He has never lived outside the borders of his home state of Wisconsin. He grew up a short drive from Madison. But when he took his first job mentoring eighth graders for $700 a season, Greg Gard was about as far from the head coach's chair at the state's flagship university as someone with the same title in front of their name could be. In the years that followed, Gard steadily closed the distance to that seat on the Badgers' bench and, over the last three months, proved that he is the right man to occupy it. | From Varsity Magazine
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
Between commitments — an interview with an Athletic Board committee and the approval of his contract Monday by the Board of Regents — newly-minted Wisconsin basketball head coach Greg Gard passed some time with a friend, Paul Chryst, the second-year football head coach.
"I thought tomorrow (Tuesday) was the day," Chryst admitted sheepishly to Gard.
To be fair, Chryst could be excused for not knowing that the "interim" tag was about to be dropped from Gard's title late Monday afternoon since Chryst has been so deeply immersed in preparation for the opening of spring practice on Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium.
Chryst also was caught off guard by something that Gard brought up about their roots — in so many words, how a couple of guys from southwestern Wisconsin, Platteville and Cobb, 30 minutes apart, are now holding down the top positions in the two highest-profile sports at the state university.
"I didn't think of it until he said something," Chryst conceded. "It's pretty cool, though."
Both are loyal Cheeseheads and seemingly perfect fits for their respective programs.
"I know I can speak for Paul on this — the appreciation that we feel as we go around the state," Gard said, "because they (the fans) look at us as one of them and we look at them as a part of us. That makes these positions extra special when you know you're doing it for the people in your home state."
They're doing it, too, in a similar fashion — with humility and attention to detail.
"I'd like to think that there are some similarities," Chryst said. "From what I know of Greg, I think the things that drive him are the players and doing it the right way. We're lucky that way (being Wisconsin natives). He sure knows this state and program. You talk about hitting it running ...."
There's another thread between Chryst, 50, and Gard, 45, and it goes beyond the fact that Gard's wife, Michelle was a freshman at Platteville High School when Chryst was a senior and the starting quarterback. "I remember watching him play when I was in grade school," Greg Gard zinged.
The thread is their late fathers. Glen Gard lost his battle with a form of brain cancer (Glioblastoma Multiforme) last October. He was 72. "Paul helped me through that with some advice," Gard said of Chryst who lost his dad, George, then the UW-Platteville football coach, in 1992. He was 55.
"It's surreal how the journey has been for both of us," Gard said. "We have a pretty special bond — understanding the road that we've taken. His resume has a lot more stops on it than mine — (he breaks into laughter) — but football coaches operate at a little different beat in changing jobs."
When the UW basketball job was posted in late February, Gard went back and refreshed his resume. "I've actually had it together for awhile," said Gard. "I just needed to update it and put the interim head coaching piece to it. That was something new.
"And with everything that this team has been able to accomplish this year it helps from that standpoint. The players are the ones who have really put me in this position and provided me with this opportunity to keep going forward."
Gard took the time to glance over the team records. He couldn't get over all the winning seasons that he shared with his mentor Bo Ryan at Platteville and Wisconsin over the last 23 years and the string of top-four finishes in the Big Ten that has now been extended to 15 consecutive seasons.
"It's just the consistency," Gard marveled. "You never as a coach take the time to sit back and revel in what has been accomplished, but we probably should. Coaches are guilty of so quickly moving on to the next — not dwelling on the losses or appreciating the wins.
"Winning is hard and winning consistently is even harder. We never really afford ourselves that opportunity to sit back and reflect. Maybe people do it when they retire, I don't know. But I catch myself walking on the floor sometimes and wanting to stop and look around and soak it all in."
Before making the way to his weekly radio show Monday night, Gard met with his players at the Kohl Center and informed them that his contract had been approved and he was no longer an interim coach.
"They were very happy," said UW assistant Lamont Paris. "This is something they've seen on the horizon for awhile. It's something they've wanted — I know it's something they've wanted."
No more gray area.
