“Are you gonna wear those?”
Eric Musselman stares down at a pair of beat-up, brown boat sneakers together with his eyebrows raised. His smirk suggests I’ve chosen the incorrect footwear for my first journey on the Muss Buss.
We’re standing in an auxiliary exercise room at Galen Middle a couple of minutes after USC wrapped morning apply in late July. And Musselman, just a few months wanting 60, appears ready to run a half-marathon.
His first three months as USC’s males’s basketball coach have been a full-on dash, with a brand new workers to rent, a roster to rebuild and a hoops program to reinvigorate — to not point out roots to set down within the South Bay. However for Musselman, stamina has by no means been a query. He’s a exercise fiend, identical to his father, Invoice, was earlier than him. Day-after-day, he walks or jogs or runs upwards of 10 miles, regardless of the place the job takes him or how packed his day is. And he’s by no means simply strolling or jogging or working. He’s at all times multitasking, sending reminder texts or listening to podcasts or highlighting passages from articles he’s compiled and printed.
USC males’s basketball coach Eric Musselman walks on a treadmill at Galen Middle on July 31.
(Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Occasions)
The plan was for The Occasions to affix Musselman throughout his most popular beachside stroll alongside the Strand, just a few blocks from the place he lives. However apply was moved to the morning, which meant shifting his required steps to a treadmill.
A treadmill appears like an ironic place to satisfy Musselman, somebody who at all times appears to be transferring in direction of one thing. To Muss — which is how his household refers to him — standing nonetheless isn’t acceptable. He’s consistently in search of solutions to new questions that stretch past the bounds of his day job. Working with Muss means consenting to greater than the conventional share of 5 a.m. textual content messages.
“If I wasn’t there to put a stop to it, he’d be texting people every night until he fell asleep,” his spouse, Danyelle, says. She laughs. “Most people are not wired to that level.”
However if you happen to’re part of his program, you’re anticipated to maintain tempo.
“We gotta keep the coffee running, for sure,” stated Anthony Ruta, a longtime assistant. “It’s six, seven, eight cups to keep up.”
Muss, in the meantime, has no use for caffeine. Managing each element of his hoops program retains him a lot stimulated. And relaxation assured, he has ideas on each element. Advertising. Social media technique. Scholar part morale. Michael Musselman, the pinnacle coach’s son and assistant, has discovered crude drawings of crew T-shirt designs left on his desk greater than as soon as.
Sooner or later, at Arkansas, Muss burst into his son’s workplace questioning if they might conceive and develop a online game for the crew in his spare time.
“I can barely play video games, let alone develop one,” Michael says now. “It might sound crazy. But that — isn’t that what makes great coaches great?”
Since he got here to the school sport a decade in the past, Muss has gained 236 video games — posting a 69.1% profession win share that nestles him proper between Tom Izzo (70.9%) and Mick Cronin (68.3%) amongst energetic Huge Ten coaches. 4 of his six journeys to the NCAA match have lasted till the second weekend. On the peak of his success at Arkansas, he led a long-suffering Razorback hoops program on consecutive journeys to the Elite Eight.
He’s been simply as profitable in promoting applications to the general public. At Nevada and Arkansas, attendance and season-ticket gross sales soared after his arrival.
USC males’s basketball coach Eric Musselman, middle, poses together with his household: mom Kris, son Michael, spouse Danyelle and daughter Mariah. They’re joined for a photograph with USC mascot Traveler earlier than Eric Musselman’s introductory information convention on April 5.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Occasions)
“Every place he’s coached,” says Todd Lee, his longtime assistant, “they fill the arena. He always has ideas for making it happen.”
With that in thoughts, you’ll be able to see the case for bringing Muss to L.A., the place USC hoops struggled to translate some deep match runs into fan enthusiasm and championships beneath earlier coach Andy Enfield. In hiring Muss final April, USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen handed this system to a coach on the alternative finish of the spectrum from Enfield, who by no means appeared comfy commanding consideration in a crowded hoops scene.
Musselman is extra the kind to tear his shirt off after an enormous win. He’s shirtless greater than most main faculty basketball coaches, a undeniable fact that he says he’d in all probability change about himself if he may. However that depth has one other, uglier aspect. In 2022, in keeping with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Musselman acquired right into a confrontation after a win on the Maui Invitational throughout which he cursed at a bunch of opposing followers. He’s no stranger to being held again from confronting referees both.
That degree of ardour won’t be for everybody however for Muss, it’s rooted deep in his DNA. His father, Invoice, who had an extended, profitable profession teaching hoops, was recognized for the same fervor. A e-book written about him was entitled “Obsession”, and he as soon as famously stated that defeat was worse than loss of life “because you have to live with defeat.”
