New trio of UT assistants share a unique bond
Earlier today, the local media received its introduction - well, the Zoom version - to Chris Beard’s assistant coaches. For about 20 minutes each session, new Texas assistant coaches Rodney Terry, Jerrance Howard and Ulric Maligi introduced themselves - or in the case of Terry, reintroduced - and answered some questions.
Beard is the guy who brought the gang together in Austin, but it struck me to hear how much Howard and Maligi look up to and respect Terry. The appreciation for UT’s associate head coach goes back years to when he was first in Austin working with Rick Barnes and recruiting and coaching some of the best Texas teams of recent memory.
“Here you have to kind of roll your sleeves up and really get after it and want to get Texas back on top. When I say on top, that's to win the national championship. And that was something that was very attractive to me to go to a program where they haven't won a national championship,” said Howard about why he made the move from Kansas to Texas before sharing his bond with Maligi and appreciation of Terry. “I started my career at Texas A&M. One of my good friends - not good friends, but great friends, not only in business, but in my personal life - Ulric Maligi is on staff and, man, me and Ulric Maligi when we first got into the business, we all wanted to be like Rodney Terry. So, it was just, like… it just checked all the boxes to be on staff with a guy that we all, all our younger coaches in my day grew up wanting to be like Rodney Terry. And then the icing on the cake was just coach Beard. What he's done in the past five years is elite.”
Yes, Terry, one of the best recruiters in program history, might already be credited for helping reel in Howard to Texas. Obviously, Maligi shared the same plane as Chris Beard to Austin. So, he was already in, but when he stepped on that plate, he probably knew there was a good chance one of his idols in the industry would soon be on the same staff.
Speaking of Maligi, he’s seemingly coached at every college program in Texas besides Texas until now. And since he knew at age 15, just a couple years before he started coaching the Dallas Mustangs AAU team, he wanted to be a coach, he dreamed of wearing the Longhorn logo.
“I haven't gone in there (recruit’s home or gym) with that logo on my chest yet, but it is something that I've dreamed of for a long, long time. I started at the University of Texas at Arlington, and I would always think, ‘Man, if I could be like coach Terry, man, and have a Longhorn on my chest.’ And now I get a chance to walk in with ‘T.’ So, it's a dream come true.”
The dream rosters for Texas moving forward will include the best players and best fits from the state of Texas, and no coaching staff in the country has deeper ties to the Lone Star State.
“I always thought we did a great job when I was here previously, really trying to keep the best players in the state of Texas, having an opportunity to play at the University of Texas. And it's no different than what we're gonna try to do here,” said Terry. “I think you always work your way in, work your way out. We know we have a national brand. We know we can carry this logo anywhere around the country, out of the country, and attract great student-athletes here to this university as well.
“Rick Barnes always had a saying when he was here, he'd say, ‘You know what, that was a Texas get.’ You know what I mean? In terms of the brand. We’ll have some ‘Texas gets’ where kids want to come to Texas and be a part of what we're doing. And we don't underestimate how strong our brand is.”
After today, I’m going to go way out on a limb and say staff chemistry won’t be an issue, and Texas and its fans will benefit from it. The power of the Longhorn brand will now be used by arguably the best recruiting staff in the country.
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