With March Madness no in high gear, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo blocked out some time to chat with Post columnist Steve Serby.
Q: Who are some coaches in other sports who you admire?
A: [Celtics coach] Doc Rivers and [Spurs coach] Greg Popovich, just because of the way they run their programs. … Vince Lombardi … Bill Parcells … [Alabama football coach] Nick Saban … [Steelers coach] Mike Tomlin … Bill Cowher … Jon Gruden.
VIDEO: COACH, PLAYER REACTIONS
Q: Do you subscribe to Lombardi’s mantra: “Fatigue makes cowards of us all”?
A: I definitely do. I definitely believe the toughest players win most of the time, and that’s mental and physical toughness.
Q: What about: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”?
A: (Chuckle) Everybody lives different lives. He did it his way and got people to buy in. There was something big that happened racially and he stuck up — Lionel Aldridge had a white wife — and I really took to that.
Q: Did you go to Lambeau Field as a boy?
A: Oh yeah, a lot of times. I got [childhood friend and former 49ers and Lions head coach Steve] Mariucci to get us a guy to give us a tour of the new facility. He said to me, “You guys have a game on [December] 20 and then you’re done. I’m gonna take you with us on the team plane.” One of my dreams was to be on the sidelines in Lambeau Field when it was snowing with those big flakes. At the end of November he got fired [by the Lions] so I’m still mad at him (laugh).
Q: But the next year you were able to take your team on the field.
A: Sure enough, as I came through that tunnel, it was snowing!
Q: Did you do the Lambeau Leap?
A: Oh yeah! I showed my hops.
Q: But there were no fans in the stands.
A: I just had to jump on the rail and hold on for life (laugh).
Q: Describe a Tom Izzo the basketball player.
A: A very versatile athlete that is a good leader and a tough guy. I look at a [former Spartan Mateen] Cleaves, now Draymond Green is one of them. … Jason Richardson and Mo Peterson. … winning was important to them. They cared about the university, about the players who played before, who helped recruit people who were going to play after them. Those are the guys I love. So many guys nowadays are just interested in going to the pros.
Q: Why do you love March so much?
A: After you’ve been to a couple of Final Fours, you realize you’re playing for March, and yet I don’t think that’s really that bad. Baseball players play for October. That’s just the way it is. March is the month some of the greatest memories are made. I’ve sure had a few of them.
Q: What is your Final Four secret?
A: There’s usually a mission to the madness of [preseason] scheduling. I always believed in having versatile teams. I think we can play different styles. That’s critical in March today. And we’ve always been a pretty good defensive team.
Q: You make certain to mention to your teams each season, teams win championships because of defense.
A: Alabama [football team] was the best defensive team in America. … The [NFL] Giants were one of the best defensive teams. … The [Chicago] Bulls when they had Michael [Jordan] and them. It seems every year the best defensive team wins.
Q: What was it like to win the national championship in 2000?
A: What made that so special was I had guys [Cleaves and Peterson] who took a chance on me. I was only in my second year as head coach. They had a lot of schools recruiting them. How many times do you get to live your dream? They recruited Jason Richardson and Charlie Bell and all the people that made up that great team. … To watch those guys walk off the court with two minutes left and the game in hand, it was just unbelievable.
Q: Why didn’t you leave for the NBA?
A: I feared the unknown a little bit. The second thing is I want to be somewhere where I can make a difference. I’m better trying to help mold guys than babysit them.
Q: Biggest lesson you learned from former Spartans coach Jud Heathcote?
A: I wouldn’t be here without Jud. He taught me to do it the right way, to respect the game, respect the people in the game, respect the media. … There was one period of time they were talking about firing Jud. I’d read an article, and I see him the next day with his arm around the writer. I asked him, “How can you do that?” He said, “Remember, everybody’s got a job, everybody’s got a boss. As long as you’re fair with them, they’ll be fair with you. Treat people like you deserve to be treated and good things will happen.”
