Coaching While Black
This occasional series will highlight Black coaches at all levels of sport. This week: Iowa Assistant MBB Coach Sherman Dillard
Earlier this year, Sherman Dillard was inducted into the A STEP UP Assistant Coaches Hall of Fame class of 2024. A STEP UP in 2019 became the first to exclusively recognize NCAA men and women assistant basketball coaches.
Dillard has been in coaching for over four decades as both a head coach and assistant coach. “I was fortunate enough to play in high school and college,” said Dillard as we sat and chatted before an early season contest.
“I call myself a rescue cub because I got cut from my eighth grade team, and ninth grade. Then I transferred to this school that was a lot closer to my hometown, and I made the team with this coach.
“He took me on his wing, taught me how to play the game, and because of his guidance I became a decent high school player,” continued Dillard. That coach introduced him to a college coach at James Madison, where he earned a scholarship.
“As I matured and decided what I wanted to be when I grew up, I basically said, ‘You know what? I want to be like Coach Nestor,” his old high school coach. “I want to be able to have some significance by giving back, and the way he touched my life, and the way he changed the trajectory of my life, and I wanted to be that type of coach to young men growing up.
“I think the thing that really got me headed in this direction and down this path was I had a phenomenal high school coach,” said Dillard.
Dillard is in his 15th year as an Iowa assistant men’s coach. His lengthy resume is chock full of players he tutored that later earned conference and/or national individual honors.
“What a great vocation, what a way of giving back, what a way of helping people become, maybe seek their goals and aspirations. And that’s why I’ve been a coach now almost 40 years,” said Dillard proudly. “I started coaching in 1979.” He pointed out that he has seen the game evolve and change over the decades, good and bad, at all levels.
“I think the game is a faster-paced game,” noted Dillard. “In terms of, from a coach’s perspective, dramatic shifts in how we do business, I think the elephant in the living room is NIL. And the second thing is the transfer portal.
“Those are the seismic shifts in how we do business. You typically recruit a young man, and you would think that that young man would be with you 2, 3, 4 years. You would bring kids into your program and then nurture them and hope by the time they’re sophomores and juniors they can really be significant contributions to your basketball program.
“With the way things have changed, I think one of the toughest challenges we have as coaches is basically roster management and retaining players in our program,” stated Dillard. He also witnessed first-hand the evolution of Black coaches.
“One of the things that’s always been a mainstay with Black coaches is that people would see us on TV, particularly back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and [say], ‘He’s the recruiter,’” said Dillard. “I was labeled that for the longest time. I still think I’m pretty good at it, but somehow we got pigeonholed and painted into a box that all we can do is just recruit.
“Luckily, I do more than that. I wear so many different hats…a number of different things that I’m involved with and have a broad level of responsibility.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.