The Towson Tigers have won a lot of basketball games over the past four years but once again won’t be participating in March Madness. Head coach Pat Skerry joined Nestor at CVP Towson to discuss the tough weekend in D.C. in the CAA Tournament and looked forward to the world of NIL and continuing to find the right student-athletes for the program to eventually get to the dance.
Pat Skerry, head coach of the Towson Tigers, discussed the team’s successful season, finishing 16-2 and winning the regular season title. They achieved 75% conference wins in the last four years, a record unmatched by any other team in the CAA. Skerry highlighted the impact of COVID-19 and the transfer portal on college basketball, noting the need for strategic recruiting and retention. The team had 5,000 fans at back-to-back games, creating a positive atmosphere. Skerry emphasized the importance of building strong relationships with players and maintaining a supportive environment to ensure long-term success.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Towson Tigers, Pat Skerry, CAA conference, college basketball, regular season title, conference championship, student athletes, transfer portal, COVID impact, fan experience, recruiting, retention, athletic programs, Maryland lottery, John Feinstein.
SPEAKERS
Pat Skerry, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Yes, welcome home. We are W N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive. We’re positively here in Towson, not Baltimore, close to Baltimore, but we’re here at the CVP in Towson, right here in the heart of where all the good things happen, including wnst. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. We call it the Maryland crab cake tour. Crab cakes are not served until 4pm here, Pat scary, the magic eight ball. We rub it you win. You know, in sports, there’s winners, there’s non winners, winning tickets, and then there’s, well, you know, we had a hell of a season, and you had a hell of a season. And I wanted to celebrate today and watch Sunday night and get the seeds and all that stuff. But I thought, you know, I wasn’t gonna not invite you over here. It was just a great I want to honor you and your guys. I want to tell you how much fun my wife and I had watching the games. Here we were at Cooper’s pub on Monday. I was over at the at the school a couple weeks ago. This was, um, this is a nice building block for your program. Can we call it that at this point? Is it too early? That was
Pat Skerry 01:02
great for our guys. Really good group of guys, proud of them to go 16 and two and win the regular season title. Wish we played better on Monday night, that they all do. But I mean, it doesn’t take away from what they accomplished. I’ve said this all along. This it’s harder to be the best team for four months than it is for four days. You got to do both. But you know, I don’t want any of our guys. They’ve won our second conference championship in the last four years. We have never done that in the history of Towson University. So we’ve won 75% of our conference games in the last four years. And no one else in our league has done that. So we’re in good shape. We got great administration, not good and now comes the fun time of year. You gotta re put together the roster. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 01:50
you built something. I mean, there’s a fella right behind you with a Towson banner right like there, there’s definitely was something building over at the gym, my buddy Chris, who runs a Towson torch with a couple weeks ago. Said, Hey, man, I went to the game of my kids and this and that. And then I had you, I’d had you on already, and I didn’t even promote the autism stuff. And I showed up everybody’s in baby blue. I saw Vince fiducia there from pathfinders. I saw my friends from my dinners, a lot of different groups you had there. But I felt the energy in the gym and the energy that built here two weeks ago. You know, I was here with Terry. I was here in Louisville, Michigan, you know, 30 years ago. We’re going back now. That’s the kind of energy that I loved about what UMBC did a number of years ago, or what Coppin did, by the way, it was 27 years ago today, the Coppin won the big game in the tournament. So these local when, when good things happen. There really is a momentum for the whole community to come out and be a part of it. And I think it’s a building block to your new building. People coming out, people maybe not experience it, or finding their way to your games and finding their way on the campus. And that’s a beautiful thing. Yeah,
Pat Skerry 02:54
we were really excited, you know, to have 5000 people there back to back nights. You know, Steve eigen brought our ad and President Ginsburg, you know, giveaways for the students, like it’s what college basketball is supposed to look like, and the feel, the energy, and it did. So we’re, you know, we’re appreciative that obviously the winning helps. But I think when people do step onto campus, just like when you come uptown here in Towson, you see how nice it really is. You want to come back because you have a good, good experience. I
Nestor Aparicio 03:25
didn’t have any trouble getting you here today. You didn’t have any problem coming to downtown Towson. Like, no, make it easy. I live close by, so I know you do. I know. And I would just say for all the years you’ve been here and I and last time I pat scary is our guest. We’re at CVP, if you’re out. Last time I had you on, I talked about what you inherited, and I would say, empty, broken program, but wherever it was, it wasn’t good, and you inherited it and tried to build it up. But to remember the night when there were only couple 100 people in a gym, you know, in the old gym, right? Or even in the new gym, when things weren’t going well, and you got this beautiful gym, and it’s got old. Athletic directors are just trying to build something that you walked onto the floor and I saw you down in DC, and I’m just like, Man, I have such great admiration for anybody that can take something and see it through. See it through. I mean, there’s a dependability, reliability, consistency, that’s so necessary to be in a leadership role, like even just moving pre n i L to n i L to have this kind of success. I just, I have great admiration for I did. I appreciate
