Lucas: Born To Coach

By Adam Lucas

Maybe Sean May was always a coach.

After all, it was May who gathered his freshman teammates around him in the waning moments of his first game at Carolina. The Tar Heels were walloping Penn State, an appreciative Smith Center crowd was roaring, and May wanted his classmates to enjoy it.

"Look around," May told them, gesturing into the stands. "This is what we came here for."

A little less than 20 years later, it'll be May on the bench for those same Tar Heels. It's almost impossible to remember this now, but May—part of a deep Indiana legacy and the subject of a heated recruited battle as a prep star—was once considered a long shot for Carolina. Now, as he puts it, "Since I stepped on campus, I haven't left."

That's not exactly accurate, of course. An NBA lottery pick, May had a substantial NBA career and played four more years overseas. That gives him the type of real world basketball experience that will be invaluable to the players eager to learn from him.

In recent years, Carolina big men have talked often of the value in talking basketball with May, who couldn't coach on the court due to NCAA rules associated with his staff position. Now that he can be part of the coaching staff, Tar Heel big men should benefit from both his vast knowledge of the game and his first-hand experience playing at the highest levels.

"He wasn't always the most athletic or the quickest player on the court," says Armando Bacot. "He had to use his mind. So he always knows how to tell us to get in the best position and the easiest position to score or defend."

And that's exactly what has made May such a quick study in the coaching world. Even as a player, he regularly took home game tape (and in those days, as he lamented recently, it actually might have been tape). Sometimes, the very best players have trouble transitioning to coaching because they're accustomed to having physical abilities that their pupils simply don't have.

But May, the 2005 Final Four Most Outstanding Player whose regular season finale against Duke his junior season and entire final run that season was one of the most dominant stretches in the Roy Williams era, never solely overpowered opponents. He had physical gifts, of course, honed by his father, one of the best players in Indiana history. But he also understood even as a freshman how to think the game at a higher level.

"The thing I always try to explain to our kids is that our system is our system," he says. "How can you manipulate that system to fit your needs and get what you want out of it? I was a below the rim player, but I found ways to be effective. A lot of times it's understanding when things are happening and doing them before the ball gets to you—work early, as we always like to say. It's easy for me to speak to that."

Of course, it will also be interesting to see how—and if—the non-coaching May personality can stay the same in his coaching role. Bacot says the May he's gotten to know the last two years is, well, almost cool.

"He's very relatable," Bacot says. "He's fairly hip to all the things we like and enjoy, and he is like a big brother to all of us."

That may be the highest possible praise for a father of four girls, and it should translate very well to living rooms of the top players in the country.

"This place gave me a home when I was a little lost," May says of Carolina. "I can speak to how great this place is, how great the community is, and how great the Carolina basketball family is."

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