Making his presence felt
In 31st season, Turner continues to positively influence players
May 20, 2008Jake Lloyd
Editor-in-Chief
Mike Turner stood beneath the basket, hands on hips, whistle in mouth. It was the day before the Albion College men’s basketball team would open its season against Marygrove College in the Greater Albion Chamber of Commerce Tip-off Classic, and the Britons were holding a light practice.
“Don’t stand behind a guy, get around him,” Turner yelled after a player failed to get to a rebound. A minute later he was back at it. “It must not be that hard to box out,” he said.
An innocent bystander might have viewed Turner, now in his 31st season as head coach, as an angry disciplinarian… at least until he started cracking jokes.
“Hurry up, Crawford, you take way too long to get dressed,” Turner said to Brandon Crawford, Detroit junior, as he slowly put on a practice jersey. Moments later, after a first-year player made an obvious mistake, Turner said, jokingly, “Freshmen, I hate ’em.”
It is this balance with his players that has allowed Turner to be one of Albion’s most successful coaches. Turner’s 452 wins entering the season ranked him 12th out of Division III coaches, and his .611 winning percentage was eighth best. Turner has only suffered four losing seasons and has won four Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) titles, three of which gave Albion trips to the NCAA tournament. The Britons finished third in the tournament in 1978.
Turner has also coached the men’s golf team to three MIAA championships in 31 seasons.
But for Turner, it’s never been about the numbers. It’s been about having a positive impact on players’ lives.
“The thing I’ve enjoyed most has just been being able to work with young guys like we do and being able to have them understand and see the benefits of the fruition of hard work,” Turner said.
Turner cares enough about his players that only three of well over 100 guys who have played for him haven’t graduated from Albion. Turner cares enough about his players that if he senses something—non-basketball related—is wrong with a player, he will approach him about it.
Albion’s top scorer last season Michael Thomas, Saginaw senior, is one of the players who has talked to Turner several times about personal issues.
“If I’m having a bad day in practice or a bad day, period, he’ll come to me and sit down and talk to me about it,” Thomas said.
Albion’s other top contributor, Travis DePree, Holland senior, said, “He makes it [playing for him] that much more fun because basketball is kind of second. He wants to make sure everything else is going well for you before basketball goes well for you.”
President Peter Mitchell graduated in 1967, two years before Turner graduated, and has known him for almost four decades.
“Mike has been a terrific ambassador for Albion College for 40 years, since he arrived as a freshman in 1965,” Mitchell said in an e-mail response. “[Turner is] … student-centered, committed to excellence, thoughtful, and a gentleman who expects his players to work to their full potential, but always to be role models for deportment and civility.”
A few friends
The effect Turner has had on players is best seen through the number of alumni who stay in touch with him. Turner said that alumni come back two to three times a year to catch a game, he goes to three or four weddings of former players each summer and guys also come back for a golf outing during the summer.
Just a few weeks ago Turner saw several former players and friends when Albion faced the University of Detroit Mercy in an exhibition game in Detroit. Albion associate head coach Jody May, who has been with the program since the 1997-98 season, said that the game was arranged because of the friendship between Turner and UDM coach Perry Watson.
Back when Watson was the coach of Southwestern High School in Detroit, Turner recruited several of Watson’s kids to play at Albion. That established a connection which led to them scheduling the game.
Two of the teams at the opening tournament—Marygrove and Ohio Wesleyan University—had coaches on their staff who used to be assistants under Turner.
According to May, Turner is so popular around the country that he’s even known in the Division I ranks—and just about anywhere May goes on recruiting visits as an Albion representative.
“I can’t go to a gym without someone asking me [because of my Albion jacket], ‘Hey, how’s coach Turner doing?’” May said.
Turner was even recently flown down to Little Rock, Ark. to introduce University of Arkansas head coach Stan Heath—a former Albion assistant coach—as the Boys and Girls Club of Arkansas’ Man of the Year.
“There are just tons and tons of people out there who know coach Turner at all levels, and that’s just a neat thing,” May said.
Balancing act
In addition to caring deeply for his players, Turner’s ability to mix the serious and the comical keeps his players loose and makes the whole Albion experience what he believes it should be—fun.
“I want them to enjoy being here, and there are some days that are probably less enjoyable than other days… but we throw some things in there just to keep them loose so that they don’t think that everything is too hard for them or too tough all the time,” Turner said.
“It’s hard playing for somebody who’s constantly serious all the time,” Thomas said. “Coach Turner kind of brings that extra energy.”
Players will even occasionally crack jokes about Turner’s lack of hair, which he takes in stride.
But a coach doesn’t win 450 games by joking around all the time, no matter how good his jokes are.
“He does a really good job of reading situations,” DePree said. “Of knowing when to be serious and when to joke around.”
Turner uses acronyms and groups of words beginning with the same letter to get his main points across to his players. He stresses the four E’s: effort, enthusiasm, excitement and energy. He writes acronyms on the white board before games such as TCOB (take care of the ball).
But the two things Turner has stressed to his players since his first season in 1974-75 are defense and rebounding, the two things he believes can be done well with one of the four E’s: effort.
“Great effort can really help you play very, very sound defense, and great effort can really help you rebound well, so those two things we think we can control every game,” Turner said.
Sure enough, the day after he stressed rebounding in practice, Albion outrebounded Marygrove 58-26 and the next night they outrebounded a feisty Ohio Wesleyan team, 34-27.
According to May, much of Turner’s success has to be attributed to recruiting the right kinds of players. Turner and May now recruit year-round, making endless phone calls and visits, attending hundreds of high school basketball games and, ultimately, getting well-rounded student-athletes to attend Albion.
“I think coach Turner does a good job of finding guys who want the big picture,” May said. “They want to do well in basketball, but they also want to do well in lots of other things in life, and when you have guys like that they’re pretty motivated and they want to do well.”
That’s why Turner doesn’t have to be the strict disciplinarian many college coaches are today. He knows how much his players want to win and trusts them with responsibility. He lets them make up certain rules and decide which jerseys and shoes they should wear, because he doesn’t make himself a superior to the team. “It’s an us situation,” Turner said.
“He’ll come in last in everything and he’ll never talk the team up or anything,” DePree said.
According to Thomas, “He puts a lot of trust in me and Travis in getting the team together and getting them going, because the team basically feeds off us.”
The right way
Who knows if Turner or Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown adopted the strategy first, but May said that Turner likes to do things “the right way.” At this level that means not taking any shortcuts to win and getting the amazing graduation rate out of his players that Turner has gotten.
“Little things like that go a long way,” May said.
Not only does Turner send his players off with dozens of pleasant basketball memories, he also sends them off with an always-important college degree.
May has aspirations of becoming a head coach in the near future, and he will look to emulate Turner if that opportunity arises.
“I just want to take his strengths, and hopefully I can be as good at them as he is,” May said.
Turner would love to end his coaching career where it started. He is happily settled with his wife, Peg, a teacher in the Albion public schools, and since he graduated, with the exception of one year spent in Arizona as a graduate assistant, Albion has been his home.
“I don’t see myself going anyplace else,” Turner said. “This is the place I’ve been and the place I’d love to finish.”
And that’s not because Turner is nearing the 500-win milestone. That’s “not a thing” to him. For Turner it’s always been about positively affecting others. Just ask the alumni who travel hundreds of miles back to Albion for a two-hour basketball game.