Pat Skerry 04:28
that. You know, you work with good people. It’s, you know, we’ve had a good run here, and then, you know, COVID hits. And then, honestly, since COVID, it’s a different game, transfer portal, and I L, it’s, it’s not the same game. How is it
Nestor Aparicio 04:44
that to make you different? What’s been different, if I because I haven’t talked in a number of years about I’m running to around town or whatever, but what was life like before and now? And how have you navigated these five years? Yeah, I think for us,
Pat Skerry 04:56
you know, we had a tough experience during COVID. Um. And it’s just the train was off the tracks, and ever since then, it gave us an opportunity to, hey, how do we play offense? What type of kids do we recruit? How do we attempt to retain them? How can we invest in them? And we’ve been fortunate to have, I think, the right type of representatives of Towson University. And you know, now I’ve got a really good administration that understands that, once you have, you know, talented student athletes and the right type of representatives, what can we do to to retain talent, you know, and that just, we got to
Nestor Aparicio 05:39
make kids happy, right? It is different than, maybe it wasn’t God passing of John Feinstein today talking about Bobby Knight, right? It is a little different. When I’ve got you here four years and you’re a part of the, you know, there is a power difference in what your job used to be and what it is. I, and I’ve heard so many coaches talk about that, yeah,
Pat Skerry 05:58
it’s the whole, the whole game’s change, you know? I mean, that’s why, like I said, we we take a lot of pride in that we’re in the last four years, 54, and 18 in the CAA, you know, and trying to find the right type of kids. Now, where we’re lucky is there’s so many good grassroots and high school programs from Baltimore up into Philly, down to Northern Virginia, that if you know, the more those those talented student athletes we can keep at home, the better we’ve got. A lot of you know, kids from great schools and good households. Sure you know that are really good fits at Towson. But I say this, people on time. If we can get people to come up to Towson or on our university, they’re blown away by how nice it is well.
Nestor Aparicio 06:45
And I think I am as well in the new building. And I guess that’s what I was started with, with the beginning of this is saying, 5000 people, 5000 people coming up see your kids play that. The recruitment part of that is we’ve got an experience here now and I don’t know that you ever really had that to sell. You had an education to sell. You’re a good man, good basketball coach, Towson, you had all these pros, but you didn’t have that. We’re gonna have a packed gym. We’re expecting to have a packed gym. And when you come to school here, not that you’re big shot on campus, but you’re a part of recruiting, that, part of that, and a part of making it better and being and I would think for every kid in the old days, it could say, well, I can’t leave here. The notion that I can leave here, but I don’t want to, is that’s what you’re looking for in any relationship in the world. The people that work here want to work here, the people that I’m here doing sports radio today with you, because I want to be you want those kids to want to be there not to be sad that they can’t get out. Maybe, in the old days with a little bit of that, right?
Pat Skerry 07:44
Yeah, I think it’s changed a lot, like, you know, I’ve used the phrase a lot, you know, Towson University is standing up. It’s becoming a major research university. You know, we rated the number one public university in the state. We’ve got great athletic programs. So many more kids live on campus
Nestor Aparicio 08:05
now. I already live here. I love it. Yeah, we’ve
Pat Skerry 08:09
been deemed a growth institution in the state, you know. So there’s a lot to make that experience, you know. You know, the athletic piece, my dad, who’s you know, was a lawyer for, you know, 40 years he’s always told me, You’re in the entertainment business. You’re just like pro wrestling, so that, if, when you say fan experience, like, that’s all tied to it, I think, like, well, I know
Nestor Aparicio 08:30
you just want to coach ball, no, but it’s different when there’s an atmosphere there, though, that, right? I mean, there’s for the kids, for you, for your heart beat and all of it, right? It’s,
Pat Skerry 08:38
it’s totally different, you know, it’s, I mean, you know, this is the first time we have nine and oh, and conference conference play at home. I mean, you know, 16 and two tied a record for the best ca record in conference history. There’s been a lot of really good teams in this conference over 35 years. So when you have a packed environment that helps, and the
Nestor Aparicio 09:03
stand in line in the cold to get in. Two weeks ago, we’ve improved our
Pat Skerry 09:07
zoom presentations. We’ve been working on that this week. You know, because we’re, you know, you get into into recruiting mode a little bit. But all that stuff is, is good. And, you know, like I said, I give a lot of credit to our administration for understanding, like the food, the T shirts, the giveaways, like when you have students and young people in those buildings, it gives it great energy. And we certainly had more of that than ever, and it means a lot. You know, you take a lot of pride in seeing that, and it gets get you excited.
