Eager to coach and teach, NBA’s Dunleavy joins TU

Carol J. Schlueter cjs@tulane.edu
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Tulane University President Mike Fitts smiled broadly as he stepped up to the microphone on the Green Wave basketball court on Tuesday morning (March 29). “We’ve had our own March Madness, with speculation about who would be our next head coach,” Fitts said, “and we think we won the national championship with this selection.”

Cheering Green Wave fans and members of the Tulane community welcomed Mike Dunleavy Sr. as the new head men’s basketball coach in the venue where he will lead his team, Avron B. Fogelman Arena in Devlin Fieldhouse.

It will be Dunleavy’s first job in collegiate coaching, but he has more than 30 years of wide-ranging experience in the NBA, first as a player and then as head coach for several teams. The NBA Coach of the Year in 1999, Dunleavy has three sons with NBA ties; Mike Jr. plays for the Chicago Bulls, James is an NBA player agent and Baker will be at the Men’s Final Four this weekend as the associate coach at Villanova University.

“There’s no reason you can’t win in a big way here. I’m totally a believer.”

Mike Dunleavy Sr.

Praised by athletics director Troy Dannen as “one of the great basketball minds” and someone who “will never be outcoached,” Dunleavy said the Tulane coaching job had everything he was looking for, including a great fan base, location in a “pro city,” and a promising regional recruiting network.

“I was looking to the college level in order to put myself in position to coach again, and really, to be a teacher,” said Dunleavy. “I look for the opportunity to bring young guys in and guide them.”

Calling himself “a gym rat” and admitting that he “doesn’t take losing well,” he said he has led both good teams and teams in rebuilding situations, but “they’ve always turned out a lot better than when I started. I’m not afraid to take on a challenge.”

Top items on his Tulane agenda are to fill positions on his coaching staff, to evaluate the student-athletes on his team and to start recruiting.

“I think I know talent and that gives me an edge,” Dunleavy said.