Armon Gates, a Chicago native, comes into his first year as an assistant coach for Northwestern after spending the last two seasons with Loyola University Chicago. He also provides experience as a player, having played for Kent State from 2003 to 2007. He talked with North by Northwestern about what he and the new staff bring to the program.
Northwestern has slightly fewer undergrads than Loyola-Chicago but a bigger athletic program. Did it feel like a major change coming to Evanston?
I felt like it was a very similar situation, with both being private schools with about 8,000 undergrads. They both have great academic institutions, obviously, Northwestern has a better reputation academically, but I feel like it was the same kind of situation.
How has your Chicago background helped you in recruiting and coaching so far?
I feel like Coach Collins's background, mine, and with [assistant coach Pat] Baldwin being a former assistant at Loyola-Chicago, it helped immediately with a couple of recruits that we jumped on. That's one thing we want to do. We want to put a fence up around the Chicagoland area and keep those guys home instead of continuing to let these guys leave the state and go to other state universities. We want to keep them here to help us turn this thing around.
As a former player, do you ever find yourself joining in drills?
Sometimes. Little breakdown drills where they need a defender and we really want to make the guys get a tough catch out on the wing, Coach Baldwin and myself, we'll both get out there and kind of deny the wings. But we try to let them get the most experience possible, and our guys have responded well to all that.
What kind of advantages does it give you to have one of the youngest coaching staffs in the Big Ten?
Just being able to relate to the guys, letting those guys know that we've played at the level where they're at. We've done things that they're trying to do. I've played in the NCAA Tournament myself twice, Coach Collins three or four times, and [director of player development Chris] Quinn three or four times. It doesn't get any better than that. We know what's going on in the locker rooms. We've just been there.
From what you've seen so far, what would you say the ceiling for this team is? How high do you think they can go?
These guys work extremely hard, and there is no ceiling. They believe in us, and we believe in them. They've really bought into everything that we've been trying to teach. There's no ceiling.