‘Born to coach’: Longtime colleague of Dennis Gates shares what he could bring to Mizzou
Long before Dennis Gates was the head coach of Cleveland State, or an assistant for the Florida State Seminoles under Leonard Hamilton before that, he was a high school senior in Chicago on a state championship team with future NBA player Quentin Richardson.
Charlton “C.Y.” Young was trying to recruit Gates to Northeastern in 1998. They would later go on to coach at Florida State together from 2013-19.
“You look at some guys and you say they were born to play basketball,” Young told The Star on Saturday. “You could see Dennis when he was a senior in high school at Whitney Young High School in Chicago, you knew then he was born to coach.
“His demeanor, the way he approached the game, the way he made winning plays, his leadership. And so, when he got in the business he moved really fast because it was just natural. He’s always been a head coach and CEO.”
Now Gates, 42, finds himself in line to be the Missouri Tigers’ next men’s basketball coach, according to multiple reports, and pending approval by the University of Missouri Board of Curators. The Star spoke with Young, a longtime friend and colleague of Gates, to provide insight on who he is as a coach.
Young described Gates as “very meticulous and detailed in everything he does,” a tremendous communicator and someone who is very self aware. All of that was evident from his days in high school, when Young said Gates also played a key role as a leader on a AAU team with Richardson and future pros Darius Miles and Bobby Simmons.
“As a young player and as a young coach, he always was bought into the details,” Young said. “I think that’s what makes him so good. He runs a program, he’s a head coach and CEO of that program and he’s gonna be detailed in every aspect of the program, from his defensive system, his offensive system, his player development systems, in terms of his relationship system and the mental component of the players.
“He’s just been a guy that’s always been ahead of his time in terms of the details of basketball — coaching basketball, playing basketball and the business of basketball. Gates is a highly intelligent individual. ... He’s just a special, special dude.”
Gates wound up choosing to attend California instead of playing at Northeastern under Young. Once Gates graduated in 2002, he served as a coaching intern in the NBA with the Los Angeles Clippers and then held graduate assistant positions at Marquette and Florida State. He earned his first full time assistant job at his alma mater in 2005, where he worked under Ben Braun until 2007. He then was an assistant at Northern Illinois and Nevada before joining Hamilton’s staff in 2011.
In 2013, Young took an assistant job at Florida State, putting him on the same staff with Gates.
Young remembers watching Gates and being struck by his commitment to making the Seminoles successful. He played a big role in the team making three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, which featured an Elite Eight in 2018 followed by a Sweet 16 in 2019.
“Being a coach and a recruiter for Dennis Gates is a lifestyle,” Young said. “... He was a guy that worked around the clock to be successful at us building the program here at Florida State.”
Gates established himself as a top recruiter during his time at Florida State. Young said Gates “was a force” for the Seminoles in evaluating and landing top talent such as Jonathan Isaac, Mfiondu Kabengele, Dwayne Bacon, Malik Beasley, Terance Mann, PJ Savoy and David Nichols.
The job Gates did in recruiting Kabengele, who went on to be selected 27th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft, stands out the most in Young’s mind. Kabengele, then a 6-foot-10 forward at Don Bosco Prep, was far from a highly touted recruit in the 2016 class, with only one scholarship offer from Binghamton at the time, but Gates saw something in him.
“When people say recruiter, they don’t understand the importance of being a great evaluator first,” Young said. “There are guys out there that are ranked two stars that wind up being pros. Dennis has a knack and a gift for finding diamonds in the rough and them becoming big time players. … Gates offered Kabengele and recruited him, and he knew he was a pro from the beginning.”
Young also praised Gates for the job he did to turn around Cleveland State over the last three seasons. Young didn’t want Gates to take the role to begin with because of how bad the situation was.
“I remember telling him, ‘Don’t take that job. You’re crazy, you can get one better,’” Young recalled. “And he said, ‘I’mma bet on myself.’”
Gates took over the Cleveland State program towards the end of July 2019, very late in the offseason cycle. The team had gone 40-89 over the previous four seasons and there were only three players left on the roster.
“He took the job just to prove that he could do it,” Young said. “When he took the job, nobody else wanted it. And he’s made it a powerhouse in the Horizon League.”
Cleveland State went 11-21 in Gates’ first season, including a 7-11 mark in conference, which was the team’s most wins in the league since 2014-15. Gates was named Horizon League Coach of the Year for his efforts and then earned the same honors the following season, when he led the Vikings to their most wins in conference play (16-4), complete with a regular season championship, conference tournament title and a 2021 NCAA Tournament berth. This past season, the Vikings finished 20-11 and lost to Xavier in the first round of the NIT.
“I’ve been in this profession 28 years — 20 of it has been ACC and SEC at the highest level — and I’ve never seen anybody do a better rebuilding job at the mid-major level than Dennis Gates,” Young said. “And he understands high major basketball because he was here at Florida State for a long time. He’s just really, really good. Just a great communicator, great evaluator, a great teacher, a big Xs and Os (guy), just an impact guy, and I think that’s obvious from what he’s done at Cleveland State in a short period of time.”
Young envisions Gates having similar success in turning around the Missouri program. Gates has shown consistency and won at every level he’s been at, which Young sees carrying over to the next phase of his career.
“You’ll see a team that really, really defends and one of the best man to man defensive teams in the country,” Young said. “You’ll see a team that’s very, very deep, they’ll want to wear people down. You will see a team that plays the game the right way, that moves the ball, that plays with a tremendous amount of humility.
“And he’s a guy that understands that championship people win championships. He’s gonna prepare young men for life after basketball too. … Dennis Gates is a guy who really really loves the process of a student athlete. He really, really loves that. He loves helping these kids become successful. And when you put the kids first, you’re always gonna win.”
This story was originally published March 19, 2022 at 4:05 PM.
