University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heel Monthly: A Long Voyage
January 7, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 7, 2002
Tar Heel Monthly is a new monthly publication devoted to the stories and personalities behind UNC sports. For more information, visit www.tarheelmonthly.com.
The following is excerpted from the most recent issue of the magazine.
By Dave DeWitt
Doug Wojcik spent many a night on the deck of the W.S. Sims, a Knox-class frigate patrolling the Caribbean and South Atlantic Oceans, contemplating the coaching career ahead of him. But never, under those starry skies many years ago, did he believe it would lead him to Chapel Hill.
Determination has brought about many of the successes in Wojcik's life, and it had a hand in his becoming Matt Doherty's first choice as an assistant coach when the latter assumed the head coaching position at Notre Dame in 1999. Doherty had known Wojcik for almost ten years at that point, having battled him for recruits when he was at Davidson and Wojcik was an assistant at the Naval Academy. When Notre Dame tabbed him, Doherty didn't have to think twice about his first hire. "He's the hardest worker I'd ever seen in summer recruiting," said Doherty, adding with a smile, "Oh, we'd beat him for every recruit he ever tried to get, no question. So I felt sorry for him."
A tireless work ethic and a love of sports were traits Wojcik learned, in part, from his father Fred, a three-sport star at Wheeling Central Catholic High School in the 1950's. Thirty years later, Fred's son Doug would follow in his footsteps, playing quarterback, point guard, and pitching at Central Catholic. "Football was the major sport then," Wojcik remembers. "Basketball was just what you played at Central Catholic after football season was over." Until, that is, the arrival of a new coach: Skip Prosser.
Prosser, who would later go on to become the head coach at Xavier and Wake Forest, became the basketball coach at WCC prior to Wojcik's freshman year and put an emphasis on the sport like no coach prior. "His devotion to the sport and to his players was infectious," says Wojcik. "He would open the gym at any hour - even during the summer - as well as drive us to summer camps at Notre Dame or Five-Star." The results of Prosser's influence meant that Wojcik soon had a new favorite sport.
Wojcik would cap his high school hoops career with a 25-2 record and a state championship as a senior, but at six-feet tall and possessing more desire than natural ability, the Division I schools stayed away. "I had some interest from small, local colleges," he recalls. "A friend of mine, Mike Sonnefeld, would return home from Annapolis wearing their dress uniforms." Wojcik began casual conversations with Sonnefeld and began to think more seriously about the Academy as his senior year progressed. The more he thought about it, the better it looked to him: a free education at a top school and the chance to play ball. His parents overwhelmingly approved. Prosser was himself a graduate of a service academy - the Merchant Marine Academy in King's Point - and Wojcik would become the first and only player he sent to Division I while at Central Catholic.
Wojcik suffered through a year at the Navy Prep School in Newport, Rhode Island, adjusting to the rigors and regimented lifestyle. After some rough times, Wojcik's own dedication to excel meshed well with the military academy's demands, and he thrived. He was chosen the captain of the Prep School team and led them to an undefeated season, playing a number of the other prep school teams in New England as well as some college junior varsity teams.
But it was during his four seasons in Annapolis that the incredible happened. Paul Evans was putting together a program that would have a magical run - the kind of basketball success never before experienced before or since at a service Academy. The major reason was a skinny, 6-7, 185-pound classmate of Wojcik's who possessed incredibly large feet and long arms. His name was David Robinson. Over the course of their four years together, Robinson and Wojcik (along with other great players like Vernon Butler and Kyle Whittaker) would lead the Midshipmen to the top of the college basketball world.
