Juwan Howard explains how being away from team impacted his view on life, coaching

Juwan Howard returned to the Michigan bench as the head coach of the Wolverines following his recovery from heart surgery. This summer and leading up to that moment, Howard had a lot of time to reflect.

A lot has happened since then. The Wolverines are just 6-5 following a win over Eastern Michigan and Howard is under investigation for an alleged altercation at practice.

“Well being away, I got a chance to reflect on it late at night,” Howard said. “I’m awake and I’m listening to the heart monitor … Now, it’s taken me some time to get back to sleep. But one of the things I think about is basketball never leaves my mind. I’ve always wondered like, Okay, well how can you have the growth mindset? What are some of the most important things that your team needs to help grow? 

“How can you challenge the staff like, what are some of the things that as a staff, how can we be the best version of ourselves for them? And those are the thoughts that I have, but then also, there are thoughts that I had in my mind like, Okay, if I want to continue this journey of basketball, I put my health first and I took my time during the process.”

Having heart surgery really put everything into perspective for Howard on and off the court. He really processed all of his emotions.

“I’m not one to be really scared,” Howard said. “I had no idea what I was truly facing … but to hear like, you know, open heart surgery. I was like, Okay, well bring it on. There’s another situation I’ve dealt with, you know what? I can’t run from it.

“So this is what it is. And that’s the athlete mentality that I have. Not knowing that surgery. I had never had serious surgery before. playing in the NBA or playing in college with the three broken noses. But to have open heart surgery, that surgery was over. I was like, Whoa, I felt like I got hit by a Mack truck. And it took some time.” 

Howard knew that he had to take a different approach, but you weren’t going to remove the athlete or coach out of him.

“I’m going to, of course, put my head down and be in a puddle and just feel sorry for myself or I’m gonna toughen up, roll up my sleeves and say you know what, there is no time,” Howard said. “Let’s figure out how to get out there.”