Nestor Aparicio 09:38
I’m here, pet scared. We’re at CVP. We’re at Towson. So brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I do have the magic eight balls. I did have a lucky four group over here, two winners, two $5 winners. I’ll say this now, and you can talk about the tournament a little bit in your play last weekend, but there was something about Sunday. I was here, and it was packed here. It was packed in the back. Was packed in the front. Towson, every. Where I sat right here at the bar, where your assistant coaches are sitting, where Chris is sitting, and we watch the games. This one was about two minutes behind. That was a minute behind because it was streaming. There was only one TV in the back that was in real time, so everybody’s watching that one screaming, and my wife’s like, well, something good happened. Just wait 30 seconds. It’ll happen here. So the streaming part of it, but watching on TV, you could see there weren’t a lot of people there. And listen, I’m an old school March Madness guy, and I remember how excited I was in the 90s to go to my first March Madness games. And it was always blown away that I would get on a plane and fly to Oakland to see Joe Smith play for the Terps, or I get on a plane and fly to Knoxville to see Steve Francis play for the Terp. And all of those tournament games because of the travel and this and that, just like, it’s not the same as 5000 people in the gym on a Sunday and it’s crazy and it’s electric, and it’s all of that. And I did feel even on the Monday night watching, there’s a different vibe for any athlete to play in that condition. I think just for baseball, when Camden Yards was empty versus going to Yankee Stadium, it’s full. There’s something about being in that environment that you’ve created here that’s really going to benefit your program. You’re going to win even more because more people are going to be coming out. There’s going to be a real home field if there’s going to be all of that. But tournaments lack that a little bit, right? Sometimes,
Pat Skerry 11:15
you know, it’s, you know, it’s in that funny area, one they don’t ever ask coaches. Don’t make those decisions where you’re playing conference tournaments. I personally be fine if we played on campus at the higher seeds only, because, like on the flip side, there’s very few better feelings in sports than when you win a big road game, you know, in front of a hostile crowd. Oh, absolutely. So I get it. You know, the flip side is, this isn’t a knock on some of the other conferences, but like, you know, the Patriot League and the America East and in the me act, those aren’t mid major conferences. Those are low major conferences. The CAA is a mid major conference, just like the Mid American or the Sun Belt or Conference USA. So the trend seems to be that the mid major conferences play on neutral courts, just like the big boys.
Nestor Aparicio 12:12
What also gives you a chance with Delaware did to you and through the conference was playing every day, right? That that is the con, that that was, that is what makes it so hard. If you had done it, it would have been hard if you don’t do it, it’s, it’s hard, right? Just playing every day. It’s not normal to do that, right? No, but
Pat Skerry 12:29
that’s what makes, you know, March Madness, fun and, sure, exciting. I mean, that’s, that’s what, that’s what you sign up for. That’s what gets eyes on the sports is like, I tell you, like, you know, you’re paid to win every game, at least. I think I am. So like, you know, we always tell our guys, hey, we’re going to schedule aggressively in the non conference with the hope that we strike gold. And now, if you can, you go 12 and one. Now you’ve put yourself in a totally different ballpark as sure as metrics and, you know, committees and all that stuff. Then the next piece is, you got your conference season. Can you win a conference championship? Then if you fortu to do that, you got to flip the script quickly, and then you gotta go play, and whatever it is, a 345, day tournament, and you gotta play, play better than everyone else. But that’s what creates, you know, a excitement, like I was telling my staff, you say, Hey, man, Delaware, I didn’t realize if they had won the whole tournament, a 12 seed had never won a conference tournament in the history of college basketball. I didn’t even know. I didn’t even know that that would have been the first time
Nestor Aparicio 13:36
that they were talking about that on Monday night as part of the broadcast, because they had great broadcasters Monday. But at
Pat Skerry 13:41
the end of the day, they lost 20 games. Is that a good year? They had a great week.
