University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics

(Ganot's Speach Only) 

Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman…
Mahalo for coming to us this morning. Before we move forward with today’s announcement, I’d like to begin today by thanking, especially Benjy Taylor, and this year’s basketball team. We had a difficult beginning and people pulled together and did – what I think it was Dave Reardon who said this morning was improbable. We pulled off a really great season, so let me begin by thanking the team and especially Benjy for all their hard work and success this year.
 
Speaking of hard work and dedication I would also like to thank the members of the Advisory Committee that advised me in making the selection of the basketball coach. First Laura Beeman, head women’s basketball coach, Ron Cambra, Assistant Vice Chancellor for undergraduate education, Amanda Paterson, our Director of Compliance and Eligibility for the Athletic Department and Stacy Price, Director of Student Affairs. The committee worked hard and long sometimes interviewing  people at 4:30 am Hawai‘i time to make things work.  They completed a thorough review of more than 80 candidates in a timely manner and working in concert with our incoming athletics director made a recommendation which I have enthusiastically accepted.
 
We were blessed with excellent candidates but one person clearly rose to the top. He possesses all the qualities we’re looking for in our next head basketball coach – outstanding basketball knowledge, proven coaching skills and recruiting success, strong commitment to student-athlete welfare and an unwavering dedication to academics and to NCAA compliance. Also as a bonus he has been a member of our ‘ohana previously and has a deep love and appreciation for our Men’s Basketball program, the University and its proud traditions of the culture here and the culture of Hawai’i.
 
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you our new Head Men’s Basketball Coach, Eran Ganot.
 
Eran Ganot…
This is overwhelming and I was talking to some guys coming in here. I’m going to be myself, you know, I’ve got advice. You know, I’ve been talking to coach Bennett who’s been helping me along the way. He’s offers great advice in a lot of areas except for this one. When I talked to him he said don’t ask me – when I did my press conference I bought my suit and I had the tag on there the whole time. So I’m going to stay away from Bennett on that one. Other than that he’s been great for me. I want to thank the chancellor for the introduction and I’ll continue to thank you guys here in a bit.
 
This is overwhelming. I debated whether I should… and I’m going to go back and forth I’m going to talk to you guys and read off the speech. At the end of the day I might show some nerves and I might cry and I don’t care, because that’s who I am. It’s not often you fulfill your dream and today I get to fulfil my dream. I’m humbled and honored to stand before you as the head coach of the University of Hawai‘i for Men’s basketball.
 
It all starts with appreciation and giving thanks and I stand before you because of many wonderful people who have impacted my life; a lot of which are here today, I see a lot of familiar faces. And I will do my best to do justice because there are just too many people to thank; and so everyone in here thank- you. First I would like to thank the Chancellor again, the President, (new Athletics Director) Dave Matlin, the committee, as well as Carl Clapp and Paula Nishimoto for their efforts in this process, I know how difficult it can be to get to this point, how much time we have to sacrifice and how many people you have to visit with. I want to thank them for getting to this point and obviously thank you for recommending me.
 
I’m big on family and people, and I’ve been more than spoiled in this area. I want to thank my folks, my brother, my two sisters, some of which are back home in New Jersey who are probably watching today. It tells you something how special Hawai‘i is when you can feel at home and be 5,000 miles away from where you grew up. When I first came here, and I’ll talk about this later, I did not know one person. When Riley Wallace picked me up from the airport, and he was the first person I got to know. I want to thank my Hawaiian mom and dad, Dr. Ono and Al Ono who are here today, for taking me in and treating me like so many here today as one of their own. Like I said I knew nobody when I first came to Hawai‘i. and I see faces I’m going to thank: Ron Yee is here, “Tak”, Caroline is here, thank you Caroline for making it. And I’ll thank more... as I see Jackson over there in the background who’s had a huge impact on me, Bobby Curran, Robert Kekaula, this could go forever. And I might want that because they told me that there a Q&A in the end and if I keep going it’s called controlling the press conference.
 
I want to share something I did share with the committee. I’ve been with my significant other Barbea for the past four years; she may be the only person who might love Hawai‘i more than me – which is hard to fathom. The plan for me – I’m being very candid here – was to pop the question after our season. Obviously, we’ve had a lot going on after the season ended. I told the committee: you know I’m about to pop the question, she loves Hawai‘i, you guys could really help me out here. So I want to thank the committee again for improving my chances. Zeza, our little one, I know who’s watching, I love you guys, you are my life, and you’ve changed my life and I’m very blessed.
 
I wanted to get into coaching because I knew you could have an impact, and I had great coaches, I want to thank a lot of them today. Growing up, John Cornet and Kurt Homan took me in, when I was youth ball and high school and so forth, they lay the foundation for what I hoped would be considered a great work ethic. It lead me to Coach Wimberly at Swarthmore, who… I’m getting emotional talking about these guys. He’s been huge for me. He’s someone I’ve talked to and it was a great moment for me to call him and tell him I’m going to be the head coach at Hawai‘i. I can always talk to Coach Wimberly. It was through Coach Wimberly that I got connected with Coach Bennett who gave me my coaching start. I spent eight years with coach and I can’t imagine a better coach mentor and friend. He hired me as a volunteer 12 years ago, which I’m very proud of because I do believe in working your way up and it allows you to understand every aspect of running a program. He has groomed me for this day, and I am appreciative. People talk all the time about one day running your own program, and as you go through and your philosophy changes it became a great program, and I wanted to run a great program at the University of Hawai‘i . And I’m thankful for coach for putting me in this position today.
 
