Spartans welcome new basketball coach

In a meeting that lasted nearly an hour on Friday night, Union High School introduced its new boys’ basketball coach to the team, parents and coaching staff. Randy Jordan, a seasoned basketball coach with time spent all over the country and state, met with his new program in the auditorium of the school.

“I can’t promise that state championships will be as far as we go,” Jordan said, as part of his introduction to the awaiting Spartans. “It’s not me who decides all that. That’s not on me. That’s you. How bad do you want to be better? How bad do you want to get good?”

His meeting, which touched on myriad topics, was one riddled with metaphors and stories from throughout his decades of coaching experience, but one theme remained true throughout: he has standards, and his players will abide by them.

While the new coach admitted later in his meeting that when he started coaching — which, in a whisper, he told the team was 40 years ago — that long hair “wouldn’t fly” with him, and he would make his players cut it, but he followed it up by saying that he has softened up and allowed it now.

The Spartans’ new coach originally planned on starting his introductory meeting with the players with a joke, which everyone in attendance later learned was about the heated rivalry of Duke versus UNC, but his emphasis to the team was college basketball — not the NBA.

In an interview after the meeting, he explained why he sends out a schedule every Saturday for college basketball while shying away from the highest level of the sport. “They can’t physically do what the NBA does,” he said. “Those are full-grown men. Their guards are 6-7. We don’t have that. So we’ve got to be able to work on skills and fundamental basketball and then expand it from there.

“They can do the things that college players do — maybe not above the rim, but they can have those skills,” he continued. “So, the more they watch college basketball and see the things that we’re doing, they can see it in that game. They can translate it back to us.”

Hailing from upstate New York, Jordan worked at Syracuse basketball’s camp under legendary coach Jim Boeheim for 15 years, where they would “stay up until 1, 2 in the morning learning the zone.” Syracuse was one example of a fundamental basketball program that he used for his student-athletes, saying, “Nobody runs the zone better than Syracuse.” Others included Carolina, who he said runs the best break in the country, and Duke, who “does the best pace-and-space.”

The emphatic new coach, a self-admitted long-winded person, shared his plans with the team as he stood in front of the stage. With those plans, though, comes his rigid — but fair — program. Things he highlighted for the Spartans included matching shoes, white socks only, matching apparel for both home and away games, and his aptitude for discipline, both on and off the court.

One thing the former Anson head coach mentioned, which grabbed nearly everyone’s attention, was the game against a traveling high school team from Australia to play this winter.

“I can say this, right?” he asked of Union’s athletic director, Tim Pope. “I just got the approval today. How do you feel about playing a team from Australia?” he directed towards the now-attentive Spartans. “We’re gonna bring in a team from Australia to play varsity and JV. I’ve done it for the last three, four years. They’ll come over, we’ll play on a Saturday afternoon. We’ll exchange some gifts with them before the game, we’ll have a meal with them right here in the cafeteria, a nice time with some fellowship. Get to meet some people from a different country, right? Play some international basketball.”

Alongside that, the new regime has also locked in dates for a Christmas tournament to be held at Union this year, a Christmas dinner for the team will be planned, and another surprise from the Spartans’ new leader: Christmas carols.

Jordan said he is looking to get approval to have a shootaround on a Saturday morning in December, and following, he wants the team to go to a couple of local retirement homes and sing Christmas carols — badly. “We’re gonna spread some Christmas cheer,” he said.

Another change for the Spartan basketball players is a sign-in roster every morning outside of Jordan’s classroom. He said he will have this posted outside of room 233 — the home of his environmental sciences class — where his student-athletes will have to come every morning before first block to sign in and check up with their new coach to make sure everything is going OK in their lives.

With parents in attendance, Jordan also covered other topics like an athlete working during the summer and allowing his schedule to work around that, and how he will communicate with both his team and the parents. One parent asked what he needed from the parents, and one of his biggest talking points was an oft-overlooked aspect of high school athletics: meals.

“There are some long days for our boys,” he said, stressing the importance of feeding them before and after games. “I’m going to ask the parents to sign up in pairs to get these boys fed.”

Having coached high school and college basketball in New York, Ohio and now North Carolina, Jordan has spent some time in Sampson County, especially when his wife worked at the neighboring University of Mount Olive, and he attributed some of his principles and values as a coach to none other than Clinton’s Brad Spell.

“I’m going to steal the line from a coach I respect a lot, and think he’s done a great job — Brad Spell,” he said. “Brad had a saying, and I have since used it, and I’m going to continue to use it. You play to a standard, not a score. That’s what we’re trying to instill in these young men over here.”