Q: What do you recall about the day Magic [Johnson] announced he had the HIV virus?
A: It was just devastating. I was in the office when the call came in. Jud used to come home for lunch after he had his heart attack. I remember calling Jud but he wasn’t home. I had to go to his house and tell him. He broke down. I just watched [ESPN’s “The Announcement”] the other night. I was so proud of him. I called him that night and I told him, “I’m trying to change a culture, a program and a university. You’re trying to change the whole world!”
Q: What is your best motivational ploy?
A: We got beat in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament in Chicago. I showed the tape, the last play, then I pulled it out and took a sledgehammer and smashed it! It was the night of Selection Sunday. Three weeks later we were in the Final Four.
Q: Are you more like your mom or your dad?
A: My dad. More high-strung, wears his emotions on his sleeve. My dad was a guy who left high school before he graduated, went into the Army, came back when he was 36 or 38 and went back to high school when I was in the fourth grade. He wanted to be on the school board so he had to have a degree. My mom was like a 4.0 student. … I don’t know how those two got married, to be honest with you (laugh).
Q: What do you remember about [new Knicks coach and former Spartan] Mike Woodson as a player?
A: What I liked about Mike Woodson is he was a blue-collar guy. He wasn’t a pretty boy player, he was a working man’s player.
Q: What is the one thing you will not tolerate from one of your players or teams?
A: Disrespecting people. I’m a little old-school, but I’m a little small-town too. I believe I was raised by my parents, but I was also raised by all my high school coaches and teachers in the community. That’s one thing about being from a small town — the principal’s on one side of you, the Chief of Police on the other, the Superintendent of Schools on the other side so … couldn’t do anything wrong ’cause everybody knew by the time you got home. I’ve had great appreciation for respecting people. I go so far I even respect writers (smile).
Q: Describe the first time you met John Wooden.
A: We had won the national championship, and I went out there to be a part of the Wooden Awards, because I had two players that were involved, Mateen Cleaves and Morris Peterson. I walked into the room in awe like everybody is, and he shook my hand, he said, “Tom, welcome to the fraternity of 40.” And, I had to act like I knew what he was saying, I had no clue. So Bill Walton was standing there and I said, “Bill, what’s the fraternity of 40?” He said, “Well there’s 40 guys that have won the national championship.” That was the first time it really hit me how big a deal it was.
Q: You once golfed with Tiger Woods?
A: That was awesome. We’d beaten Stanford (Woods’ alma mater) by 20, so on the first tee, he said: “Coach, you beat my Cardinal.” I said, “Yeah I know.” He said, “I plan on taking it out on you today.” All 18 holes he helped me putt. One time I missed two putts in a row. They were long putts. … He said, “Coach, you know what I would do if I missed two like that? I’d fire my caddy.” I said, “Well, I think I’ll keep you.” He was great.
Q: What’s left on your bucket list?
A: It seems like that’s all I’ve done is work, so I got a million things. The biggest thing on my bucket list is trying to get in that fraternity of 10 — try to go from winning one national championship to two. It’s OK to be in the one of 45 or 50 guys, but I’d like to get in that one of 10 or 11.
Q: How did you survive a fun-filled road trip with Mariucci in ’76?
A: (Laugh) You’ve done some investigative reporting. … We really did it like the Hatfields and the McCoys. I think we ended up driving 7,800 miles in a little truck down to Texas, out to California, up to Yellowstone, and then home. We mapped this thing out during some of the boring sessions of a driver education course. It was like a 21-day thing, we had no money. We put some weights in the back of it, two cots, a bunsen burner, so we cooked. We worked out and cooked a meal out in Yellowstone. … got a T-shirt, I still got 50 of ’em. My mother just told me the other day they’re still in the basement. We had a T-shirt from every college we went to. TCU was the best one, they had the best-looking girls — we almost stayed there an extra day just for that reason.
Q: What’s one thing you would change about the college game today?
