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One of A Kind: Capel took a less-traveled road
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2009 NCAA TOURNAMENT
Published: March 29, 2009
MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Jeff Capel grew up as a Wake Forest ball boy and a North Carolina fan, yet he flushed all that sentiment to play for Duke.
He idolized his father (also called Jeff), who progressed from Wake Forest assistant to head coach at Fayetteville State, N.C. A&T and Old Dominion. Young Jeff saw how those jobs put creases in his father's forehead and weariness in his voice.
He made a quiet vow: Not me. He ruled out coaching as a career choice, so it follows that today he will amble onto the national stage as a rising star in the profession when Oklahoma plays North Carolina for a trip to the Final Four.
"My career's been very abnormal," Capel said.
He coaches an abnormally gifted big man, Blake Griffin, who will become the consensus national player of the year within the next week. He thrives in a football-first environment. He uses ideas from his father, now a Charlotte Bobcats assistant, and Coach Mike Krzyzewski, but he doesn't stop there.
"I loved playing for coach," Capel said. "I think most of the guys that played for him loved playing for him. Coach is the best motivator I've ever been around, and I felt like we were always prepared. He had all of us ready to run through a wall for him. So, I've tried to take some of the things that I learned from playing for him and put them into what I do, but at the same time, I have to be who I am. I'm not Coach K. I'm not my dad. I'm me, so I have to have my own personality."
This isn't fruit from James Naismith's family tree. This isn't a teaser for an unpublished Capel autobiography. This is some of the finest advice that his father and his college coach imparted when Capel took over as Virginia Commonwealth's head coach in 2001.
He was 27, by far the youngest Division I coach. He had worked only two seasons as a low-ranking assistant, without license to recruit on the road. The first job ended when ODU fired his father. He hooked on at VCU, where an interim coach, Mack McCarthy, was filling in for a fired predecessor.
Capel was overseeing study hall one day when the athletics director, Dick Sander, dropped by for a conversation. Sander asked Capel if he could get something out of players only five years younger. Capel's answer passed the test.
VCU veered from convention, which riled potential candidates who figured that someone should pay more dues and pay more visits to prospects' homes before becoming the boss.
Capel remembers his first recruiting trip.
"I don't like to tuck my shirt in," Capel said. "Maybe that's something like young guys. Unless I'm wearing a suit or something, I don't like tucking my shirt in. A coach -- actually in my league-- came up to me and said: ‘Hey, you're a head coach now. You have to tuck your shirt in.'"
Capel replied: "Well, I thought head coaches get to do what they want to do."
Regardless of the outcome today, Capel will get chances to do other things at other places. The speculation society now links his name to openings at Virginia and Georgia.
Capel saw nothing like this coming 15 years ago, when he was the freshman point guard on the national runner-up, or 12 years ago, when the NBA remained a viable option.
He ruptured a disc before a pre-draft camp and spent the next season in the minor leagues. Ready for a second run, Capel became ill with a mysterious disease later diagnosed as ulcers and abscesses in his large intestine.
"I missed the whole next year of playing," he said. "I thought I was dying. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I went from 205 pounds, and in two months I was 160 pounds."
Krzyzewski hired Capel to study videotapes and handle some of the coaches' details, which allowed him easy access to Duke doctors.
"Coach created the position just to kind of get me out of the house, get me away from Virginia, get me away from home," Capel said. "I went back there, and I got to sit in on meetings, so I got to see it from that side."
Back surgery squashed the residue of the playing dream, and Capel joined his father's ODU staff. The rocket ride to VCU's biggest chair was a major step but didn't guarantee the future.
VCU (23-8) made the NCAA Tournament his second year and came within a shot of upsetting Wake Forest in the Raleigh opener. He seemed right at home, the Fayetteville native who graduated from high school in Cumberland County and graduated from Duke with a history degree.
Two years later, when Kelvin Sampson fled Oklahoma for Indiana, Capel landed the job. His bonus: OU's self-imposed recruiting restrictions, courtesy of Sampson and a speed-dial staff that violated NCAA phone rules.
With the cupboard nearly empty, Capel signed Griffin two months into his tenure. He could envision something like the South Regional final and a coaching matchup against Roy Williams.
Williams, 58, has experienced situations Capel hasn't, but he predicted that the game will not be won or lost on the bench.
"I think he's very bright," Williams said. "He's very organized. He's very hungry, and he's charismatic. He can get guys to play the way he wants them to play, so he has every ingredient to be a fantastic coach."
Brother Jason Capel will wear OU red today although he played for Carolina, with Williams' son. "But blood is thicker than that diploma, and I understand that and have zero problems with that," Williams said.
Coach K, who might follow the same blood instincts, called Capel Friday night. They talked yesterday. Krzyzewski's advice: Be who you are.
That's shouldn't be hard. Capel rolls that way naturally, shirttail in or shirttail out.
■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com.
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