The Post’s Steve Serby chatted exclusively with Steve Lavin, who signed a six-year deal to coach St. John’s.
Q: How did you recruit your wife [Mary Ann]?
A: That’s a great question. . . . For starters, clearly I overachieved. Initially, I think there was chemistry, but then to close the deal, it took persistence and stick-to-itiveness. . . . I wore her down [smile].
Q: How did you propose to her?
A: In Cancun. On the beach where they had kinda like a cabana, candlelight, with a saxophone player walking up and down the beach. It actually was spontaneous, I hadn’t planned it [at that moment]. But I had planned to do it, [when] the timing was right.
Q: How do you motivate?
A: The No. 1 thing is getting to know people, developing a rapport, a level of trust, and once you have that level of respect, players will allow you to teach and coach them. Along with that, a great phrase I always had on my desk was, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Q: How long will it take St. John’s to be a national power again?
A: If it doesn’t happen in six years, I probably won’t be here [chuckle].
Q: St. John’s fans don’t want to wait six years.
A: My goal is to restore it to a level of play that all St. John’s fans can be proud of.
Q: Best piece of advice John Wooden gave you?
A: One is, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” One of my other favorites was a quote that he would use to paraphrase Lincoln’s line about, “The best thing we could do for those we love is to not do what they’re capable of doing for themselves,” whether it’s parenting, coaching, leadership or management. “Forgiveness sets a soul free” was another one of my favorites.
Q: You kept every letter you got from him?
A: Coach Wooden, Pete Newell, Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, Gene Keady, Jerry Tarkanian — I started writing those guys when I was in college knowing that I someday wanted to walk in their shoes and be a head coach.
Q: Describe your dad, Cap.
A: He’s my father, my best friend, a teacher, and someone who set the most powerful example in the world in terms of how to lead a life. His love for life inspires others. . . . As a kid, he brought us to all the Marx Bros. films, all the Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton silent films . . . all the musicals, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly . . . the gangster films with Edward G. Robinson, George Raft, Bogart, Cagney, as well as seeing Bobby Short in concert in the city.
Q: Best UCLA moment?
A: The most emotional moment was my last game in Pauley Pavilion as the head coach of UCLA. . . . The significance of the finality, realizing it’s the last Senior Day, the last time to look to Coach Wooden who sat behind our bench to give him a salute or to shake his hand. . . . the last National Anthem . . . then the last timeout, the last halftime talk, the last postgame talk, and the last walk up to my office . . . and then the last walk to my car and the last drive home following the game at Pauley.
Q: Low point at UCLA?
A: I’d say when the university was negotiating with Rick Pitino while I was still the head coach. I think that was the most difficult or challenging time in my career.
Q: Coach K was a role model?
A: I’d watched him in terms of the way he interacted and engaged with his players. The ability [he has] to establish trust to get his players to realize that he genuinely has their best interests at heart and to buy into what he’s trying to do, and good things will happen as a result.
Q: Favorite NYC things?
A: Great restaurants. . . . Central Park in the spring, particularly when the winter clothes and coats first come off and the celebration of colors, and the diversity of that place . . . going to a play because my wife has encouraged me to become more well-rounded in those respects. . . . The architecture knocks you out. . . . I think the energy and the vitality is the thing that strikes me the most.