A: That everybody would be held more accountable — players, coaches, everybody. It seems like we always got rules and they’re always broken. I think we should all be held more accountable and face consequences if we don’t do it the right way.
Q: A recruiting story.
A: The last day of the last period when I was recruiting Shannon Brown, and I’d seen him 100 times, and I told my staff I’m not seeing him the last day ’cause he was flying down to somewhere near Texarkana, so I had to fly into Dallas and drive like three hours. He was going to his grandparents, a town of about … one stop light. They talked me into going so I went, and I got there and Billy Sims’, who used to play for the Lions, former wife opens the gym, and her son was playing (chuckle), and I’m sitting there with about three coaches, thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?” And the next day he committed, so it was a good deal.
Q: What kind of education did you get at Tony Izzo and Sons?
A: Work. Every summer from when I was 12, that’s what the grandsons did, they worked at grandpa’s store, and my dad and three other brothers. I just learned to work while everybody else was at the beach. And yet I have a great appreciation for that. So if you need your shoes shined, you need your heels changed, you need a zipper in your coat or you want me to lay some carpeting, I can do it all.
Q: Describe Tom Izzo the high school football linebacker.
A: I was a pretty good football player, I was actually recruited more to play football than basketball. Mariucci and I took some recruiting visits … a lot of Division II schools, although Central Michigan had some interest at one point.
Q: You were a middle linebacker?
A: I played both. I was kind of a utility guy. I played backup quarterback for Mariucci whenever we were ahead by a lot, and they would gangpile at the end when you fell on the ball. Coach didn’t want him to get hurt so he put me at quarterback then — who gives a [spit] if they beat the hell out of him? Those kind of deals.
Q: Tom Izzo the basketball player.
A: I guess I was a decent basketball player — pass first, pass second, shoot third … pretty good defensively. Walked on at a small college and ended up getting a three-year scholarship and a small-college All-American award so … I have a great appreciation for walk-ons. That’s why Austin Thornton is important to me. Every year I’ve got at least one or two walk-ons on whether anybody likes it or not.
Q: How did the idea to bring helmets and shoulder pads to basketball practice begin?
A: Well, we’d outrebounded everybody. We went to Ohio State and we didn’t outrebound them. It was the year we won the national championship. Nick Saban was our [football] coach. I told my equipment man, “Hey, call Nick and ask him if I can borrow 10 sets of pads and helmets” ’cause I wanted to get after it in practice but I figured I had basketball-wimpy guys, you know? So last 20 minutes of practice, he wheels in this big thing. I had four Division I football players on that team — Mateen Cleaves was down to us in basketball and Florida State in football. And he had been hurt, you know? So he grabs the helmets — “Yeah, Coach!” He was all fired up, and I wanted him to be mad. This was supposed to be misery. And him teaching 6-9 guys how to button a chinstrap and put on shoulder pads was pretty awesome. I’ve done it once or twice since, but that day, every time those guys come back, it seems like that’s all they talked about.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Peyton Manning — I just thought it was incredible how he handled that whole situation he went through; John Kennedy; and I’d just like to have my dad there. Dad’s been a special guy to me and I don’t get to see him enough.
Q: Who would you pick to play you in the movie about your life?
A: [Al] Pacino. I just loved the job he did in “Any Given Sunday.”
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Cheese raviolis.
Q: Why hasn’t success spoiled Tom Izzo?
A: I’ve had incredible mentors, people around me, my whole life. My parents, my grandparents, my high school coaches and teachers and principal. They take a bus of 50 people, they come down every year for 17 years to one game, we have a big party at my house. It’s my back-to-realty deal, ’cause those people don’t care how much fame and things that we’ve had … keep you grounded, my wife and kids. … But I just have a great appreciation for how lucky I am.
Q: And what would you want your legacy to be?
A: I think I’d want it to be that I did it the right way. … I hope I get remembered as a working man, not anybody that just had everything.
steve.serby@nypost.com