After a year on the junior varsity, Wojcik started the next three seasons. His sophomore year the Middies went 26-6, beat Richmond in the finals of the ECAC South Tournament and beat LSU by 23 points in the first round of the NCAAs at Dayton, Ohio. With the confidence that comes from playing and beating the best, the Middies went on a tear during Wojcik's junior season, winning 30 games for the first time in school history. After capturing the inaugural Colonial Conference Tournament (following which Robinson gave his MVP trophy to Wojcik for his unselfish play) Navy made a run in the NCAA Tournament, defeating Tulsa, Syracuse, and Cleveland State to reach the Elite Eight. Duke ended the dream in the NCAA East Regional final, but no non-scholarship team had gone so far since Penn reached the Final Four in 1979.
But the Middies had lost Butler and Whittaker and were not nearly as deep or talented in Wojcik's senior season. Fans all over the country - so many of whom had fathers or brothers or other relatives who had been in the Navy - pulled for the Middies wherever they went. Robinson, now close to seven-feet tall, faced double and triple-teams inside. The entire team, other than the Admiral, was made up of step-slow battlers that no other Division I team had wanted. The dream run came to a close for Wojcik and Robinson in the first-round of the NCAA Tournament against Michigan when the two combined for 51 points - with Robinson getting 50. Wojcik still holds Navy records for assists in a game (14), season (251), and career (714).
With his playing career over, Wojcik was uncertain about his future. A three-year commitment to the Navy loomed, which he began in May as a graduate assistant basketball coach. That appointment lasted six months before he was shipped to Surface Warfare School in Newport, Rhode Island. In April, 1988, Wojcik reported to the USS W.S. Sims as the First Operational Lieutenant in charge of various ship duties such as anchoring, mooring, and overall appearance.
Days on the ship passed slowly for Wojcik, who found himself with plenty of time to consider his future as the ship sailed around the Caribbean and South American seas. Thinking back to the success he'd had as a player and still influenced by Prosser, Wojcik began to think about college coaching. After two years onboard the W.S. Sims he was due to be rotated to shore duty. He lobbied hard for a return to the Academy as a PE instructor and coach and was granted the position in April, 1990.
He immediately was sent on the road recruiting by then-coach Pete Herrmann. The Naval Academy spends a lot of its resources in attracting recruits of all types, whether they can play basketball or not. Wojcik traveled all over the midwest and west, looking for athletic, slightly-undersized players who were smart enough to handle the academic rigor and disciplined enough to handle the Academy.
It was about that time he ran into Doherty (then an assistant at Davidson) during a summer camp in Cincinnati. The two quickly struck up a friendship based on similarities in their backgrounds: both were the product of tight families and Catholic schools, both believed in hard work, and both faced the difficult challenge of recruiting top-flight student-athletes. A friendship developed and, over their annual dinner with their wives at the Final Four, Wojcik never falied to remind his colleague that the all-time series record between Navy and UNC was 14-6, in favor of the Cadets.
Don DeVoe replaced Herrmann, and Navy's basketball program - thanks in large part to Wojcik's efforts - rose back to mid-major prominence in the Patriot League. "I'd get a call from him in the spring and he'd be going from Kentucky to Ohio to Michigan to Minnesota to make home visits and he'd make two or three home visits in a day sometimes," recalls Doherty. "It was incredible the organizational skills and the work ethic that took. And, the realization that you might get 1 out of 100 of those players."
But after nine seasons, Wojcik knew he needed to move on if his career goal of becoming a head coach was to become a reality. And then an old friend called. Would he be interested in coaching at Notre Dame? Despite his history and love for Annapolis, it was an easy choice. Less than twelve months later, while working on his lawn in South Bend, he got another call from Doherty, this one had come from Chapel Hill. A whirlwind five days ensued, and before he knew it, he and his colleagues - Fred Quartlebaum, Bob McKinnon, and David Cason - were being introduced as the new coaching staff at North Carolina.
"I never thought I'd end up at Carolina," says Wojcik, whose tireless recruiting efforts continue, and have paid off with two nationally-ranked classes. "It's a tremendous University with a rich history in basketball. I can't think of any better place to be."
And it's a long way from the South Atlantic.