Nestor Aparicio 13:48
Oh yeah, great week. They played spoilers, right? Like, literally, great,
Pat Skerry 13:52
yeah? Like, you know not to I’m not disrespecting them, but if we lose 20 games, my staff will tell you that we’re not sitting around having cocktails, you know, we’re not really. We’re more saying, Man, how do we lose 20 games? We gotta be better, right? So, but that’s what gets eyes on. The sport is, you know, tournaments are, tournaments are exciting, you know, but they can be equally or more exciting when they play Adam on campus. Oh,
Nestor Aparicio 14:23
of course, I had that game Monday been on campus. There were just it would have been electric, right? And I’m not for I just think it’s a different environment. And I think when kids come out in the biggest game of the year, and it doesn’t feel that way necessarily in the building, I think that’s a college basketball issue that goes back 30 years. That’s not a CA thing. That’s not an MEC, me, see, it’s just television. It’s a television world. And I think it’s also for the me act, and we’re broadcasting as we’re sitting here right now, the ladies, a cop and a plane, they gather everybody into one place as a conference to. Try and DC was part of that for you tourism. Bring people in family, springtime. I love that it was in DC. I kind of had one foot in the bucket to go down there Tuesday night with Chris and the rest of everybody to cheer you on. And it was close enough that we could get there. But going down Sunday, down, Monday, down Tuesday’s like, yeah, you’re gonna win Monday. We’ll go down Tuesday. And I know I took it for granted. You never take
Pat Skerry 15:24
it for sometimes being close, you do. It’s traffic and all that stuff. I think that’s why, usually Saturday, Sundays popping in there pretty good. You get a little bit nervous on
Nestor Aparicio 15:35
we would have been there Tuesday. That would have been a Towson thing going on Tuesday. Our
Pat Skerry 15:39
people showed they were great. They were great on Sunday. They they’ve been great all year, so, but it’s, it’s just, it’s, it’s honestly bad. It’s just, it was fun in here, I bet, I bet it
Nestor Aparicio 15:50
was, it was fun in here. Hopefully we got you guys kept it close on Sunday too, in some way to made it. They made it. You know it was, it wasn’t by design. I know it wasn’t by design. Pat, scary is here. He’s that coach of all. Thanks, Towson, now so let the audience in a little bit on what you say. Your kids obviously saw the palpable disappointment from Taha. You just just did, in a general sense of what you went through. Come back, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, today’s Friday. You’re here. I’m appreciative last couple days and trying to level set young people. Well,
Pat Skerry 16:23
I don’t think that’s ever easy to do. It’s an emotional game, and you’re dealing with young kids, and they put a lot into it, you know, we’ve had meetings with all our guys, you know, I don’t think we’re getting in the NIT, but that hasn’t been ruled out.
Nestor Aparicio 16:39
So what is that in the modern era? I don’t know enough about so you it’s a huge thing. I mean, but what does it mean to get involved? I mean, how? What’s the process? You won a lot of games, next best
Pat Skerry 16:49
30 teams in the you know, next best 30 teams in the country. You know, the future, the NIT. I don’t know if that changes, because they might expand the tournament, but, you know, in the past, we would automatically be in the NIT because we won the regular season title. This is the first year they haven’t. They’ve stripped that.
Nestor Aparicio 17:06
Thank you for telling me that because I’m not educated. NCAA
Pat Skerry 17:09
and Dan gavid did a shameful thing last year by making that change,
Nestor Aparicio 17:16
which it just opens the door to more big money schools, right? Literally, right, does
Pat Skerry 17:20
so you know, but we’ve had meetings with guys, and honestly, what happens in our sport now, which is different a week from this Monday, the transfer portal opens for 45 days. So you know, for us, we are hopeful to retain all or most of our roster, and then, if not, we have to add a couple of, add a couple pieces, so we’ll go into the portal. So it’s, it’s become a little different where and some teams are still fortunate to be playing, but everybody is going to deal with this. You know, this is now a year to year deal. And quite honestly, a couple of our we have a couple very good players, and when I met with them, my game plan for them is not a two year plan, as I told it’s a one year plan. These are all one year plans, not one year that’s an
Nestor Aparicio 18:12
amazing thing. You’re like, I got some great players coming back. Maybe no coach can say that anymore, right? Like you say, Well, I got a sophomore, I got a junior. Next year, we’ll have two, you know, like that was the way basketball has been since I was an embryo, yeah.