Cavaliers president Ted J. Stepien introduces new head coach Invoice Musselman throughout a information convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 13, 1980. Musselman changed Stan Albeck, who was launched from his Cleveland contract to change into head coach of the Spurs.
(Uncredited / Related Press)
Ask anybody who has hung out in his orbit — gamers, workers, even speedy household — and they’ll let you know that Muss, like his father earlier than him, calls for a terrific deal from these round him.
“The expectations are always super high with him,” says Gus Argenal, who labored with Musselman at Arkansas and now coaches at Cal State San Bernardino. “Everybody is operating in that world where every day is kind of the Super Bowl, right?”
To many who’ve performed with him or coached alongside him, that’s exactly what makes Musselman particular. Others really feel colder and fuzzy about it. Whispers about Musselman being onerous to work with have adopted him since his NBA days.
“It’s not always easy to work for people who push you to do more, accomplish more, be more than you’ve ever done in the past,” Michael explains. “That’s not a comfortable feeling. But we don’t want it to be comfortable.”
That drive guided him again to the sport after flaming out as a younger coach within the NBA. And at USC, it’s the Trojans’ finest hope of jump-starting a program that has by no means fairly caught hearth.
“Year 1 is always the hardest,” Muss says. “I don’t know when it will be. But my vision is that this building will be sold out.”
Again at Galen Middle, months earlier than the season begins, his treadmill roars to life, and I notice I’ve no different alternative however to step onto the machine subsequent to Musselman.
Throughout the subsequent hour, as he lays out how he made it to USC, Muss talks mid-jog, by no means as soon as slowing all the way down to catch his breath. In the meantime, strolling alongside him — and failing to maintain up — I’ve sweat utterly by way of my polo shirt. The only of my left boat shoe comes free.
This can be a small pattern of life on the Muss Bus.
By late February, it feels just like the wheels are falling off at USC.
Musselman sits behind a microphone, pissed off after a fourth straight defeat — this one doomed, the coach says, by “the worst defense I’ve ever had a team play in my college tenure.” He spent a lot of the loss to Ohio State screaming on the refs or throwing his fingers up in exasperation.
It has been that type of season for USC and its coach. Accidents struck early. The Huge Ten schedule wore them down late. There have been moments, sprinkled all through, when it appeared USC discovered one thing. However then main scorer Desmond Claude harm his knee. Two shut losses, to Minnesota and Northwestern, let any remaining air out of the Trojans’ tires.
“I told you guys a long time ago about our team,” Musselman stated from the rostrum. “We have to play near-flawless to win basketball games.”
USC males’s basketball coach Eric Musselman shouts throughout a loss to UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Occasions)
It’s true — Musselman was trustworthy about his crew’s shortcomings from the beginning. And now most all the things he warned of in July had flared up by February. The unsure frontcourt. The dearth of rim safety. The dearth of level guards. Tonight, he’ll lament their lack of lateral foot velocity.
What he didn’t anticipate was the toll that Huge Ten highway journey would actual on his crew. A pair days earlier, their flight from New Jersey didn’t arrive again in L.A. till 5 a.m. It felt, to Musselman, like an NBA schedule. Besides, his gamers needed to be again at class by 9 that morning.
Two days later, they’re nonetheless exhausted. “I feel terrible today,” stated Wesley Yates, the Trojans’ breakout guard. The coach appears simply as worn down. It’s been an extended few weeks.
He hoped to be additional alongside than this by now.
“We’re building,” he assures from the rostrum. However on an evening like this, it’s onerous to really feel that manner.
“We’re not where we want to be right now,” Musselman stated. “We’re not where we’ve been in the past.”
Flying excessive above Mount Rushmore on a helicopter tour in 1988, Pat Corridor was attempting his finest to woo the 23-year previous he hoped would take the helm of his South Dakota semi-pro crew, the Speedy Metropolis Thrillers.
Eric Musselman had hoped to affix his father’s workers with the Minnesota Timberwolves. However Invoice Musselman wouldn’t rent his son earlier than he blazed his personal path, and his mom advised he strive something however teaching. Which is how he ended up within the plains of South Dakota, laying out for Corridor a step-by-step plan to take his Continental Basketball Assn. crew to the highest.
Corridor, who had labored earlier than with Musselman’s father, was blown away by the presentation, which included plans not solely to revamp the roster, but additionally to inject power into the entire operation, from advertising and media to in-game leisure.
“This kid was incredibly organized at 23,” Corridor stated. “And his energy level was so high. It felt like he must stay up 24 hours a day. So I hired him.”
