New Kansas State coach Jerome Tang is the ultimate self-made man in college basketball
Kansas State’s new basketball coach is a former college dropout who went back to school and earned his degree while working a full-time job. He is the son of immigrants who moved to America from the Caribbean to chase jobs working at oil refineries in Texas. He lived paycheck to paycheck trying to support his wife and children until he reached his mid 30s.
There is a reason Jerome Tang likes to say, “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”
Perhaps that is why he unleashed a pair of primal screams at the beginning of his introductory news conference in Manhattan earlier this week. Before Tang addressed a large group of purple-clad fans inside Bramlage Coliseum, he climbed to the top of a stage that had been assembled specifically for him and yelled “it’s a great day to be a Wildcat.” Then he did it again, this time even louder with his arms stretched out and his head tilted back as if he was announcing it to an astronaut on the moon.
It was a special moment for the 55-year old, and his entire family.
His parents, beaming with pride a few feet away as if their son had just been elected president, explained why.
“We could tell he was destined for something great,” Tang’s mother said. “We just didn’t know what it was going to be.”
“Never would have guessed basketball,” his father added. “He was not a very good player. Too short.”
Becoming a head coach at the college level, let alone for a Big 12 team that was willing to give him a six-year contract worth $14.1 million, is something he always dreamed about. But he was never sure it would happen.
It seemed impossible for much of his life.
Tang’s played basketball in high school, but his lack of talent led him to North Central Bible College in downtown Minneapolis, where he was given what he describes as a “bible quiz scholarship.” While there, the school’s basketball coach noticed him and asked if he would try out for the team. Much to Tang’s surprise, he made the roster as a walk-on. But he didn’t enjoy the experience and moved back home to the Houston area and began working at a YMCA.
Then, at the age of 24, he began his coaching career at a small private high school in Cleveland, Texas called Heritage Christian Academy. Against all odds, the man without a college degree convinced future Division I stars to play for him and won state championships. Even so, he only made $16,000 a year and drove a Honda Accord with a bumper that was held on by a wire.
To go from those humble beginnings to Baylor, where he spent 19 years helping Scott Drew turn the Bears into a national power as an assistant, and then ultimately to K-State as a head coach, feels like the script of a Hollywood movie.
He is the ultimate self-made man of college basketball.
“Everyone is just so happy for him,” Baylor assistant Alvin Brooks III said. “I know his journey, I know what he has been through and I know his story. To see him now at Kansas State is just surreal. It’s a 1% journey. Not too many other people could have taken it.”
Scott Drew gives Tang his big break
Tang would not be where he is today without Baylor coach Scott Drew.
For the longest time, it seemed like Tang would never rise above the level of high school coach.
Believe it or not, that was fine by him ... even though he dreamed of more. Tang is a deeply religious man, and if God intended for him to mentor teenagers for the rest of his life that is exactly what he was going to do. He met his wife, Careylyen, on a blind date while he was working at Heritage Christian and they fell in love immediately. They adopted two sons and called them bonus children. Then they had a son, Seven, and a daughter, Aylyn (pronounced Island).
They all lived together in a house with three bedrooms and shared one bathroom. They converted their garage into an extra bedroom as their family grew. They didn’t have much money, but they were happy throughout Tang’s 10-year run in the high school ranks.
“I wanted to be a high school coach because I wanted kids to have a great experience and understand that they can get better and improve,” Tang said. “I never wanted a kid that I coached to leave and go off and say, ‘Man, my high school coach didn’t do this or that.’ I wanted him to have the best experience he could ever have.”
All the while, Tang was sending players to colleges like Florida State, Houston and Texas A&M. He had no complaints.
That’s when Drew asked to meet him in 2003.
Tang obliged, not because he wanted to ask Drew for a job at Baylor, but because he wanted to know if one of the Bears’ incoming players, Mamadou Diene, would consider moving from Africa to Texas to play for his high school before he enrolled in college.
