When you worked alongside someone for eight years, it can be difficult to pinpoint one or two moments that rise above the rest, especially when the person you’re being asked to praise is Rick Byrd, who officially announced his retirement as Belmont University’s men’s basketball coach Monday after 33 years on the job.
“Oh, there are just way too many,” said Baylor School coach Mark Price, who was a Belmont assistant for eight years before taking the Red Raiders post this past season.
“But one thing that’s always stood out is his true humility. You travel by bus a lot in the OVC (Ohio Valley Conference), and Rick was always the first one to get out and start pulling the bags out of the storage compartment for everybody else. If we were on the road recruiting, he wanted to know where you wanted to eat. If the hotel room you were sharing had one regular bed and one pullout bed, he’d offer to take the pullout. There’s never been one thing about him that says, ‘I’m big-time,’ or ‘I’m too important to do that.'”
And make no mistake, when it comes to college basketball, there haven’t been too many folks at any level who’ve been more big-time than Byrd, the son of legendary Knoxville sports writer Ben Byrd.
Whether it was the 805 victories he’ll retire with, or the matchless offense he ran, or the distinctive sweater vest he wore – most often with an open-collar button-down – he did it all with an understated style that nevertheless screamed of character and class and decency.
“He’s the ultimate gentleman,” said Price, who played his college ball at Samford and previously worked under another underrated genius in Lennie Acuff at Alabama-Huntsville. “He’s also a black-and-white guy when it comes to playing by the rules. Rick never cuts corners.”
Never. Baylor assistant Craig Bradshaw was a star player for the Bruins from the fall of 2012 through the winter of 2016. Asked about the 65-year-old Byrd on Monday afternoon he said, “A great man. He taught us not to change our values for anything.”
Then Bradshaw gave three examples of team rules that Byrd made no exceptions for, regardless of the importance of the player to the school’s success.
“We weren’t allowed to wear our headphones when we got off a bus, because he wanted us to interact with people,” Bradshaw recalled. “There were no cellphones allowed at dinner. There were places we couldn’t wear hats. Best player, worst player. The rules were the same for everybody.”
Whatever anyone may think of those rules, they apparently worked as well off the court as on it. While Byrd’s 17 conference championships since 2006 (10 regular-season and seven tournament) are third nationally over that period of time to Gonzaga and Kansas, his 17 Academic-All Americans since 2001 lead the nation.
His career conference winning percentage of .797 ranks second to Gonzaga’s Mark Few in Division I, and every Bruins player who’s completed his eligibility has earned a Belmont diploma with only two transferring out over the last 15 years.
If anyone in Divison I men’s hoops has mirrored the late Tennessee women’s coaching legend Pat Summitt in off-court success it would have to be Byrd, who knew her well.
“Coach will leave a legacy at this university that will be hard to duplicate,” Belmont athletic director Scott Corley said in a released statement. “I feel blessed to call him my coach, my colleague, and my friend.”
My friend. Price embraced that characterization of Byrd as soon as he answered his cellphone.
“I worked for him for eight years,” Price said. “In many ways he’s been my mentor. But he’s also a good friend, and in today’s coaching world that doesn’t often exist.”
In today’s coaching pressure cooker, Byrd couldn’t have planned a more perfect exit following his eighth NCAA tournament appearance this season. Having shed a tear or two when Belmont became a rare mid-major at-large entry, he also coached the Bruins to their first-ever tourney win when they beat Temple in a First Four matchup. Then his surgically precise offense came within two points of upsetting Maryland two days later in the tournament’s official first round.
But as The Tennessean reported Monday, Byrd strongly hinted after that loss that he was considering retirment in order to spend more time with his 7-month-old grandson Grant.
Now that time has come, along with much more time on the golf course, where Bradshaw says of his former coach, “He doesn’t hit it a long way, but he always hits it where it’s supposed to go.”
If there is any justice, Byrd eventually will go into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He was nominated for the first time this winter but fell short of becoming a finalist. That needs to be corrected as soon as possible.
But until that happens, all those he touched over 33 years of bringing Belmont from NAIA to its first NCAA tourney win will be left to wrestle with a seemingly black and white conclusion to a wonderful coaching career.
“It’s a great day for him, a career being celebrated,” Bradshaw said. “It’s a sad day for Belmont, though.”
Not to mention the rest of the far-too-often ethically challenged college hoops universe.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com