In Speedy Metropolis, Musselman realized methods to handle each side of a basketball operation. He turned a shedding roster straight away into top-of-the-line within the CBA. Then, to save lots of the crew cash, he took on teaching duties, too. He was the youngest in league historical past when he was employed in 1989.
Simply as shortly, Muss managed to show the Thrillers right into a must-see spectacle. That’s what nonetheless sticks with Corridor most 40 years later. He was pretty much as good at capturing consideration as conceptualizing a roster. Possibly higher.
“He was just like a bolt of lightning,” stated Corridor, who nonetheless works in actual property in South Dakota. “There was electricity wherever Eric Musselman went.”
“People were literally scalping for Thrillers tickets,” he says.
Sacramento Kings coach Eric Musselman talks to Ron Artest throughout a sport towards the Golden State Warriors in 2006.
(MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ / Related Press)
A number of of his promotions made headlines. As soon as, Corridor acquired a name from NBA commissioner David Stern, whom, he says, was “hotter than a pistol.” Phrase of Michael Jordan’s playing habits have been circulating, so Musselman put collectively a “BE LIKE MIKE” promotion: The crew would give away season tickets to followers who have been nonetheless playing on the native on line casino at 1:30 a.m.
The league wasn’t blissful. Neither was Jordan’s agent. “He called and said the only thing that was going to be left of me when he was done was a pair of cowboy boots,” Corridor remembers.
Corridor ran to Musselman’s workplace. The coach began laughing.
“I guess we got the publicity we wanted,” Musselman informed him.
Musselman left the CBA with the second-highest profitable share in league historical past. However the objective had at all times been to make it to the NBA. He coached briefly on his father’s workers in Minnesota, just for the Timberwolves to scrub home quickly after. Invoice Musselman spent the remainder of his life longing to be an NBA head coach once more, whereas his son chased the identical dream, bouncing between Speedy Metropolis and one other semi-pro league earlier than Chuck Daly employed him to affix his Orlando Magic workers in 1998.
Invoice died from coronary heart and kidney failure in 2000, two years earlier than his son acquired the possibility each of them have been ready for.
Musselman was solely 37 when he was employed to teach the hapless Golden State Warriors. It wasn’t like turning round Speedy Metropolis. However he nonetheless managed to steer the Warriors to 39 wins in his first season, their finest file in a decade. He even completed second in NBA Coach of the 12 months voting, behind Corridor of Fame coach Gregg Popovich.
However the scenario went sideways in 12 months 2. Gamers clashed with him over taking part in time. Then, the scenario with higher administration soured. “Chris Mullin was being groomed to take over [as general manager],” Musselman says now. And Mullin, the just lately retired franchise star, had a special imaginative and prescient.
“In the NBA, if you talk and act a certain way, you won’t last a season,” Musselman says. “You want to push and get the most out of your guys and their potential. But there’s a delivery and a way that has to be of a certain temperament.”
Kings coach Eric Musselman leans his head towards his hand within the closing moments of the crew’s season-ending loss to the Lakers on April 18, 2007.
(Wealthy Pedroncelli / Related Press)
He figured that when he acquired one other alternative as a head coach, the circumstances could be simpler to navigate.
As an alternative his one season in Sacramento, in 2006, proved to be essentially the most hectic of his teaching life. A number of Kings gamers nonetheless needed to play for the earlier coach, Rick Adelman, whereas the final supervisor, Geoff Petrie, didn’t agree with possession’s choice to rent Musselman. Then, within the preseason, Musselman was arrested for DUI. All of the whereas, Musselman was navigating a divorce, driving forwards and backwards in visitors to see his youngsters, who have been dwelling with their mom within the Bay Space.
For the primary time in his profession, he felt worn down. All he ever needed was to be an NBA coach, however when the Kings fired him, after a 33-49 season, he was sure he wanted to step away.
So at 42, for the primary time in his life, he set basketball apart. He targeted on spending time together with his two sons, Michael and Matthew, as a substitute. He married Danyelle, and collectively, they’d a daughter.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t keep away. He discovered his repair within the type of his son’s AAU crew. He informed Michael that he’d solely coach the crew till they misplaced a sport … not anticipating that they’d win 59 straight.
“By the end, he was working every night, trying to recruit the state’s best talent to his team,” Danyelle says.
He was so caught up within the competitors by that time that it took one other mother or father pointing it out to note his son was not cracking his personal rotation. It was an eye-opening second; he by no means coached one other AAU sport after that.
He was sitting within the carpool lane at Michael’s college, when he says it hit him like an epiphany. He got here dwelling and informed Danyelle it was time to get again to teaching.
