Why Ben Howland remains grateful long after leaving UCLA

Ben Howland planned him like that. Of course, he did.

He was a coach so absorbed by details that he would plunge into room temperature during press conferences and would call for a dead time when his team was in the middle of a big race just so that he could set up his defense.

It should therefore not be surprising that before his 10-year race while the UCLA basketball coach ended in 2013, Howland had compressed for his dream retirement.

In 2011, he bought a four -bedroom Ranch style house in his native Santa Barbara near so many friends and family, knowing that the full work of the renovation would take years. The Howlands moved three years ago, after the last season of the coach at the Mississippi State.

The house is now his starting point for frequent trips to see another old friend – the program he guided towards final back -to -back ovens from 2006 to 2008. Howland likes to leave several hours before the TIP, organizing his schedule so that he can visit friends or integrate into a doctor’s appointment.

He recently learned that he was only one day less than the former Bruins striker, David Greenwood, who died earlier this month of cancer.

“It’s sober, you know? Sixty-eight now seem young,” said Howland between the bites of a Tuscan chicken sandwich inside the Luskin Center on the campus that once served as his basketball house. “But there is always something. You must make sure that you are at the top of your colon and your prostate, and this is one of the reasons why I come to the UCLA for all my appointments with the doctor.”

The former coach remains close to several retired doctors he has known for many years, notably Jean B. Dekernion, the former long-standing president of the UCLA urology department, and Bennett Roth, the gastroenterologist who created the school endoscopy unit.

Maybe no one in school can make him smile like the current basketball coach. Mick Cronin and Howland have known each other since the first helped manage Sonny Vaccaro’s ABCD camp in the 1990s, to forge a friendship rooted with mutual respect.

UCLA coach Ben Howland, famous after a basket from Malcolm Lee against the state of Michigan during the 2011 NCAA tournament.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

There are so many similarities between coaches, from their demanding practices to their implacable defenses to their senses of ironic humor in their lack of hair in their admiration for difficult things but which are worth it.

“Coaching has changed and I can always appreciate Mick because it comes from the old school and what it does is not different from what [Bob] Huggins and [Rick] Pitino did what he worked for them and looks at these guys, who are both in the temple of fame, two of the greatest coaches of all time, “said Howland.

“And because you ask – I mean, I think that my players have always known at the end of the day that I loved them and that I was trying to get the most out of them, I try to push them to be their best, but as long as they know that you really love them and you care about them and you want what is best for them, then they respect it.”

Remarical man at the UCLA coaches and games, Howland sometimes comes alone and other times brings his wife, Kim, and a combination of children Meredith and Adam and the grandchildren Benjamin, Elijah, Asher and Abraham.

“I really appreciate it,” said Howland about coming to the matches at the Pauley Pavilion. “I mean, I am also a fan. I shouted like a madman during this Wisconsin victory. I tell you, I was so swollen; it was such a big victory, really, really exciting because they were good and you knew how important this game was. The same thing with the victory of Michigan State was an incredible victory.”

During his first year of retirement, Howland received a standing ovation in a dead time when he entered the court as a honorary captain. The fans who recognize him during the matches have heard him with appreciation, telling him that he did an excellent job or that they really like him or they have darked his decade race at the UCLA which was the longest of all Bruins coaches since the end of the 27 -year reign of John Wooden in 1975.

Basketball legendary coach John Wooden, on the right, is next to the UCLA Ben Howland coach at a press conference at the Honda Center in December 2006.

(Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times)

Howland said he agreed with those who believe that school should honor its last four teams with a banner inside the Pauley pavilion alongside those who recognize the national championships.

“I mean, nowadays, it is incredibly difficult to, n ° 1, to go to the Final Four,” said Howland, “and we cannot be arrogant where we do not recognize that.”

Perhaps the game that is most mentioned in any conversation with Howland is the return of 17 points against Gonzaga in the Sweet 16 of the 2006 NCAA tournament. In the last seconds, with his team that was dragged by only, Howland could be seen in front of the UCLA bench imitating the defense he wanted his players to apply, waving his arms wildly.

