Sanchez’s whirlwind week; expect little change in Virginia basketball

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Growing up in the Bronx, Ron Sanchez could see the bright lights of Yankee Stadium from his apartment building a couple of blocks away. Now the bright lights of major college basketball are shining on him as Virginia’s interim head coach.

Sanchez looks back on his childhood, the youngest of nine children in a family that migrated from the Dominican Republic, seeking a new life and new opportunities. A very young-looking 51, he looks back at how his life was shaped in a challenging environment.

“Yankee Stadium was 161st Street and I grew up on 163rd,” Sanchez said Wednesday.

But it was basketball that helped the youngster develop in the South Bronx, playing in the Police Athletic League and the Boys & Girls Club, midnight hoops.

“Basketball actually was something I did because it kept me out of trouble,” Sanchez said. “The mid 80s, early 90s, was not the easiest environment to be in.”

Hoops became his addiction, and the more he fell in love with the game, the more it impacted his life in ways he would never have imagined.

Last week, the long-time aid to Tony Bennett’s life changed again when Bennett surprisingly announced he was resigning immediately and would be handing over the reins to Sanchez on an interim basis. In other words, it’s Sanchez’s challenge to have the interim tag removed.

While Sanchez was quietly a member of Bennett’s staff — he followed Bennett from Washington State to Virginia more than 15 years ago — the Cavaliers’ fan base knew little of him and how things might be different under his command. Sanchez put some of those minds at ease when he addressed his style of play on Wednesday. Afterall, he was away from UVA’s program for five years as the head coach at Charlotte.

“I’m not sure there are going to be many changes in what we do here,” Sanchez said. “I referenced the Virginia way in the past. This has been something that has taken years to establish. [Virginia’s] culture was led by a phenomenal human being who was an amazing basketball coach, and it would be a mistake for me to come in here and think that I could do things completely different and try to have the same results.”

While at Charlotte, Sanchez essentially rebuilt a bottomed-out 49ers program and rebuilt it into a winner with three winning seasons, highlighted by his last, a 22-14 campaign that concluded with a CBI championship.

“We’ll do some things that are going to be a little different, but not because I’m here,” Sanchez said. “Those were things that Tony and I and the staff discussed this summer. There were plans to try to do things a little differently.”

Sanchez went on to explain about those changes, primarily a more up-tempo offense, that the staff and Bennett decided they were necessary in order to evolve.

“The game has changed so much over the last decade, and we were just trying to find a way to keep up with those changes and identify guys that can open up the floor for us a little bit, guys that could shoot the ball from the perimeter, guys with some size and some length. It was for practical reasons, not just to help us in recruiting. We felt that this would help us compete at a higher level.”

When Bennett’s announcement came a week ago, it hit Sanchez hard. He not only has been by Bennett’s side as an assistant coach for the past two decades, but he’s been one of his closest friends. They play tennis together, they work out together, and that association bothered Sanchez that he wasn’t able to detect Bennett’s gradual loss of interest in heading up the program.

“Tony’s one of my closes friends and I didn’t realize how hard this space had been for him and that he was, for the first time, really opening up and sharing that,” Sanchez revealed. “I actually felt disappointed in myself that I wasn’t aware, because I never really asked.
“It’s okay to ask somebody how they’re doing, what’s going on, and I didn’t do that for him … and that was hard for me.”

The past five days have been a whirlwind, lots of phone calls, meetings with players, players’ families, breakfast with UVA baseball coach Brian O’Connor to pick his brain on being an effective leader, and other insight.

“My opening message [to UVA’s players] was that, we know they came here to play for Coach Bennett, but I also wanted to make them aware that before their names came across Coach Bennett’s desk, we (the staff) are the ones who identified them, the ones who followed them around and watched them play continuously, the ones that really believed in them from the beginning, the ones that recruited them,” Sanchez said.

His second message to the team was that they are loved, that Bennett’s departure didn’t remove that level of appreciation for them, and that the culture would not change.

Evidence of that came in part with Sanchez and associate head coach Jason Williford and assistant Orlando Vandross playing nine holes of golf with transfer player Elijah Saunders over the weekend.

“I enjoy spending time with our guys, hanging out, having lunch, talking to these young people,” Sanchez said. “The beauty about being a coach is, you get older and they don’t, so you always feel like you can live in their space. I think that if you can coach them hard, when you have a great relationship with them, then I’m going to coach them hard.

“I’ve got to invest time into getting to know their hearts, their souls, their families, what their aspirations are, and what makes them tick, so then I know what buttons to push. It can’t be just one-sided. I’m not talking about kumbaya relationships here, just genuine, authentic conversations.”

The interim job description has no bearing on how Sanchez will operate. He plans to do business the same as if he had a 10-year contract in serving the institution to the best of his ability.

“Tony said in his press conference, and I quote this conversation that we’ve always had, it’s about things being on loan,” Sanchez said. “This [job] was on loan to Tony for 15 years and right now is on loan to me for however long this institution chooses. Every day, I’m going to give it my best.”