Coach Joe Dooley's Introductory Press Conference

Chancellor Cecil Staton Introductory Comments

"As we like to say here at ECU, it's a great day to be a Pirate. We are convinced we are on a journey - a journey that takes us toward our aspiration of being America's next great national University. We have every reason to make that claim, frankly. When you take a look at what this University accomplishes each and every day for this state, it's quite a remarkable story.

"We put primary doctors in underserved areas of our community and North Carolina. We put dentists into those areas. We produce more nurses than any other institution in the state for our hospitals. We put more teachers into public education. We have the largest college of business in North Carolina today. We produce capable and engaged citizens that go out in North Carolina and make a huge difference. If North Carolina did not have ECU, it would have to go out and build it tomorrow. That is how vital this institution has become.

"We are committed to our region – let no one doubt that. Regional transformation is at the core of our mission, but we also aspire to take our rightful place among America's next great national universities.

"We are here this morning because I firmly believe that at the center of a great national university is a great athletic program and tradition. I am very grateful that at ECU we posses that. It is a gift. It was one of the great assets of this university. Today, we come to celebrate that and prepare for the next step for one of our key signature programs in athletics here at ECU.

"I am so grateful that Dave Hart, who is a great Pirate from our illustrious traditions in the past, joined us to be a special advisor to the Chancellor for athletics. I am grateful for Dave's leadership in this search and love and passion for ECU athletics.

"I want to recognize two groups before I introduce our new coach. The first is a great group of supporters and a number of them have served the advisory committee for this search. They have met on numerous occasions and met this morning with Coach Dooley. I want to thank them publicly for their service and all they do for athletics at ECU.

"The other group is the representatives from our Board of Trustees. I want to recognize Chairman Kieran Shanahan, Edwin Clark who chairs our athletics and advancement committee, Kel Normann who serves as vice chair of that committee and Mark Copeland who is here from Dallas. Let no one doubt the commitment of this administration and of this board to ECU athletics.

"Again, we are proud of our athletics program and the role it plays in the tradition of this community and across the state. As I've said, it is at the heart of a great university.

"Now we come to point of why we are gathered here today. I am so grateful for the opportunity to introduce to you today, Coach Joe Dooley. He is obviously no stranger to Greenville or ECU. He is also no stranger to postseason play.

"You all know about his career – 10 years at Kansas making it to tournament play, four years at Florida Gulf Coast and yes, one year when he was at ECU in the NCAA Tournament.

"Joe has an incredible reputation. His peers, including some of the nation's most successful coaches, hold him in very high regard. He possesses great work ethic and knowledge of how to recruit players across the state of North Carolina and our bordering states along with building the relationships within those states that are so vitally important to the success of our program.

"He certainly understands the game of basketball and the grassroots nature of our alumni and fan base here at ECU. He makes it a priority to connect with alumni, the fan base, the student body, faculty and community at large. He's also a coach who values and understands that graduating our players is the greatest win they can have. He puts a premium on compliance, including NCAA rules and regulations. He's a great basketball coach but, more importantly, he is a good person. We know that Coach Dooley is the coach who will be able to build a great men's basketball program at ECU which will compete at the highest levels within the American Athletic Conference and beyond – making Pirate Nation proud and excited about the future of our program.

"We know he is capable of producing a culture in this program of which we can all be proud. He understands the landscape, the people, the challenges and the pride of the Pirates. To put it in Dave Hart's words – Joe Dooley checks all of the boxes. We are so proud to introduce him to you as our new men's basketball head coach."

ECU Head Coach Joe Dooley Opening Comments

"It's good to be home. I'd like to thank Chancellor Staton, the board of trustees, Lee Workman and Dave and Pam Hart for bringing us back home. It's been a long journey but an exciting one. My parents still live here. In a funny story, my 14-year old son was here when we evacuated during a hurricane and he was shocked by all of the facilities and resources here. He has packed his sneakers and he is ready to get in the practice gym. Hopefully one day he will be good enough to be a Pirate and maybe we will let him walk on to the team.

"It's great to see a lot of familiar faces. The thing we need to do is make basketball important here at ECU. There have been some periods where we have been good, but we need to be consistently good. We need to find a way to do that and we will. One of the ways to do that is hold our young men accountable. We are going to do that in the classroom, on the court and in the community. We want guys that are going to be proud Pirates.

"I've been very fortunate to have been at places where the program has been held in high esteem. We want guys to come back like Othello Meadows and Tony Parham. We want previous players and coaches to feel part of this. We want people like Charlie Harrison, Dave Odom and Eddie Payne to feel they are part of it.

"I was shocked when I walked through the facilities. We have some advantages we haven't had in the past. We've also got some obstacles we will have to overcome like people do at every job. We are excited about it. You are going to see a bunch of guys that compete at the highest level and represent this University in the proper way. You are going to see a lot of us out and about in the community as we move this program in the right direction.

"I was able to meet with the players yesterday and we will meet with them again today about some of the things I've learned. I think the program is positioned now can really keep moving forward in a multiple-bid league. Pirate fans want big crowds inside Minges Coliseum and they want to be excited. We all know what a difficult place it is to play in when big-time crowds are there. There is pressure for us to put a product on the floor but I also want to put some pressure on the fans. Show up, support your Pirates and make it difficult on the other team. I don't think some fans understand what a difference they make during a game. I was fortunate at the last few places I've been. We joked at Kansas that the building was worth at least 10 points per game. When you are in there and you are loud, it makes a big difference for our players.

"We have a lot of building to do but we are up to it and we are excited about the challenge."