All the good folks at Saint Mary’s, it’s been a whirlwind because I was telling these guys before we came out here, you know when something like this happens, even during the process, I can’t separate, I have to go and try to get this and do the best job I can at Saint Mary’s. When I leave a place, as people know when I was here in the past during a transition, it’s important to me to see as many people as I can. When you spend eight years at a place, it’s hard to do that in a short timeframe when you’re supposed to hop on a 7pm flight and meet with the guys in the morning. So I want to thank the people at Saint Mary’s, including the guys I coached, the guys I got to work with, the people in the administration, and yesterday I got an opportunity to speak with our guys and I told them that they put me in this position today. It was very emotional; I love our guys and I love our guys here as I get to know them.
 
 
Riley Wallace, I think you never know sometimes. My first encounter with Riley was in 2005 when we played at Saint Mary’s I actually just knew him as the big dude that complains about every call. I did not know he’d have the impact that he has had on my life.  He called me the next year and offered me a job. I’ve studied coaches and their past. I’ve had a lot of respect for him from afar. I knew that it could be his last year, which it was and I thought, ‘wow I could work for Riley Wallace.’ And if it was next year, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to be around him. I get emotional just talking about him. He’s the best. And I’m thinking about him today and Joan. As people know, he’s had some health issues. I was able to see him after his second stroke. And I’m just so happy to say that he’s got so much fight. I mean he’s getting better every day I talk to him, and I think David said this, a proud papa today and thank you to Coach Wallace.
 
Coach Nash is a good man has a high integrity as you could ever have. I’m the product of like I said great people. I have great experience on the basketball side, but a recurring theme with me is that it starts and ends with people. It all starts always with leadership and great leadership, and I’m excited about this opportunity for all those reasons and a lot of things got to align. There is a great leadership right now at the University of Hawai‘i and somehow if I need to be inspired more than I am now, that was a big part of it. When Dave spoke at his press conference which I watched, about winning with integrity; as much as this is my dream job, if that was not the mission, I told the committee, then this would no longer be my dream job. It’s just that simple.
 
 I’m big on achievers on the court, off the court, in the classroom, as I shift gears here; and I apologize to anyone I did not thank. I might just be at a loss. I’m very appreciative of everybody. But talking about this opportunity in front of me right now, there’s a couple of things about Hawai‘i. There’s a couple of things about Hawai‘i, and people have asked me why this is my dream, and I don’t take this lightly, I know a lot of coaches in this profession, they can scramble, they can look at other options. I’m very invested at where I’m at. And I believe in working hard, treating people right, and doing right, and hopefully things will take care of itself. It’s served me well. It’s gotten me to this point.
 
Yeah, I mean, when people ask me a dream job, I’ve heard some press conferences, where a person will say that one of my dream jobs—one of my dream jobs… its’ just one. I’ve always wanted to run a program where I’ve coached or played, and as that became clear I want to be that coach at Hawai‘i. I wanted this job. And I’m happy to be here in front of you today. When people ask me why is this so important to you- number one its home and its family.  And I talked about that briefly. I come back here I’ve visited with friends and family here. I feel very comfortable here. Like I said, people here have changed my life; they took me in and treated me like their own. And so to get that opportunity… I’ve always wanted to coach and I want to live in Hawai‘i and be around you guys and so to get that opportunity today I’m very excited and very appreciative. So for me the dream job number one comes back to home and family number two I think it’s important like I said - investment and history. I know the history of this program really well. I’ve gotten to meet past coaches.  I’m sorry I’m going long but this is the part I talked about: eliminating the Q&A. I’ve been fortunate to meet the Fab Five, get to work with Riley and Bob Nash, I see Artie here and I’m very happy you’re here. Jackson, I’ll say again thank you for being here. Bobby Curran, Gary… I know the history well and I study it and I think it’s important to study the history of this program and it’s a rich tradition. And I know I got to meet Red Rocha and I want to say something about Larry Little because he’s so good to me, and Pat. Crossing paths, he came to our game in Las Vegas. I know he’s smiling down on this now, smiling down on us all. I want to talk about the program, I’ll answer some questions. But I’m going to be very respectful and should be just like the chancellor hit on the front end.
 
These guys did a great job in a very tough situation- staff and players. And as I approach things moving forward I want to make sure that we all understand- I get that. When I keep coming back there’s going to be X’s and O’s, offensive philosophy, recruit philosophy, all that-the most important thing is people. And there’s a whirlwind of going on of things that I need to address and I get that. But I’m going to slow things down and that the most important thing is people. And I’m going to address the people aspect first. When the people of the committee asked me if I had a question, my first question was ‘how were the guys?’ And ‘when can I get in front of the guys?’ And I was able to I wanted to get in front of them before I did anything else and I was able to this morning. And they were a resilient group. I’ll share what we talked about, I was real I talked to them like I talk to you, like I talk to anybody. There weren’t any surprises, I congratulated them on a great season and I told them how special it was to be at Hawai‘i.
 
The other reason, I’m going on tangents here, why this is a dream job – it’s a place where you can make an impact. And there are challenging times ahead, there is some uncertainty. Some people could get scared from that – that drew me to the job a little more, there was a call here in my opinion, and it felt right. Whatever challenges lay ahead whatever uncertainties there is. I just know that we’ll tackle them head-on, no excuses, in the approach we talk about all the time. This is going to be about a great culture of work, of discipline, of team, and if people understand and want to learn and buy in and be here. I’ll approach that with our guys, with recruiting, and staff, and what matters to me is getting in front of them, talking to the staff, talking to the coaches here and administration; everyone who supports this program and this school. And I’m very much looking forward to the challenge moving forward. Again I’m humbled, thank you.