Bennett receives at home from his wife Darlene is also a major factor in his overall success. "Being a coach's wife is not an easy thing and I don't know what Darlene was thinking," Bennett said. "I could not have gotten here without all the things that she does behind the scenes. What she has given me has been unbelievable, just to make it work for our family with the sacrifices she has had to make. Our two sons are currently playing in college; Chase is at Linfield College and Cade is playing for me."

With so much time shared with Bennett, McConnell succinctly sums it up. "The one thing that stands out is how much Randy cares about Saint Mary's basketball, going on twenty-five years when most coaches in his situation would have bounced a long time ago. It's his dedication in making the program the best it could possibly be with every decision he makes. That's why it's easy for us to go to battle for someone like that."