One Seat Over Is a Better Position

Oh, yeah, March Madness all right.

That’s the only way to describe it when you have to close out on all those prospects you’ve been recruiting all season, while keeping an eye on the job listings and--oh, yeah--preparing for that little thing called the NCAA tournament.

This is crunch time for college basketball assistant coaches, when their duties and their dreams fight for attention. And even if everything breaks right and their team cuts down nets at the end of the month, the bulk of the credit goes elsewhere.

For an assistant coach like UCLA’s Michael Holton, the only hope is that someone notices the man sitting next to the man on the bench.

“I really believe that the best way to move up in this business is to do a good job at the job that you have,” Holton said. “A lot of assistant coaches spend more time trying to get a job than on the job that they have. I would much rather be helping Steve Lavin try to get this team to the mountaintop than to position myself.”

It’s the tournament within the tournament, and sometimes there are multiple winners. Head coaches try to use successful runs to land more prestigious jobs. Assistant coaches hope to fill spots created by coaches whose teams didn’t meet expectations.

Now Holton hopes that if the right opening comes about, he would be considered.

“For some reason, during the course of this season, there’s been a couple of times when I felt ready,” Holton said. “A couple times I had to run practice, certainly the time when Coach Lavin was ejected in Washington, and I had to step in. It got my mind going about, ‘Wow, this is what it is like.’

“While I feel ready, I don’t feel a sense of urgency, like I need to go, like this is my window of opportunity.”

If you want to see urgency, check the lobby of the coaches’ hotel at the Final Four. It’s filled with guys in sweatsuits straining to get the attention of head coaches and athletic directors in those precious moments when they make their way from the elevator to the door. That scent in the air isn’t cheap cologne, it’s desperation.

“I guess I’ve made the all-lobby team a few times myself,” Holton said. “But jobs aren’t changing hands in the lobby of a hotel. It’s good to talk and network with other coaches in a concentrated environment like that, but the bottom line is long-term relationships.

“It’s important to spend time with other coaches, for a lot of reasons. What I have found over the years is it’s important to find slightly more meaningful ways to do that.”

So last summer he flew to St. Louis to be at a high school clinic where Kentucky Coach Tubby Smith, Wake Forest Coach Dave Odom and former North Carolina coach Dean Smith were speaking.

“Those are people who I want to hear what they have to say,” Holton said. “That was very meaningful to me. Then, when I drop them a note or give them a call, they have been very appreciative. It made a statement to them about how much I care about winning.”

As an assistant coach, it’s hard to generate any type of win-loss record. But as UCLA’s recruiting coordinator, he has won in the category in which he can be judged: recruits. He helped the Bruins land such sought-after prospects as Baron Davis, Earl Watson and JaRon Rush.

Of course it’s tough to sit in someone’s living room and entice them to a place you might be leaving. Recruits have every right to ask, “Will you be around when I get there?”

“At UCLA, that question is not asked,” said Holton, who also was an assistant at Oregon State and Portland. “Everywhere else I’ve been, that question has been asked.

“When kids come to UCLA--as much as I’d like to think [otherwise]--they really don’t come because of the relationship with an assistant coach. The UCLA experience is so great, to be honest with you, it’s bigger than a coach.”

In all likelihood, life as an assistant at UCLA is better than life as a head coach at his next stop. Very few people get to start at the top in their first head coaching job. If Jim Harrick hadn’t falsified an expense report and gotten himself fired, it’s doubtful Lavin would have started here himself.

But Lavin made the most of his opportunity, took his team to the brink of the Final Four and earned himself a long-term contract in the process.

Holton was around for that, just as he worked under first-year coaches at Portland and Oregon State. It’s one reason he feels well-versed in what he calls “the dynamics of transition.”

“Whenever an assistant coach becomes a head coach, there’s going to be a growth curve,” Holton said. “For me to sit next to Steve Lavin and to be assistants together, to see him move over, for him to allow me to see him move up, to watch the transition and exposure to what that’s all about, gives me a fresh perspective.”

Holton feels ready to give it a shot himself. San Diego State has a vacancy, one that has caught the eye of several big names, including Utah’s Rick Majerus. But Holton’s name could come up if the Aztecs move down the list.

In the meantime, duty calls. So he was off to Chicago at 6:30 Tuesday morning to check on a recruit. Two more games left, against Arizona State and Arizona, and it’s time for the NCAA tournament.

Holton will be occupied. That doesn’t mean he isn’t available.

“One of the benefits of being in a high-visibility program,” Holton said. “When somebody feels you’re the right fit for their program, you’re not hard to find.”

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected]

TONIGHT

UCLA at Arizona State

5:30

(FSW2, 10 p.m.)