Pat Skerry 18:26
And, you know, this was Camelot this year, you know, we kept 10 out of 11 guys, and we did it for, you know, 10% of what college Charleston did it for. And, you know, 20% of what UNC Wilmington did it for, so you just can’t do that again. And the good thing is, our administration knows that, and you know, we’ve made some changes in that, but that’s, that’s, that’s, it’s just different now, you know, just different. Like my ad I’ve told you. Steve eigen brought straight we did a zoom call the week of the conference tournament with like, roughly 20 donors slash supporters. And he said to me, are you okay if I let everyone know that, you know, Wilmington spent half a million dollars, and Charleston spent 1.1 million, and we spent 100 I’m like, sure. Doesn’t make me look doesn’t make me look bad, but moving
Nestor Aparicio 19:24
but, but there is math now. There was that. This didn’t exist five years ago, certainly not 15 years ago, no.
Pat Skerry 19:30
And this is the first year we’ve we’ve ever been involved in it. Now we’re about to get a heck of a lot more involved in it, because we’ve it becomes like used to say to coaches, recruit, win, repeat. Now it’s recruit win, retain, recruit more or go into the portal. Repeat like I would prefer, personally, to retain guys that are here and here for the right reasons and are good fit at our university. Doesn’t mean we won’t go in the portal like we could be going in the portal for one guy. We could be going in the portal for 234, guys. What?
Nestor Aparicio 20:07
From a an education and money standpoint and scholarship standpoint, how does that work at this point? Well,
Pat Skerry 20:16
they become student athletes, especially in the sport of of men’s and women’s basketball and division one a football will be on contracts. You know, that’s, that’s the kind of the New
Nestor Aparicio 20:32
Deal, literally, a contract, right, just right? Yeah, it’s, I
Pat Skerry 20:35
mean, so there’s things that come with any contract, but that’s like, it’s changed. It’s, it, the toothpaste is out of the tube. It’s, there’s, it ain’t going back in the tube, unless there’s stuff get that gets figured out at the congressional level, which my old man called me this morning tell me it was all over C span, a lot of congressmen and senators were debating this stuff. I’m like, that’s great, because I think if it could get a little more, what’s the right, you know, structure,
Nestor Aparicio 21:04
the state, yeah, structure would be
Pat Skerry 21:06
good for for everyone, but it’s but it certainly has the the train has left the station. I
Nestor Aparicio 21:13
remember, like, two years ago, Gary Williams gave a speech out at the connects event in in Hunt Valley. I went after that is right about now, is it this time of year? And he said that, well, it’s a wild, wild west. Somebody’s got to put some guard rails in. There don’t be guardrails put in. And half the people in the room, and I, you know, and I started doing radio, I think I had Feinstein on, and probably talked about it on the air today with John’s passing, that I’m like, who, who’s gonna, you know, who’s gonna put the guardrails on? I don’t, I think the whole idea was to get rid of all of the NCAA that had been for 2530, years, maybe even longer, back, at least at O’Bannon, right, at least that far back, to say that it was always sort of in peril, and there never was a real structure for it, other than business, right? Typical American business, and that’s kind of what it’s become now, contractual business, yeah.
Pat Skerry 22:07
I mean, it has, I think if you know, you know, I’m godly optimistic that they’ll get a little more structure to it. What I’m thankful for is that our our university, because the way it’s growing is committed to
Nestor Aparicio 22:24
what you’re well placed is what you think I do.
Pat Skerry 22:27
I do. I really think since President Ginsburg and Steve eigenbrot have gotten here, they get it, you know. And doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges. Like I said, for us, it’s how do we compete with Charleston in Wilmington,
Nestor Aparicio 22:42
outspending you 10 times, and that’s where it’s
Pat Skerry 22:44
been. And the good thing is, we were this year. We were able to do that. We, you know, we didn’t share a conference title with them. Well, the Yankees outspent
Nestor Aparicio 22:52
the Orioles, but the orals do okay. You know what? I mean, it’s a little bit, it’s a little bit like that. It’s 100%
Pat Skerry 22:57
like that. I look at the Orioles a lot. I grew up a Red Sox fan, but I look at what the Orioles have done the last couple years, and it’s amazing to me. And I get it got to play better and play all that stuff, but I look at what they do over 162 games, and I say that is an unbelievably efficient and an effective organization. To do it like that. We talk a lot about, even in our staff and putting together our roster, we got to be like Billy Beane and Oakland, A’s baseball, a little bit little money ball, yeah, but Tiger ball now we got, yeah, we got a little more. We got a lot more resources coming up than we’ve we’ve ever had. So I’m excited about putting that in motion and really hopefully retaining the utopia will be retained the entire roster. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 23:41
that is utopian, is it not? Sure? Is Well, wait when you play well and you have this level of success. I had the cop and ladies coach on, and they’re playing right now. I had Coach Woods on, and I haven’t talked to a lot of you, and I think I told you this couple weeks ago, I had him on. He’s like, Yeah, my girl, Layla, man, she’s playing great. He’s like, you know, I mean, in the modern era, she plays too great. Somebody else will call with more money that literally, is, that’s a ladies game, certainly the men’s game. Your guys were on radar. I mean, you, you had a, you know, you’re not sneaking in anymore. Pat, right?
