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NickZeppelin
4/16/2006, 06:53 PM
The more he talks the more you gotta like him as a person. We'll see about as a coach on the floor when the games start.

Collected wisdom: Jeff Capel
http://newsok.com/article/1817658/

By Justin Harper
The Oklahoman

Jeff Capel, 31, Fayetteville, N.C . Answers began flowing in immediately with Tuesday's press conference announcing the new coach from Virginia Commonwealth who would replace Kelvin Sampson.


Today, the North Carolina native and former four-year starter for Duke, who still laces up his sneakers to play with his teams, provides plenty more in his own words.


I have been called an old soul before, but 31 is plenty old to be a head coach. I think I'm a mixture of both. I used to joke and tell my family that I was born in the wrong era. I do think like an older person in some areas. But I still have a lot in common with my players.

People have asked about me getting out on the floor and playing with my players. Some think it's a good tool for teaching, others wonder if it's a good idea. But it doesn't really concern me with what people think about that. I'm trying to make a connection with these guys. They don't know me yet. The current players (at OU) probably had to "Google" me when they heard who their new coach was. A lot of these guys didn't know who I was.

I'm a coach. I love helping and teaching, and I still like getting out and playing. If trying to demonstrate a point, I get out and demonstrate it to the players. It's not trying to get fans excited about a coach with a different style. It's just something the players and I have in common.

Listen, I love coaching, but there is nothing like playing.

One thing about my age and playing background is that players probably feel a kinship. We have the same taste in music and things such as that. Although I like East Coast rap and these guys from Oklahoma, they probably like the West Coast sound. I'm more of a Jay-Z and Nas guy. So there's that connection in a young way. But at the same time, I have been around the game so long and have always been around older people. There's a maturity about me that seems older than I am because of that.

Having a dad (Jeff Capel II) as a coach, playing for Coach K (Krzyzewski) and being around so many other people who have different ideas and opinions about basketball and how to do things, I've watched and learned and taken a lot from all of them.

My playing career at Duke is strange in that my freshman year (1994), we played in the national championship game, which was what is pretty much expected at that program. But my sophomore season was one of the worst for a Duke team (13-18).

It was miserable. It really was. You go from the ultimate game in college basketball one year and come back and have a season like we did my sophomore year, it was just miserable.

Because of the special tradition at Duke and the standards the program has, as a player, I felt like not only was I letting the fans down but former players. Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Johnny Dawkins, all the great ones -- all the things they had turned that program into and we weren't living up to it that season. I felt like it was destroying everything. It made it even worse that our coach and leader wasn't there (because of back surgery). My grandfather used to tell me that you can learn something from everything. Good or bad, learn from it. I tried to take that lesson away from that year.

That second season (1995), I wasn't ready to play the role I found myself in. We lost Grant Hill, the best player in the country the year before. We didn't have the guys the teams before us had, guys who had played in back-to-back national championships. That next year, we had Trajan Langdon, but he was young. Chris Collins was a returning starter, but Chris broke his foot first day in practice. So that left me. I wasn't ready to become the main leader at that time. I grew into it, but the extenuating situations made it really tough.

I haven't gotten to really see Oklahoma as a state much because of how fast things have moved. But one thing that is very obvious is how friendly people in Norman and Oklahoma are. We flew out of Oklahoma City, and the kindness is obvious everywhere you look. That reminds me of my home state of North Carolina. The people are so friendly.

I was struck how absolutely stunning the OU campus was. The VCU campus was downtown. It was great, but there was not a lot of trees and grass and flowers like you see everywhere on the OU campus.

I actually met coach (Kelvin) Sampson the summer before my freshman year of college. I was playing in the U.S. Olympic Festival in San Antonio and he was a coach for one of the (Olympic Festival) teams. That was when he was at Washington State. I got to know him a little bit there. I knew my father knew him. I think they either coached or played against each other in high school. From afar, I've always respected him. He's been a guy that's always been real nice.

I remember when I was named head coach at VCU, I saw him at the Final Four, and he said if I ever needed ideas or input to let him know. That always stuck with me, because not a lot of people were offering help to the 27-year-old new coach.

The love of football in Oklahoma is just like the love of basketball in North Carolina. I have no problem with how big football is at OU. I'm so excited about being part of OU football. That program deserves all the respect it gets. That's the way it should be, and that's the way it is.
The recruits I'm inheriting (ranked fourth in the nation), those are guys we could not have gotten at VCU (laughs). These guys probably would not have returned a questionnaire at VCU. (OU signee) Scottie Reynolds was probably 90 miles away from VCU, and I told him I would have loved to recruit him at VCU, but I knew there was no reason to waste my time. But I thought we did a very good job of getting talented players at VCU, guys who were on that second tier.

I know fans like to see exciting basketball. But is winning more important than what type of style you play? Absolutely. That's the bottom line. Winning games -- we're in a profession if you don't win games, you're not going to be in the profession very long.

I like to run. Every coach believes that running and getting easy baskets are great, but there are a lot of things that go into that.
Our emphasis is always going to be on defense. There will be nights when the ball is not going into the basket. But you can always play strong defense.

I don't teach a particular offense. I teach our guys how to play offense.

Even with the whirlwind last few days and all the changes, I still feel like the same person. Things are a lot more chaotic now. A lot more things are going on. That happens anytime you have change. I'm going to have to get to know unfamiliar territory. At VCU, I knew everyone and had the program going in the direction I wanted. Here, I'm just getting started. But it's still basketball. It's something I'm very comfortable with and what I know.

walkoffsooner
4/16/2006, 09:38 PM
Sounds good I think he was a good hire.Right time right place for him and OU.

soonerbub
4/16/2006, 11:27 PM
I'm gonna go ahead and say Coach Capel will be the best coach in OU history. It will be interesting to see him walk the line as far as coach vs friend goes.

It's great that there is no animosity as far as Kelvin goes too.

SleestakSooner
4/17/2006, 03:35 AM
I love the fact that he comes from a family who's roots run very deep in college hoops. It's also good to know that his wife is a highly accomplished attourney and she can definately help keep him out of any troubles like some of our former coaches have been mired in.

I don't see any issues with him wanting to play ball with the students either. I just hope he doesn't injure any of them with that mean ankle breaking crossover he has!

Gandalf_The_Grey
4/17/2006, 06:04 AM
Nick's support is the kiss of death...sorry Jeff