REWIND: Quotes from Ed Cooley’s Interview on Big East Rewind

Cooley talked to Chuck and Sonny ahead of the season starting

A few short weeks ago, Ed Cooley spoke with Chuck Everson and Sonny Spera from Big East Rewind about all-things basketball and the best hoops conference in the world. In the interview, Cooley expresses his usual enthusiasm for the Georgetown Hoyas and the BIG EAST this year. Cooley also talks about recruiting, the conference, NIL, and developing young men.

Cooley gives plenty of insights into his thoughts on coaching in the BIG EAST, the NCAA Tournament snubs for the conference, adding to his staff, NIL, recruiting, and more.

Be sure to watch the full video (or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts).

Here are some cherry-picked quotes:

• Well, truly, the Big East, I love the Big East. It is an incredible league. It has incredible history, the tradition of it. You know, I was born and raised on the Big East. I think I’m going into year … 23 or 24.
• You feel big coach every day when you walk into the Thompson Athletic Center, when you walk through McDonough, when you walk on the hilltop, you feel [John Thompson’s] presence and aura.
• And as much as we love to talk about the past, I think we have to move forward. We have to respect tradition and legacy of it. But it’s just a different time now. You know, again, we didn’t have the greatest of greatest years as, as we’re trying to reestablish Georgetown.
• And my philosophy, not that [the protective nature of Hoya Paranoia] was right or wrong, just was a different time. So my leadership style is to make everyone feel like they’re part of the whole inclusive, transparency, vulnerability, given the world of NIL, given the world of transfers, given everything that has changed in this landscape, I don’t think you can go backwards with that type of philosophy, right?
• [Is it still the same Big East?] Well, the rules have changed a little bit, so it’s not as taxing physicality-wise. It’s still one of the more physical leagues in the country. I think it’s the best officiated league in the country…
• I aspired to be somebody like Big Coach because he was one of the few black coaches in America at that point in time, that you could say, you know what, when I grow up, I want to do that.
• I mean, when you think of the legacy and history of Georgetown, then you say “Big East,” and again, I still can’t believe Syracuse is not in the Big East…
• I think this year in particular, it got tough. I think the league was so good that we kind of ate our own a little bit by Seton Hall and St. John’s not getting in the tournament. You know, I think at the end was BS… You know, again, you had a lot of deserving teams that got in. I don’t want to take away from any coaching staff, any players that got in.
• But me being totally biased and totally transparent is [there is] no way in hell you can have that level of team with Connecticut had last year and have three of the top 11 seed in the whole tournament and only have three teams. It just seems crazy, right?

• I would say the mission statement to that is first and foremost, you’re going to graduate if you’re here for four years, we’ve never not coached a young man who’s exhausted eligibility [and] they’re not graduating.
• Number two, we want to have high integrity, high character. We want to be accountable. We want to compete for Big East and national championships.
• Third, and to me, the most important is to have gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to be at such a prestigious university. Gratitude and appreciation is the ethos of the organization… A simple thank you, how can I help you, come on in, let me open the door for you, how are you doing? Those are things that are just easy to do, just giving back to humanity, in my opinion.
• There are sidebars with that, you can’t be soft and play for me—that ain’t working. You better be damn good, but you have to have toughness, emotional, mental, physical toughness.
• I think you have to be open, honest and direct. You have to have some vulnerability to your personality…
• The coach thing is the natural. That’s my job, it’s not my person. My person is to inspire you, to motivate you to excel and have a relentless pursuit to greatness.
• You know how hard it is to be a pro, dog? You think you’re the only dude out there that wants to be a pro? So are you doing pro things every day to develop habits that can sustain when you’re not good, you can come back to that habit to become great. Not a lot of people are willing to give of themselves like that.
• In my opinion, not a lot of coaches in America are vulnerable enough to be themselves. They have this mask on, I’m the coach and you’re the player and you’re going to do what I say. You can do that anyway. But I think you can do it with love, with empathy and compassion.
• I always tell the guys that work with me and the support staff, meet them where they’re at, meet them where they’re at and bring them to where you want them to go.
• [The environment right now is] really hard right now, man. It’s, I mean, we have two players on the roster from last year’s team that played in the game, three overall. Overall. Not many schools are [retaining] all their players, for whatever reason, it’s a free market…
• To me, the bag, so to speak, everybody’s after the bag, right? The bag is in your education. It’s in the people that you’re meeting. It’s in that network of opportunity.
• Yeah, 100,000, 200, 300,000 sounds like a lot of money. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Uncle Sam is in the back saying, that’s right. I’m going to get mine. Then you have agents, they patting you on the other shoulder. I’m going to get mine.
• So you go from X dollar, then it’s a percentage. So this financial literacy to these young men, and these young women, and all these athletes, are we doing the right thing?
• No matter how much love, and energy, and excitement you bring for them, especially the way I’m built, if you can go make X dollars somewhere else, I’ll be open and honest with you. It’s a reason why I sent my daughter to Georgetown. It’s a reason why you guys went to the schools you went to. The educational component at the end of the day is going to mean something. Who did you meet?
• If you’re going four years and four schools, who the hell did you meet? Okay, so at the end of the day, you got a million dollars. You don’t have a million dollars, right? You don’t.
• If you’re smart, you’ll never touch a dime of NIL money if I was an athlete today. Now, obviously, I’m a 55-year-old dude saying that, right?