Pat Skerry 24:17
It’ll but with all these guys, and unfortunately, they come from great families. I want what is the kid thinks is best for him. And now I do think in a lot of the cases, the best thing is, hey, you need to be here for the next year so that we can help you realize your your goals, both athletically and academically. I also think we’re in a position where, if it’s unfortunately, not a couple of guys that were here this past year that could come back, then we’ll find the next guy. We’ve got a pretty
Nestor Aparicio 24:52
good track record. Well, they graduate anyway, at some point you have to go get new players. Yeah,
Pat Skerry 24:56
and you know, I’ve got a great staff. And you know, we, what we’ve always said is we’re going to try to build really good habits for our student athletes, and we do that by dominating their day with a routine. So I’ve got a great staff, like, if you’re part of our program, we try to herd you like cattle from point A to point B as much as humanly possible. So I tell guys all the time, man, when you when you keep the car on the road right, you reach the destination. Every time we get off the exit, the wrong exit, we
Nestor Aparicio 25:30
drain gas, we turn around, waste time, sit at red lights,
Pat Skerry 25:34
right, and we don’t get where we’re trying to get to right when we’re trying to educator, this is the educator. Yeah, we get when you get talented guys, and you get them to form good habits, those guys tend to have great success. And that’s what you see with the Williamson tahata may talk Suleman. Those guys had Lowry. They get really good habits, so and they got talent. So when you have that, then you can have then you
Nestor Aparicio 25:59
can have success, right? I like good shooting, though, right? I mean, that makes you look like you’re coaching, right? Well, this the shooting, obviously left a little bit on Monday. That’s what I meant about empty gym, just all of the environment. I remember the guys would go into those big domes and couldn’t shoot. And, you know, in the short of it, I know you knew that, but just the mind frame to come back and say, we can complete this next year. There’s a lot of that too. And I could tell how much your guys I was on the court when senior day I was down there at the table watching moms, dads, families. You honor team members that weren’t uniform members, and personally, had a photographer yet everybody out on the court. And, you know, I helicopter into these things, right? And just to watch it, I sat real close, and I just saw a lot of a lot of love. The thing you’re talking about, about being herded together with guys who liked being together this
Pat Skerry 26:51
year, yeah, yeah, that piece, I don’t, I don’t take for granted. All you know, you pay, look, I sell time. You paid to win games. But the best part of the job is the relationships you’re afforded the opportunity to make and build. That’s by far the best part of the job. Well.
Nestor Aparicio 27:05
And there’s also guys getting along with each other too. You don’t always not easy to have 15 guys travel around for six months play basketball to get along all 1920, 21 we’ve been
Pat Skerry 27:15
really fortunate since COVID. Like I said, the right type of guys.
Nestor Aparicio 27:18
What’s the right type of guy? What does that mean? Well, I
Pat Skerry 27:21
think for me, a lot of it comes from the type of home they’re from. You know, they understand what it means to be a good teammate. Do they understand how to work? They understand about shared values, mutual respect, take coaching, take instruction. So I’m trying to
Nestor Aparicio 27:35
meet one kid like that. You got a whole team.
Pat Skerry 27:36
I thought we’ve had a lot of good guys like that. Yeah, I’m serious. That doesn’t mean they’re perfect all
Nestor Aparicio 27:41
the time. Well, young people get bagged on a lot about everything. They just, you know, we’ve
Pat Skerry 27:45
had a lot of really, really good ones, really, really good ones with that. And you know, this appreciative that I think the challenge now, the quest is, when you add guys, trying to make sure you add the right guys, not just good players, because that’s obviously important, but good people, because if you have pretty good talent with good people, you can, you can elevate them pretty quickly. Is
Nestor Aparicio 28:06
there a feeling you in some cases, and I know, you know, Gary Williams went through this with Steve Francis 30 years ago, right? That that to some degree, you get a young person for one year, and that might be all you know going into it, you you don’t think of it. You maybe think of it four years. Maybe they do in the beginning, but you know better at this point, there’s no pretense about that anymore. No,
Pat Skerry 28:30
literally not like I said, I want, I want them here for as long as it makes sense for them to be here on both ends. Well, it is two way, right? No, it is. It’s what, you know, there are a lot more. Here’s the flip side of all this. There are a lot more butts than there are seats on the bench. So we’ll, we’ll fail. The competitive process.