Drew had bad news. Diene was staying home until he was ready for Baylor. But Drew still wanted to talk. And talk they did. Once Drew and Tang got to gabbing it was hard for them to stop. They talked about basketball and recruits until the conversation shifted away from basketball. Turns out, they liked a lot of the same movies.
The pair got along so well that Drew confessed to Tang that he would love to hire him as an assistant coach at Baylor. But he had only known him for a few hours. Too bad. Drew relayed those thoughts to his father, Homer, who recommended he visit Tang at his house before closing that door. There’s no better way to get know someone than by spending time inside his home, he advised.
So Drew invited himself over to Tang’s house later in the week.
Tang was happy to host. There was only one problem. He was nearly broke. Tang and his wife only had $10.81 to their names. How in the world were they supposed to prepare a dinner that would impress Drew on that budget?
“My husband is a problem solver,” Careylyen said. “We found some ribs in the fridge that my father had made the day before and he just said, ‘We can do this.’ Then we made the best meal we could.”
The Tangs purchased another half slab of ribs, plus a container of potato salad and bread. They hoped it would be enough.
Drew enjoyed the leftovers and the atmosphere enough to spend three hours with the Tangs that night. When he saw how hard they worked to welcome him, all while caring for a two-year old son and a pair of adopted children, he offered Tang a spot on his original Baylor staff in 2003. His salary would be $70,000.
“He built Heritage Christian into a powerhouse,” Drew said, “and they didn’t have the best facilities or resources. He was able to transform and change that place. Several people that I respected also talked very highly of him. And when I had a chance to meet him and his family and spend time with them he was just a great guy. He’s an outstanding husband, father, role model and a great Christian man with high character.”
It didn’t matter to Drew that Tang didn’t have a college degree. They would figure that out.
Tang promised to go back to school while he was at Baylor and eventually obtained a bachelor’s degree from Charter Oak State in 2007. Drew isn’t sure how he Tang found the time for that, because he worked him ragged at the beginning of his Baylor tenure. He guesses Tang only slept four hours a night.
But it was important for Tang to finish college. Now, when he tells K-State players they aren’t winners unless they attend all of their classes and sit in the front row, they can’t question him.
Dropping out of school had always been one of his biggest regrets.
“Some of it was finances because I wasn’t on (a basketball) scholarship,” Tang said. “Some of it was immaturity. That is why I can speak to these guys about the importance of developing good habits at a young age to help them get to where they want to go.”
Making the jump from Baylor to Kansas State
Baylor men’s basketball was in shambles when Tang arrived by Drew’s side in Waco, Texas.
The Bears were still reeling from the murder of Patrick Dennehy and the Dave Bliss scandal. They were at the bottom of the Big 12 standings. When fans across the conference really wanted to rub it in against an opponent they were beating they chanted the words “worse than Baylor.”
Tang has a story to tell about those days. It starts with a point guard he used to coach. Tang thought he talked too much during workouts, so one day he asked him to close his mouth and play him one-on-one for the rest of the afternoon. Tang, a former walk-on at a Bible college who was now pushing 40, proceeded to kick his butt.
An hour or so later, Baylor coaches found Tang crying in the locker room. What was wrong, they wondered.
“We’re going to lose a lot of games,” Tang said.
The Bears eventually became regulars in the NCAA Tournament, repeat Big 12 champions and the winners of a national title while Tang was in Waco, but they started 21-53.
That is one of the biggest reasons why Tang was drawn to K-State this offseason. Mississippi State and several other SEC schools contacted him for interviews. But he only spoke with the Wildcats because he thought they were ready to win. At the very least, they are in much better shape than the Bears were two decades ago.
He says he couldn’t beat any of the K-State players he inherited from Bruce Weber, even in his prime.
“I wasn’t very good, but I got better,” Tang said. “I was extremely passionate about the game and I improved. These guys have more talent in their pinky than I have my whole body. If I could improve at the level that I improved then I feel like as talented as these guys are that they can achieve greatness if they’re willing to put in the effort.”