Musselman wasn’t certain then the place that intuition would lead him. At one level, he and Danyelle even discovered themselves considering a brand new life in Russia.
They flew to St. Petersburg in 2009 for an interview with BC Spartak, knowledgeable crew within the Russian Tremendous League. It had been nearly three years since he final coached. Once they provided him the job, he critically thought-about it.
Then, on their final day in Russia, they tried to exit to dinner. The evening was a catastrophe. They couldn’t talk their order on the restaurant. They may barely get round in a cab. Danyelle, who was pregnant on the time, frightened about what which may imply in a very new world. We are able to’t do that, they determined.
He wasn’t certain the place to show subsequent. Was the NBA even an actual possibility? Current historical past wasn’t precisely encouraging.
“I researched how many coaches got third opportunities,” Musselman stated. “It’s not many.”
He took the job in 2011 as head coach of the Reno Bighorns within the NBA’s D-League, hoping it may be sufficient simply to be adjoining to the NBA. And when the Lakers referred to as the subsequent season, asking him to teach their affiliate, the D-Fenders, he questioned if he was getting nearer. The D-Fenders set a league file for wins, Musselman was named coach of the 12 months and nonetheless no NBA groups got here calling.
Faculty basketball had by no means actually been on his radar, whilst mates tried for years to persuade him he’d be a pure. He’d spent his life laser-focused on the NBA. However the universe was telling him to pivot. He listened.
He took an assistant job at Arizona State in 2012 and moved right into a furnished place in Tempe, with solely his garments in tow. He anticipated to land a head job straight away.
“I’m thinking, I’m a two-time NBA head coach, let me get some experience recruiting, and some AD will hire me,” Musselman stated. “Never happened.”
Nevada coach Eric Musselman speaks together with his gamers throughout a sport towards Tulsa on Nov. 22, 2018 in Las Vegas.
(John Locher / Related Press)
His resume wasn’t convincing any athletic administrators. He couldn’t perceive why. Neither may Corridor, who tried pleading with the AD at South Dakota, a faculty with zero NCAA match appearances, to contemplate him.
“He carried this cloud with him,” Corridor says. “People were looking for reasons not to hire him.”
One athletic director, Musselman remembers, fell asleep throughout his interview. However a minimum of that college gave him an interview. Minnesota as soon as canceled his airplane ticket the day of his flight. When San Jose State had a emptiness in 2013, he provided to drive over and wait outdoors of the AD’s workplace. They informed him to not hassle. That very same spring, he was so determined that he wrote a letter to the athletic director at Campbell, inquiring concerning the Camels’ open job. He by no means acquired a response.
It was, Musselman admits, “a super humbling time for me.”
“The lack of respect was just mind-boggling,” he stated.
After two seasons at Arizona State, he moved again to the Bay Space, not sure of the place his profession was headed. Then, an previous good friend referred to as. Flip Saunders, who performed for his dad and labored for him in Speedy Metropolis, needed Musselman to affix him on the Timberwolves workers. Louisiana State , in the meantime, needed him as its prime assistant, working intently with future No. 1 decide Ben Simmons.
It was a tough choice. Right here was an opportunity, possibly his final, to return to the NBA ranks. However Musselman selected the school route, hoping a head job would observe shut behind. This time he was proper.
He returned to Reno a 12 months later as head coach at Nevada. He’d spent his complete teaching profession bouncing round, by no means staying in a single place too lengthy. However now the timing felt good. His youngest son, Matthew, was simply beginning highschool within the Bay Space.
“Within a year and a half at Nevada, the building was being sold out,” Ruta stated.
The one faculty job he’d at all times needed, at his alma mater San Diego, got here open round that very same time. However he selected to remain in Reno. He’d find yourself staying 4 years, longer than any of his earlier stops. His son joined the workers, and Nevada made the match in three straight seasons. Alongside the best way, he says, he turned down different larger applications to remain.
“I think about it all the time,” Musselman says now, “What would have happened if I stayed married to my career for those eight years?”
His last season in Reno, one in all his star gamers, Cody Martin, mused about Musselman changing into an NBA coach once more. He discovered himself questioning increasingly about it. He nonetheless had a chip on his shoulder, from over a decade earlier.
“I didn’t prove what I wanted to prove in the NBA,” Musselman stated, “and I thought then if somebody gave me a chance, I’d be so humbled by it, so motivated.”
Arkansas coach Eric Musselman celebrates with followers after a second-round NCAA match sport March 18, 2023.
(Charlie Neibergall / Related Press)
However the name by no means got here. He left for Arkansas, the place the basketball program had languished for years since profitable a nationwide championship in 1994, and in 12 months 2, Musselman took the Razorbacks to the Elite Eight. As soon as once more, ticket gross sales soared. When his final season at Arkansas went awry, it felt like an indication. So he canvassed the accessible jobs final spring.