Nestor Aparicio 28:53
That’s scary is here. He’s a coach for all things Towson tigers. It’s, I like to say it’s the off season. We’re about to go into March. It’s never off season. What do you do now? This has got to be the worst, because you wanted to be preparing for the sort like, this is the eight or 10 days here. That’s probably really weird, because this was not scheduled for you. Do you know
Pat Skerry 29:10
what we would have had player beatings regardless? We’d already that planned, even if we were fortunate enough to win, because the portal is open and when the portal is opening. So now it’s about, how do we put together a competitive roster? You know, we’re reconstructed, whether that means retaining or adding some new pieces. And you know what? We’ll be on spring break, and then we’ll get right back in the lifts and workouts for, you know, six weeks until finals hit. These guys have big jobs. They go after finals, then they get about, you know, anywhere from a week to two weeks home, and then they’re back on campus for nine weeks in the summer, then get about three weeks off in August. So they’re home,
Nestor Aparicio 29:47
they’re here with you all summer.
Pat Skerry 29:48
Yeah, they are class
Nestor Aparicio 29:50
or ball both, both getting some credits out of the way, making life a little easier. Both, yeah, mandatory. Or is that that normal for the way basketball is done at Division one? Now,
Pat Skerry 30:00
at our at our level and up, it’s normal. I think some schools a little below, like our conference, maybe don’t have the resources all summer, but, but our guys are here for, you know, nine Well, I mean, I’m
Nestor Aparicio 30:10
familiar with that from like, the NFL model. When the Ravens came here, I’m like, so players go home and Jay, where do they? You know, baseball players go home. Like baseball players just get out. They might come back for a caravan. I I’ve often with college sports now that it is, there is money involved, but also, like, your level of commitment changed your summer a little bit, June, July, and from a coaching standpoint, because that was not an on court time, right? That was like even a time where you, you get put in a clink if you did that, right? Like working with the kids too much, right? Yeah, not.
Pat Skerry 30:39
I mean, now it lasts like 810, years, maybe even longer. It’s a
Nestor Aparicio 30:45
lifestyle change, yeah,
Pat Skerry 30:45
here in the summer, and then when, like second, third day of August hits, it’s like a jailbreak. Everyone wants to get out of here. And then you leave everyone alone, staffing for
Nestor Aparicio 30:55
four weeks, about three, about three, they come back right around Labor Day, yeah,
Pat Skerry 30:59
four or five days before that, you know, classes start so, but it’s, it’s, you know, we do leave them alone on the weekends.
Nestor Aparicio 31:09
What’s your job now? Like recruiting, what is
Pat Skerry 31:13
change? It’s changed. It’s obviously recruiting, and there’s some basketball stuff that comes with that, but I’ve now become like the general manager and President of Operations, because we’re dealing with retention, we’re dealing with Portal, we’re dealing with, you know, some monies to pay some athletes. So it’s just, it’s just changed. It doesn’t make it bad. It’s just, it’s just different. That’s all not what you thought you were getting into 14 years ago. I’m fine with all that. I haven’t lost. I got a good 1012, years of me. I got it. I got a lot of I got a lot of juice in the tank. If I ever felt like I didn’t have the juice to do this, I would do something. What do you love about it? Just, how do you get better? One, you know, how do we do it better? And then to just, you know, being around staff and student athletes every day. I’ve always said it beats working.
Nestor Aparicio 32:03
Well, I got you off campus here for about a half an hour. We’re here at the CVP Pat scary is holding a big summit here with his coaching staff today. I think Chris is here. We got some other 1000 folks coming over from startup as well as Yeah, I’m a yoga person. So Susan’s coming over from up dog yoga. I’m gonna do some hot yoga with her here on the air. We got to stay in shape. It’s never off season. You
Pat Skerry 32:24
know this, right? Been there before. I got to get back there. She texts
Nestor Aparicio 32:27
me a little while ago, and she said, Pat, scary, has done yoga?