• I think it was really important to have a DMV presence on our staff [like Kenny Johnson]. We lost Ivan Thomas, who became the head coach at Hampton U. Really, really proud of Ivan, who worked with me for 11 years. Jeff Battle nosed in Mid-Atlantic a little bit, had a lot of strong and has a lot of strong ties in North Carolina and in the Southern Virginia area.
• Kenny I’ve known, obviously worked at Louisville with Rick, worked for Tom Crean down in Indiana, worked at University of Rhode Island. They did a lot of great things with him. But I’ve known him. I’ve known him. And I thought adding him to the mix would give us a presence here, get me around to places because I’m still learning how to go from L Street to K Street, to 14th Street, to I Street, the White House to this, and like, you know, traffic’s tight.
• We’re in speed dating versus recruiting. Right. You know, four of our guys out of the portal was a speed date that we recruited in 48 hours. How are you going to learn about these kids, right? Recruiting has become more transactional, right?
• You have some guys in a portal averaging point-four points a game and think, well, Coach, you know, I’m going to be million, you know, you know, that they get on their high horse average in a point and a half and think they’re worth X. Got to keep it. And what Martin said, keep it, keep it [moving?].
• It’s tough, and the NCAA put us in these deep waters because we did not want to change knowing it was coming. I love the fact that we can pay our players. I love the fact that they could earn off the image and likeness. Right. But how do we do it? I mean, how do we do it?
• Like, the model right now is not sustainable. We’re going to get to a revenue here. What does that look like? Are these kids going to be employees? Now, you have collective bargaining agreements. You have so much, and these kids don’t even know who Uncle Sam is.
• The fact that we have to ask Congress to come in, tells you everything we know. How many times you want Congress coming in, in your backyard and say, well, can you make the rule for? I didn’t get into this for the money part of it. I’ve always wanted to coach, I love competition, I love strategizing against what other coaches and teams do.
• Fact that you can give somebody an education, education changed my life, went to a small Catholic school. How can you not want to do that?
• At the end of the day, not only are you changing lives, you’re changing generations of life. As most of our players are first gen kids, so it’s going to allow their families to say, oh, my mommy and daddy went to college, maybe I can do that too. That hasn’t been the norm in our society, not just for African Americans or minorities, but for everyone.

• Well, we’re probably the youngest team, one of the youngest high major teams in the country. I love our young talent.
• I think Jayden Epps has made a big, big leap with his leadership skills.
• I think Micah Peavy is arguably the best defensive player in the country. I would put him right up there with Justin Minaya that we coached, Kris Dunn that we coached…
• My expectation of this team is to continue to evolve, appreciate one another’s strength rather than picking out, he can’t do this, he can’t do that.
• I want to make a substantial jump, but it’s not going to happen overnight. But I do see growth and development within their personalities, within their habits, and that’s really all I could expect.
• The league will be good. I think we’re ahead of where we were a year ago today, and that’s what keeps me excited. It keeps me excited. The Big East top to bottom will be tough.
• We didn’t have the most talent last year, we didn’t have the best team, but we were competitive in most of our games, right?
• And as we continue to build this, we will become an elite, elite organization, not just on the basketball court, but making it about the University.
• I didn’t give myself a timeline. All I ask is the opportunity to do it and let it lie where it lies.
• We are going to improve, we are going to get better, we have a veteran staff, we have been in the league for decades, we know the coaching style, we know the arenas that we play in, so that familiarity will help me build the organization.
• I am never going to put a timeline on success because success is defined in so many different ways. Number one, we are going to graduate you, you are going to be appreciative, you are going to play hard as hell and we are going to win at an elite level.
• So, year two, year three, I don’t know. All I do know is I’m excited what I’m doing. I love being the coach at Georgetown.
• I’m learning how to live in this DMV area. I’m going to maximize this opportunity to the best that I can. Let it fall where it may. All I can tell you is Georgetown is improving, brother.
• Again, we’re getting there and I put that pressure on myself, right? If I got out of the situations I was in as a kid, this here is a golden opportunity to make sure we do it the right way. I’m excited about it.