Question And Answer Session With Coach Dooley

Q: You did say in your statement that this was in the best interest of your family. Can you expand on that a little bit?
A: I think it's a challenge and it's a neat deal when you get to come back to some place where you knew a whole bunch of people, where you had great relationships. We spent eight years here, it's neat to be near my parents. My parents are probably happier they can see my son, they've already seen me, they've probably have had enough of me, but they'll enjoy having their grandson around. It's a great situation. One of the big criteria we had with jobs is that we wanted to be back in a college community. We like college towns, we like being around that type of environment, smaller. I love being able to drive down the street and see all the Pirates' licenses plates. Those are they type of things we want to be a part of.

Q: What is your approach to recruiting and what do you feel the players are going to have to have in order to be successful at ECU?
A: We have to recruit the state first, then we will relationship recruit. I think there is enough good players in the state that will help make us good team. We will recruit the state first. Obviously there's depending upon needs; if you need a point guard and there's not a good point guard in the state of North Carolina, you go to move around. I think the league is a high-level league. Look at Wichita State and Cincinnati this year, as well as Houston, those are high-level teams. We've got to recruit guys that can compete with those guys, those teams. I do think we can recruit up and down [Interstate] 95, D.C. all the way through Atlanta, through South Carolina and then just relationship recruit. But, we need to have high-level players.

Q: How do you see Pirates can be better in this league, specifically?
A: It will probably be a progression and I think when you look around athletics it's a jump. I think, first of all, learning the different teams in the league, the travel, that takes a little bit of figuring some things out. Our biggest thing right now is we want to compete, we want to get better daily, we want to continue to find different ways to progress the program. I think one of the things that happens when you move up a level, which the American is a higher level, it's sort of figuring some things out. It's travel, it's training tables, it's a million different variables that don't get fixed all at once. It's just finding the problems and addressing the most important ones, and that's what we are going to try to do.

Q: How have you grown professionally since your first tenure at ECU?
A: You know, sometimes things happen for a reason, and I truly mean this, it's been an amazing experience. When I came here with Eddie Payne we had a really good experience. When I left, I wasn't frustrated, I went to New Mexico did some different things and we went to three straight postseasons. Then I went to Wyoming, and obviously the weather is a little different here than Wyoming, a lot warmer thankfully. I think that from there, watching different guys doing some different things, has also helped us grow. We had a tremendous experience with 10 years at Kansas and that's what we are going to try to model our program after. If you are going to try to do something, try to do it the best of the best. They have rich tradition. What we are going to try to do is act right, make sure we do the things in the classroom like we are supposed to and try on the court like we are supposed to. That's what I think Pirate fans want to see.

Q: What your message to the players when you met them last night?
A: One of the big things is if you are not in it to win it, don't play. It's the same thing. If you are not going to do your academics, don't go to school, you don't deserve to be here. I think that with our guys, it's a challenge. If you challenge them to do things, they'll raise their level of expectations and we need to raise that. I think that we have got to give our guys some confidence… I think that sometimes when your confidence isn't great, you've got to go in there and build it, boost their confidence a little bit and get them thinking about big things. If you don't think about big things, you can't attain big things.

Q: What is going to be your first main priority? Is it recruiting, is it dealing with the current players or what do you think your first step is on the job?
A: I think it's a little bit of both. We were able to reach out last night to the young men that signed their National Letters of Intent and we met with the team. We will continue to recruit. We have to get a grip on the million different little things from academics to the weight room and all of those types of things. We've got to continue recruiting, start putting a staff together and all those types of things. It's not one thing, it's managing a bunch of little things all at once.

Q: What about ECU made you want to make this jump? Did you council with any other coaches about it?
A: I talked to Coach [Bill Self] about it. I think the big things about it was the timing right now for our family and for this program. It does excite me. [The administration] wants to make sure that this is done right. We've got to make sure it's done right. The league is really a difficult league and in order to compete you've got to do some different things. There's a multitude of things we've got to try to change and when we figure this out, it will be an exciting time.

Special Advisor To The Chancellor For Athletics Dave Hart

Q: How unique was the search given the circumstances and the time frame with the former AD?
A: I didn't view it that way, I truly didn't. I viewed it as his priority as Chancellor, and how important it was to the fan base at East Carolina. That was my entire focus for 10 or 11 days following the start of the search process. I think we are fortunate to land in the place we did.

Q: What were those interviews like?
A: We had the interviews in our home in Knoxville. I have done that throughout my career with coaching candidates and administrative hires. [ECU Senior Associate AD] Lee Workman came to our home and spent about four and half days or so with us as we brought candidates into Knoxville and into our home where they can feel comfortable, share a meal with us and just talk causal, then more specific in a formal setting.

Q: When did you know Coach Dooley was going to be your top target?
A: After we had had four hours together, but we had good candidates that I felt like could have come here did a good job. All of the candidates fit the profile from various perspectives, but as I told the Chancellor, Joe Dooley checked all the boxes. Joe and I have a trusting relationship, so the conversation was easy to get in to and as I ended my time with Joe, I told Lee that this guy checks all the boxes.

Q: What do you think it will take ECU basketball to be competitive in this conference?
A: It will take a commitment. The Chancellor is already committed, but the whole athletics program will have to support Joe. ECU is in a multi-bid league and I think that excited Joe from a basketball perspective. We've got a few months to talk about a few things that will help the program take an immediate step forward. We will operate within our financial means and we will also have a plan to take another step forward.

Q: What do you mean when you say there has to be commitment?
A: There are things that impact a program that we've discussed specifically. If recruits are coming to asses ECU and they don't see commitment to other stadiums and arenas, then it ultimately makes their decision.

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