Pat Skerry 32:32
She texts me, told me, I got to get back in there. I do. She’s great.
Nestor Aparicio 32:35
Have you done hot Are you hot yoga? No, just regular yoga. What are you doing? I’m like,
Pat Skerry 32:39
beginner Yoga, you know, I’m like, I’m like, your points, I’m like, yoga, and we need help. Oh yeah, they’re not using me in any I can tell you that you’re
Nestor Aparicio 32:47
an athlete and then an athletic supporter. You’re you’re all the above dog, go to up dog, go to up dog, yeah, all right, he’s gonna get me sweaty over there. I appreciate you having me. I always appreciate seeing you. For people out there to be involved in your program. The next couple of months, you’re gonna be out doing some stuff. I mean, you stuff. I mean, around town that part, part of this is you’ve built a little something now, even just coming out and hanging out with me a little bit, I, you know, I want to go back and see 5000 people in that gym every game. I really do
Pat Skerry 33:13
absolutely, you know, get out just our spring sports at Taos. So we get
Nestor Aparicio 33:16
a lot of really lacks, lacks going in baseball, great softball teams, and
Pat Skerry 33:20
we got great fields, and you’ll have a good experience and and then get online and join the gold collective, G, O, H, collective.com,
Nestor Aparicio 33:28
when you’re not going to the Blackbird club or giving Mr. Rubin, it’s we’re all it sports, man, you know
Pat Skerry 33:34
the entertainment industry,
Nestor Aparicio 33:35
just like your brother. What kind of lawyer was your brother? Your father? Your father was a lawyer, right?
Pat Skerry 33:39
Yeah, he’s a just general practice that both my brothers also have law licenses. Lawyers, no wonder you’re
Nestor Aparicio 33:47
so good at navigating all this. I don’t know. I wasn’t smart enough. I was a coach barrister. Scary here, absolutely. So I appreciate the season you guys have had. And did you know John Feinstein? I just wanted to open that door for a minute. He
Pat Skerry 33:59
was good friend. He did a lot of our games back on Comcast at Towson, I thought he did. That’s why I wanted to ask you to have his books. And I was shocked and disappointed to hear that. But John’s obviously just a brilliant, brilliant man.
Nestor Aparicio 34:13
Well, I saw him all the time at UMBC, when he’s calling games down there when they first opened the gym. And obviously, you know, the Odom family relationship and him coming up and being a part of that, I figured he you knew. I mean, I just figured he came here. You were really good team. You’re a good guy. You’ve been here a long time. He would find his way to Towson, even as a just to watch your team play, because he was a basketball head, you know. And people think of him. The golf community feels like they own him in that way. The Bat college basketball community obviously feels like they own him. Washington feels like they own him a little bit from the post. It’s amazing how many places he dabbled. And I pay tribute to him today. I had about 24 hours of conversations with him in the last 1012, years that I could find now, we did stuff before that. I don’t know where the 10. Tapes are of any of that stuff, probably on real tapes, you know, that I haven’t transcribed, but I had all of this digital and all of it was timeless, ageless. It wasn’t about your game on Saturday night or what the Redskins were doing or the capitals or anything like that. It was storytelling, and all of it, I mean, his stories, with Woodward at the post, talking about Watergate and just the political side of all that, there was a whole depth to him, way beyond Bobby Knight and kyzewski in college basketball or golf and and all that he did with majors. There just an icon. I’m trying to think of anybody like him that I can reach out to. And on a personal level, just a loss I feel that I text him last week to come on a show, and he didn’t get back to me. And I went through all my threads this morning, and I’m like, he never not got back to me, like in history of our lives. Usually I text him within an hour. I’d have a time, and he’d show up on the Zoom, and it’d be the best piece we would do every week. You know, in that week, if you had John Feinstein on and ran an afternoon drive and ran a morning drive because it was great, sure, because he was just that kind of guy. And I knew you knew him somehow. Yeah, well, he’s a college basketball guy, just like you. Pat scary, he’s got to get back to affording players, recruiting players, keeping players, retaining players, making their families happy. Well, you made everybody around here happy. So well, appreciate you, brother. We’ll be with you next year as well. Pat scary, our Hank scary, our head coach. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. The the magic eight ball is with us, and we’re here at CVP. We’re gonna be next Friday at Pizza John’s in Essex forgot to even ask Pat if he’s ever been to Essex for some pizza, but we’re gonna get that done as well. I am Nestor. We’re back for more at CVP. We’re Baltimore positive in W and S, T stay with us. Do?
