‘Man, I’ve had a blast’: Jerome Tang reflects on dream first season as K-State coach
Jerome Tang is the type of basketball coach who marches to the beat of his own drum, and he proved it in two different ways over the weekend.
On Sunday, he earned Big 12 Coach of the Year honors after guiding Kansas State to 23 victories and a third-place finish in the conference standings. It takes a special kind of leader to earn that award in your first year as a head coach with a team that was picked to finish last in the league. Tang has been exceeding expectations since the day he arrived in Manhattan.
But it also takes a special kind of person to celebrate that kind of achievement by driving a four-wheeler — which he says “isn’t street legal” — around town and waving at every person he passes along the way. Tang did that on Sunday, too.
“I am zooming down the road and kids are outside playing Frisbee and football,” Tang said. “They are hollering at you: ‘Hey Coach!’ And kids are on scooters and they are happy to see you. How great is that? I didn’t get a ticket. I heard a couple (sirens), but they were going the other way. I got back to my house safe.
“My wife was upset. She said, ‘You’re going to get arrested and it’s going to be on the news.’”
Tang laughed uncontrollably after he finished telling that story.
Everything in his life seems to be going well at the moment. He’s winning, and he’s doing it on his own terms.
“Man,” he said, “I’ve had a blast.”
Few saw this coming when Tang bid farewell to Baylor last March after spending 19 seasons as an assistant coach under Scott Drew. At best, K-State was viewed as a potential bubble team. At worst, some thought the Wildcats might struggle to compete in the difficult Big 12.
Fast-forward a year and K-State (23-7, 11-7) has locked up a top 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Wildcats have Final Four potential.
Add it all up, and that made Tang an easy choice for Big 12 Coach of the Year.
“He made a jump,” senior forward Keyontae Johnson said. “We were projected last in the conference and we finished third. We beat big-time teams. He had great plans. His main focus for us was to get better every day. That shows why he was coach of the year.”
K-State players were happy to say kind words about their coach when they spoke with media on Monday, because they know Tang is too humble to brag about his own achievements.
“His humility as a person is second-to-none,” Nowell said. “He cares about his players. He cares about everybody that he is working with. He is just a man of God. His purpose and his plan for us from day one was to see us grow as men and basketball players. We all believed in him. To see him get that recognition is pretty cool, but I’m pretty sure he would say we have bigger goals and bigger things ahead.”
Up next for K-State is a trip to the Big 12 Tournament, where the Wildcats will open the event with a quarterfinals game against TCU at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday. The NCAA Tournament awaits after that.
Tang is proud that he will get to coach in those tournaments after being honored by his peers. But he knows he couldn’t have won Big 12 Coach of the Year on his own. That is why he thanked dozens of people afterward, saying K-State wouldn’t have won a single game without the help of many others. He doesn’t view it as an individual award.
“It’s an honor but it starts with your staff and your players,” Tang said. “We had two guys first team All-Big 12. If Keyontae Johnson, Markquis Nowell and the rest of the guys don’t play to that level, there is no recognition for anybody. Winning brings all those things.”
Next time he wins a coaching award, maybe they can all join him for a joy ride around town. After all, this is just the start of his K-State tenure.
This story was originally published March 6, 2023 at 4:41 PM with the headline "‘Man, I’ve had a blast’: Jerome Tang reflects on dream first season as K-State coach."