Rodney Terry describes how getting Texas job is a full-circle moment for him, his family

It wasn’t even a year ago when Texas head coach Rodney Terry lost his father. However, at that time, last August, he was entering year two on the bench as a Longhorn assistant and couldn’t have imagined he’d be the head coach of a major power conference program within a couple months.

Though he didn’t get to see Rodney step into the role, it was a position that his father was always convinced that he would get. At a recent press conference as part of Terry’s first offseason as official head coach, he told a story about how his dad and mom used to ask him about every job opening in the country — even Villanova.

So read below for a heartfelt story from Coach Rodney Terry on his late father and the unwavering and, at times, over-optimistic support he had for his son’s coaching career.

“He always had these notifications, he and my mom both. Mom, I’m going to tell you on you a little bit. They both would have the notifications anytime something comes up from ESPN, they have the ESPN notifications pop up. And we’re having a birthday dinner last night in my house and as we’re finishing our dinner, we had a notification pop up and my mom’s like… ‘You’re on the notification! You’re on the notification!’

“So, you know, again, it was really putting everything in perspective. And I know at that moment we talked about my dad again and he always saw me in a whole different light than I saw myself, and I think I made a reference to last year, when Jay Wright retired at Villanova and he was like… ‘you should go get that Villanova job, you’re the perfect guy for it.’

“But no, he would be beaming down right now and have so much so much pride right now in terms of what’s happening, but yeah, we have those notifications, so I always get those and he would always text me ‘what about this job what about that job’ and I said ‘I have to live where my feet are right now. I have to do this job. This is the best job I have right now.'”

That’s pretty neat stuff. Where Rodney Terry’s father is, he has to be more than proud of his son for seizing such an awesome opportunity in Austin. Year two (or , actually, year one) of the Terry tenure should be a hoot for the Longhorns.