In this week's conversation we speak with, quite likely, our only guest whose name adorns a college arena, Garth Pleasant. Garth has been a member of the faculty at Rochester (MI) University for 51 years, spent 38 years as the program's head basketball coach, and now - against his wishes - has an arena bearing his name. During his coaching career he amassed 772 wins without a home gym, is a member of five different halls of fame, and was named the national small college coach of the year four times. Also an ordained minister, Garth served the Lake Orion Church of Christ as its pulpit minister for 30 years.
He took us to church, school, and practice during our hour together and left listeners of younger athletes with some salient advice, noting the first (and really, only) five words an adult should utter to a child following a competition are: "I enjoy watching you play."
Garth also had plenty of stories to share and along the way we learn of how he went from the 'C' Team at Ainsworth HS to the varsity in the same season, the importance of Historically Black Colleges & Universities, his general disdain for the Southeastern Conference, how the 1969 UM-OSU football game turned him into a Michigan (and Bo Schembechler) fan, his thoughts about the impact of money in college athletics, and how one of his former bench warmers, John Horst, went onto be the GM of the 2021 NBA World Champion Milwaukee Bucks. Oh yeah, he also casually drops a lot of names of coaching peers, many of whom he has a deep reverence for. We list as many of the names as we can below.
