'Men that are going to pour into the players': Michigan coach Dusty May discusses strategy with staff hires
New Michigan Wolverines basketball head coach Dusty May has his staff set, with five assistant coaches joining the fold in Mike Boynton Jr., Kyle Church, Justin Joyner, Akeem Miskdeen and Drew Williamson, though the athletic department has not formally announced their additions with a press release.
All five assistants can coach on the floor during practices, while only three will be able to recruit off campus. All of them, though, possess certain traits that May was looking for, as he explained on The L.A.B podcast with host Jake Butt, presented by the Champions Circle collective.
“First and foremost, likability,” the Michigan coach began. “And within that is a great teammate. Competency, as far as teaching the game of basketball. As I’ve gotten into the profession — and I’ve only been a head coach six years, so I’m not acting like I’m a veteran coach — every year I’ve understood and realized how important it is to be able to teach the game, to teach life skills. So I try to improve every year as a teacher, so the staff has to be great communicators, they have to be great teachers.
“They have to be men that are going to pour into the players and it’s not a job where they go home and leave it behind. And the staff is not going to be 20-hour-day guys, but we’re going to be consumed with helping our players 24/7, 365.”
May brought over staff members from his time at Florida Atlantic, including Church and Williamson. Miskdeen, too, was with May in Boca Raton from 2018-21 before moving on to coach under Mike White at Georgia the last three seasons.
“And now building this staff, it’s a lot different than the staff that we built at FAU, because at that point, we had a low budget, we had an area that’s tough to raise a family in if you don’t have great finances,” the Michigan coach explained. “So it was young, hungry guys that weren’t proven, but yet they were hungry to get after it. They didn’t have families, so they didn’t have the outside stress, because it was a tough situation.
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“Here, I’m trying to fill in my gaps, my holes, because I have to use my time differently now than I did at FAU. I was much more just a coach and a recruiter there. This job, I have to wear different hats and I have to use my time, obviously, wise — but I have to use it in different ways.”
May went on to say that bringing in individuals to Michigan who have worked with him in the past and know his expectations and style is important.
“I did feel like I needed to have a few coaches with institutional knowledge of what’s important to me, how I work,” May said. And so that way I’m not having to teach a staff and players the basics and the most important things to me.
“Those, I think, are going to be key, because I’m going to have less of a voice now than I did at FAU. I’m going to share a lot more responsibility. But luckily, we have such talented people around us here and so many resources that it’s easier to share when you have high-level, professional people around you.”
