Enfield introduced as new SMU basketball coach

The wait finally ended on Tuesday as Andy Enfield was officially introduced as the new SMU men’s basketball coach.

Enfield emerged as a leading candidate early on in the hiring process and reports came out on Wednesday that he was heading to lead the Mustangs. But it didn’t become official until Monday when SMU made the announcement before Tuesday’s introduction.

“I know we’ve only been here a day and a half, our family loves it and so thank you very much,” Enfield said. “I am honored to be here to be the next basketball coach at SMU. I have a great job. I get to work with student athletes, I see a few here, some of the players. I met with them today individually. And I’m here because of you. I’m here because of all the former players we’ve coached, the student athletes at the previous stops I’ve been in my coaching career. And that’s our job every day to wake up and try to motivate, mentor, coach, make them better players.”

Enfield comes to SMU following 11 seasons at USC where he led the Trojans to five NCAA tournaments and took Florida Gulf Coast to the Sweet 16 in one of his two seasons there.

While Enfield enjoyed his time at USC, there were too many things that drew him to SMU pass up the opportunity.

“We were very happy at USC, had a lot of great teams and great players,” Enfield said. “It’s always very difficult to leave. That’s the hardest part in our business, to leave. But 11 years and we had a great run, sustained the success. And my personal belief is hey, let’s go do it one more time. Let’s go try to do this one more time as a head coach, as a family, hire a great staff, develop these players and try to do it one more time in a place that wants to be great.

“And that’s what we kept hearing from the gentleman behind me, is SMU is ready to go to the next level, go to a power conference and they want to be great. What we’ve done academically and athletically, I think really fits this university and we’re so excited to be here.”

While Enfield was the main target of this search from the start, SMU and Board of Trustees president David Miller’s interest in him goes back even further.

“Ed Wilson, who invited me to play golf at Bel Air Country Club several years ago, and I sat in a golf cart with this guy (Enfield) for four hours,” Miller recalled. “And I vividly recall, we had just launched our power conference initiative. And I vividly remember thinking, ‘OK, if we could get that done, we’ve got to go after him.’ And so here we are.”

SMU athletic director Rick Hart, Miller and SMU president R. Gerald Turner went to Los Angeles over a week ago to meet with Enfield. It was a visit that impressed both parties.

“We were extremely delighted to have the opportunity to visit with him and get more of information about their family and obviously we wanted to make sure that they would feel good about coming to Dallas,” Turner said. “Because from the very beginning, from the very beginning of our change here, of the move that we were making, Andy Enfield was the guy that we wanted. It was just a matter of time to work a number of things out and also to convince them that that needed to happen.”

As for what impressed Enfield, a different search Turner made. One of Enfield’s two daughters plays beach volleyball.

“President Turner immediately got on his phone and started looking up high schools to see what beach programs and what club teams (were in Dallas),” Enfield said. “And I said, “President Turner you don’t need to do that right now. We can worry about (that later),’ and he spent 10 minutes trying to find, pulling up different high schools and private schools, public schools beach programs and that was really cool because that meant he cared and we’ll find some sand around here somewhere.”

That conversation also showed the goals and ideas of the SMU athletic department and Enfield were the same. As an added bonus, the Mustangs get a coach who has experience getting a team where they want to be.

“One of the exciting things one of the many exciting things about talking to Andy about this opportunity is he shares the high expectations we have for our program,” Hart said. “He embraces that and not only does he share it and embrace it, but as David alluded to, he’s done it and he’s done it at a school like ours in a city like ours. And then a conference like the one we’re headed to. And so we’re really excited about about that and this opportunity ahead of us as we move into the ACC.”

SMU’s move to the ACC has already opened plenty of doors. It might be what pushed this job over the edge for Enfield to take it.

“The ACC, wow. That’s that’s what drew me to this job,” Enfield said. “I grew up at an ACC fan in Pennsylvania, southern Pennsylvania close to the Maryland border in Shippensburg, PA. I grew up dreaming about playing in the ACC. Wasn’t quite good enough to play in the ACC. And then when I got into coaching I said ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be great to be an assistant coach in the ACC.’ I started my career in the NBA as an assistant coach with a few teams and had the opportunity to go with Leonard Hamilton of Florida State to be an assistant coach in the ACC for five years.

“Wow. And then then when I became a head coach at Florida Gulf Coast University, so my dream would be one day to be a head coach in the ACC. Now I’m here. So this is a dream come true for me to be at a premier university as SMU, to go to a premier basketball conference in the nation. What a dream.”