The Texas men’s basketball team is gathered at Ruth’s Chris Steak House here in Knoxville, in a private room distinguished by the two-word sign outside: “Hook ’em.” Tomorrow the Longhorns will play Tennessee in a top-10 showdown. Tonight, following a practice at Thompson-Boling Arena, the team has circled up with arms over shoulders for a pre-dinner prayer before digging into filets and New York strips.
Between bites, happy chatter fills the room. Everyone has deposited their cellphones in a bucket emblazoned with the word “culture,” eliminating electronic distraction in order to maximize team communication. They’ll pick up the phones again when the meal is over.
At a table in the back corner of the room, interim coach Rodney Terry pulls up the left sleeve of his black quarter zip to show a visitor the Rolex on his wrist. Terry had given it to someone as a gift several years ago, and it had come back to him recently. He wears it in honor of a coach who isn’t there. “Every game I’m going to coach for the rest of my career, I’m going to wear this watch,” Terry says. “So he’s with me every game.”
Chris Beard? No. This is far more personal, and cuts far deeper, than his relationship with the boss he succeeded as coach of the Longhorns amid sudden and shocking circumstances seven weeks earlier.
Calvin “Hucky Man” Phillips, Terry’s father, is the coach he is honoring. Phillips spent 42 years working with high school football and basketball players in Texas, coaching until bone cancer forced him to the sidelines last year. After suffering cardiac arrest, he died in August at age 77.
“He was pretty firm,” Terry says, with a laugh that often punctuates the end of his sentences. “Pretty old school. Well respected by his players and peers. We had a memorial service and were just blown away with what people thought of my dad. It was incredible.”
The last time Phillips watched his son coach was a year ago, when Texas hosted Tennessee in the Big 12/SEC Challenge. The Longhorns won by a point in the kind of sweaty-palms battle that Phillips rarely could stand to watch.
“If the game was really close, he would be up somewhere on the concourse,” Terry says. “He could never stay until the end of the game. He would ask, ‘Did we win?’ He was more nervous than we were.”
Beard left an imprint on this team that remains visible in much of what they do. But Hucky Man Phillips left an imprint on his son’s soul that is a stronger guiding principle in this most unusual basketball season.
“I don’t look at it as tough,” Terry says. “Tough for me is when I lost my dad in August. This is doing what we love.”
Handed a big job on a loaner basis amid terrible circumstances, the 54-year-old Terry is keeping Texas men’s basketball together and on task. The Longhorns were 7–1 and ranked seventh in the nation when Beard was suspended in December after he was charged with assault on a family/household member, a third-degree felony. Beard was fired in January. Today, Texas is 18–4, ranked 10th nationally and in first place in the rugged Big 12 Conference.
After 10 seasons as a Division I head coach and 11 as a Longhorns assistant in two different stints, the man known by most in the program as “R.T.” has leadership experience and institutional knowledge. As someone who buried his dad five months ago, he has perspective on the bigger picture. He’s performing the delicate dance of putting people before program, with the goal of benefiting both.
“He didn’t have to change much,” says former Texas great T.J. Ford, who played during Terry’s first stint at the school and has remained close to the program. “These guys are familiar with his voice. He’s a player’s coach, he’s easygoing, he’s understanding, he’s a listener. I’m happy for everybody. This thing could have gotten really, really ugly. They’re still dedicated to the University of Texas, and I don’t want that to be understated.”
Texas’s fate is riding in part on Terry’s ability to maintain continuity amid chaos and crisis, and in part on a willingness to let his staff and players help him do that. This is very much a collaborative effort in not messing up a good thing when presented with a tricky situation. Rocked to their core one morning in December, the Longhorns have thus far refused to let Beard’s fireable offense define a potentially special season.