“I talked to Louisville, talked to DePaul,” Musselman stated. “But the minute [USC] came open, if they had interest, we were taking it.”
It felt, to all the household, like an ideal match. His mom was already dwelling in Southern California. His daughter, Mariah, was about to start out highschool. “We didn’t care about years, money,” he says. “We wanted that job.”
It was additionally one other program in determined want of a spark, struggling to maintain curiosity. The circumstances felt acquainted.
The method moved shortly. Cohen, USC’s athletic director, even made a degree to contain Danyelle within the course of.
“Within a week, they were at our house picking us up,” Danyelle says.
So far as she is anxious, it’s the final time that they’ll be transferring. Their daughter, Mariah, began her freshman 12 months at Mira Costa Excessive within the fall. They haven’t any intention of switching her faculties throughout the subsequent 4 years.
Although, Danyelle takes it one step additional: “I told [Muss], ‘This is it!’” she says. She purchased new furnishings for the home, simply to hammer the purpose dwelling.
Eric Musselman and USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen maintain up his jersey throughout Musselman’s introductory information convention on April 5.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Occasions)
“The stuff she’s doing to the house, I’ll ask her, ‘Why’d you get that?’” Musselman stated. “And she’ll say, ‘Well, because we’re not going anywhere.’”
Musselman doesn’t appear to thoughts that concept. His assistants insist, too, that he suits effectively in L.A. He loves waking as much as stroll the Strand. Loves the town’s professional sports activities scene. Loves the USC model. Contemplate then that the world is overflowing with younger expertise. You may see how somebody would possibly settle in. Michael, his son, calls it “a dream job.”
What a dream job means for Musselman has modified significantly since he began teaching, craving to make it to the NBA. However he’s not chasing the league anymore. His final NBA job in Sacramento was nearly 20 years in the past. And he has been on this treadmill lengthy sufficient now to understand how helpful it’s to search out the appropriate job.
It’s a wet evening in Los Angeles, the final at Galen Middle this season. The Trojans are limping into March, losers in seven of their final eight video games. A month in the past, they stood firmly on the NCAA match bubble. Now they have been tiptoeing alongside the cutline for the convention match.
This, for sure, isn’t the place Musselman meant his crew to be by the top of his first season. All Wednesday evening, he appeared to put on that frustration. At the same time as USC rolled to a much-needed 31-point win over Washington, saving its season for a minimum of just a few extra nights, Musselman paced the sideline together with his arms crossed and his forehead furrowed, trying unhappy. With 45 seconds left and USC up by 30, he shouted at a walk-on for taking an ill-advised, step-back three-pointer.
USC coach Eric Musselman reacts within the closing moments of the Trojans’ 68-60 loss to Oregon on the Galen Middle on Dec. 4.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Occasions)
Requested about his temper later, Musselman stated: “I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Pretty evident.”
“The people I’ve worked for and worked around “you try to coach for perfection every possession.”
That notion has pushed Eric Musselman all his teaching life, simply because it drove his father earlier than him. Nothing has come simple at USC up to now. Nevertheless it didn’t at different stops, both. He has constructed applications with far much less at his fingertips.
“I’ve been through it,” Musselman stated. “You can’t let the team see you flinch.”
However there’s no mistaking Musselman’s frustration on the hand he’s been dealt this season. He can’t assist however marvel aloud what might need been totally different if Claude hadn’t gotten harm. Or Terrance Williams. Or Matt Knowling. What if their journey schedule was extra environment friendly? He says he doesn’t need to make excuses.
However because the season enters its last stretch, he laments not doing sufficient to energise USC followers. Fewer than 6,000 have been within the stands Wednesday evening.
“I don’t know if there was much progress,” Musselman stated. “There will be next year.”
USC coach Eric Musselman poses for a portrait on the Galen Middle on July 31.
(Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Occasions)
A top-10 recruit, Alijah Arenas, will be a part of USC then, giving Musselman a star to construct round. Rising star Yates stated final week that he’s “locked in” with Musselman, whereas Claude may additionally return.
“There will be a lot of effort put in by all of us,” the coach guarantees. “We want to grow next year.”
Constructing a program, he is aware of, takes time. However within the coming months, Musselman will certainly dash out in entrance, setting the tempo like he at all times has, not a doubt in his thoughts that he’ll have USC buzzing quickly sufficient.
Standing nonetheless, for Eric Musselman, isn’t an possibility. And at USC, there’s nonetheless lots of floor to cowl.