Cedric Bozeman and Jordan Farm conformed, trapping JP Batista in the rear area before Bozeman lets go. Farmar grabbed the ball and launched a lob to his teammate Luc Richard Mbah a sugar, whose Layup put the UCLA in the lead with 9.2 seconds. In an even more remarkable display, Mbah A Moute approached the ball in Midcourt to force a jump ball, giving possession of the Bruins on the path of a possible triumph of 73-71.

“It’s incredible – I have never seen it,” said Howland about the heroic defense of Mbah a Moute. “The best thing about this was the idea you never stop, you continue to fight all the time until the clock is at 0:00.”

The stopwatch ran over the time of Howland at the UCLA after a season in which the Bruins won the PAC-12 regular season title, but lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The coach whose admiration for the UCLA started watching the first national Wooden championship in 1964, held a farewell conference to express his gratitude.

“It was a real blessing to be here,” said Howland, “and I wanted to leave by taking the high road, doing it in the right way.”

At that time, a story had appeared that Howland had changed his ways, making the kind of grinders such as Mbah in Moute and Lorenzo Mata-Real who had fueled his early success in favor of more prolific scorers. Howland disagreed, stressing that he left the Steve Alford replacement with five NBA players – Zach Lavine, Norman Powell, Kyle Anderson, Travis Wear and Jordan Adams – when he left.

UCLA coach Ben Howland is preparing to speak to his players during a time dead against Washington in December 2010.

(Katie Falkenberg / For Times)

Having been offered a job by a Big Ten school – he will not say which – during his second year -round at the UCLA, Howland remained a coveted coach. He agreed to go to the state of Mississippi in 2015, making a bell to his introductory press conference and learned to know the original football coach Mike Leach. (“He loved the microphone, liked to be in front of the camera, very funny,” said Howland about the late Lievin.)

However, the challenges of recruitment in Rural Starkville, Miss., Made the victory much more difficult than in Westwood.

“Children are not growing up saying:” I always wanted to be a Bulldog from the state of Mississippi “as if they made a bruin,” said Howland.

The Bulldogs went to an NCAA tournament in the seven seasons of Howland, losing in the first round, although they were on the bubble in a 2019-20 19-year-old sorcered season which ended after obtaining a double Bye in the Southeast Conference tournament. The school dismissed him in March 2022.

The timing turned out to be a fortuitous in that How to get home and spend two years with his mother before his death. Another family remains nearby. Howland’s son Adam is an assistant district prosecutor based in Santa Barbara and his daughter, Meredith, is a nurse who lives in Valence. A granddaughter should arrive in October.

Howland said he was missing relationships with his players and assistants, not to mention practices and games. But old friends abound. He recently went to a dodgers match with Mata-Real, and several links to his stay at the UCLA stay on campus. Doug Erickson is the director of the basketball administration to do everything, Chris Carlson, deputy sports director, Kenny Donaldson, associate sports director and Alex Tiiraos, director of sports communications.

“I hired Kenny as an academic coordinator,” said Howland. “Now he’s [athletic director] Martin Jarmond’s right guy, with Chris. »»

Current UCLA players could just as easily be Howland, he was complimentary. Consider his catches:

On the transfer leader Donovan Dent: “Boy, to have him here as a playmaker next season, it’s such a critical element.”

Donovan Dent is one of the new players in the alignment of the UCLA of coach Mick Cronin for the 2025-26 season.

(David Richard / Associated Press)

On Transfer Big Man Xavier Booker: “I watched it in our game here [against Michigan State]; I was like, who is this guy? I liked the way he moved, I liked his athletics. He just needs minutes. I think Mick will get a lot to help his team. »»

Returning forward Eric Dailey Jr.: “He had big games in big games. He must just constantly bring that, but he is just a junior.”

Howland admitted to being “broken heart” that Ady Mara transferred to Michigan at the dawn of a huge season after two years of cronin development.

“They had done an excellent job to take him,” said Howland, “and he was finally going to have the kind of year he is capable of this year. I think hell Be the broken heart that it is not here next season. »»

A guy on who can be counted to be there in Big Games in the predictable future is a familiar face to a generation of fans of the UCLA, applauding wildly, his full heart, a bruin until the end.