Baylor has dominated against K-State in recent years, winning seven straight games by an average of nearly 22 points. But the Bears and Wildcats had some battles when they were both winning.
Tang has another fun story to tell about how the Bears got creative to beat the Wildcats during a game in 2009.
Before tipoff, Baylor coaches informed their players that they had found a copy of Kansas State’s scouting report somewhere inside Bramlage Coliseum. The report included some motivational words for a Baylor guard named LaceDarius Dunn. The report described him as lazy and unwilling to play defense.
Turned out, the whole thing was a ruse created by one of Baylor’s other assistant coaches. They were just trying to light a fire under Dunn. Well, mission accomplished. Dunn went on to make nine three-pointers that day on his way to 33 points in an 83-65 victory.
“LaceDarius proceeded to make (nine) threes that day,” Tang said. “Every time he made one he looked at the K-State bench and scowled. It was hilarious.”
If the Bears had to resort to those tricks to beat the Wildcats, Tang was confident he could guide K-State up the Big 12 standings faster than he ever did at Baylor.
But he plans on using the same approach.
“I’m just a regular dude,” Tang said. “I roll up my sleeves every day and I work really really hard. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I can lace up my boots and grab the shovel and dig and work. We are going to outwork people. That is going to produce winners.”
God is good
When K-State athletics director Gene Taylor informed Tang that he was flying to Waco with three advisers last weekend for a formal job interview, Tang didn’t hesitate to invite them inside his home.
Things had changed drastically for him since he hosted Drew two decades earlier.
This time around, Tang lived in a large house with a pool in the back yard. He is famous for hosting parties and cooking Caribbean food his guests. He loves to share a taste of what he grew up eating when he was born in Trinidad and later moved to the Virgin Islands.
In other words, he had much more than $10.81 to spend on a meal for his K-State visitors.
So his wife ventured out to the iconic Czech Stop located just outside Waco and brought back an assortment of fruit kolaches. Excellent choice. Unbeknownst to her, a member of K-State’s interview team considered that exact food item among his all-time favorite guilty pleasures. His face lit up when he saw them. The Tangs also had other pastries, fruit and drinks ready to share.
Drew couldn’t help but laugh when he heard that story and compared it to what he was served in 2003.
“It was a great meal and I felt terrible afterwards hearing the story, but I joke with him now,” Drew said, “because when he met with Kansas State I think they got more than one rib at the meal.”
Tang also welcomed Taylor by playing the song “Wabash Cannonball” from a speaker when he entered his home. K-State began its coaching search by interviewing Tang. It was a good sign they were returning for a follow-up, but he left nothing to chance.
From there, the interview played out similar to what Drew experienced. Taylor didn’t plan to be there long, but they couldn’t stop talking. Ninety minutes in, he offered Tang the job.
“We went in there thinking he was our No. 1 guy,” Taylor said. “After spending an hour with him in Kansas City we didn’t think we were going to spend three more hours with him, but we did. About halfway through we took a break. I looked at everybody and asked, ‘Are we on the same page here? This is our guy, right?’ Everyone nodded back at me. So I went back in there and told him, ‘You’ve made a big impression on us and we would like to offer you the opportunity to be our next head coach.’”
Tang wasn’t sure how to react.
After spending 10 years as a high school coach and 19 more as an assistant at Baylor, taking over his own program was something he always aspired to do. To get the opportunity at another Big 12 schools seemed too good to be true. He leaned back in his chair and didn’t say anything for a few moments.
Eventually, he accepted the offer and began energizing K-State fans with his vision for the job.
But it took him a while to process the moment. Neither he nor his wife can tell you exactly how they celebrated when it happened. Their emotions were too strong, because they remembered where they started.
“God is good,” Careylyen said. “There is nothing else I can say. How else do you explain our story?”
This story was originally published March 28, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "New Kansas State coach Jerome Tang is the ultimate self-made man in college basketball."