"Kids are resilient. But they also like to know what's going on," said assistant Gary Close. "There's no question anymore. I know they feel a lot better about it and the future."
The players reacted spontaneously to the good news.
"They all hugged him," said assistant Howard Moore, "and he was gracious as he could be letting them all know that this was because of them. The sentiment goes both ways as far as how they feel. They're not going to let that man down and he's going to give them all he can as head coach."
Paris, Close and Moore all attended the radio show, along with the entire basketball office staff.
"You can definitely see that he's ready," Moore said. "He has been poised and really skilled in his position from the Green Bay game on. You've seen that he has really prepared for this opportunity and it doesn't surprise me that he has handled it so well. He has put his time in and paid his dues."
Nobody knows that more than Close, a consummate professional, who has assisted former Iowa and Stanford head coach Tom Davis and Ryan.
"He (Gard) is very intelligent and knows this game very well," Close said. "He can connect with people, and that's what you have got to do. You've got to get people to believe in you and you've got to get them to play for you. If you do, they'll play hard and they'll have your back.
"It didn't take very long to get this group a little tighter and a little bit more cohesive. And that's how you win some of that games that we were losing. It's a very fine line between winning and losing. If you've got guys who believe in you, it helps you; it doesn't guarantee anything, but it helps."
Gard and Chryst have that in common. They get their players to buy in.
It's something that Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez has always preached.
"We've talked more coach to coach than we ever have coach to administrator," Gard noted of his relationship with Alvarez, a Hall of Fame football coach. "He said from Day One, 'Go grab the bull by the horns and do your thing. Go coach your team. Don't worry about any of the other things, the outside nonsense, none of that stuff means anything. Be yourself. Coach your team. And you'll be fine.'"
Gard has gotten that advice from other coaches, including Michigan State's Tom Izzo.
"He (Izzo) told me the same thing, 'Go coach your team,'" Gard related. "Even with Matt (Painter, the Purdue head coach), it was not recently, but in years gone by, I asked him, 'What was it like to replace Gene Keady?' And he said, 'Embrace it and be yourself.'
"That's what I've tried to do — not change who I am."
"You never as a coach take the time to sit back and revel in what has been accomplished, but we probably should," Gard said. "Winning is hard and winning consistently is even harder."
Michelle Gard can vouch for that. Her husband hasn't changed.
"He's a good person, he's genuine; what you see is what you get, there's no hidden agendas," she said. "He's strong in the sense of calm, strong mentally, emotionally. The other thing about Greg is that he really learns about people. He cares about people so he's always finding a way to understand kids and adults. He has a high care factor."
Recounting how they first met, she said she was living in Milwaukee and returned to Platteville to visit her mom. On a night out, she bumped into Greg at a local establishment. The icebreaker was her brother, Kevin Roddick, who played for Bo Ryan; he was a senior when Gard joined the staff.
They dated four years and got married in 2000.
"There was already a drive there that you really can't deny as far as the track that you'd think he would be on," she said. "Did we ever think it would be on this level? Not in a thousand years. I think it was more of an ambition than a dream."
Her ambition matched his. She got her undergraduate and master's degrees from UW-Eau Claire and her second master's in educational administration from Marian University in Fond du Lac. "He married a pretty independent person," she said. "I had things I've wanted to accomplish in my life as well."
There were understandable sacrifices along the way.
"She has been the one who has given up her career a few times for us to move," Greg Gard said.
Michelle Gard, an elementary school principal, has never looked at it that way.
"I've never looked at it as sacrifice because I've always been very employable," she said. "Anytime I've wanted to work, I always had an opportunity for a new challenge. Right from the beginning, it has always been a balance of conversations that we've had.
"Where are we headed? And why?"
Last spring, Michelle Gard took a leave of absence from her job in Oregon. It was out of consideration for the kids: Mackenzie, 14, a high school freshman; Isaac, 12, a seventh grader; and Peyton, 7, a second grader. Michelle and Greg were so busy it seemed nobody was ever at home.
Mackenzie, in particular, needed attention after falling and suffering head trauma in December of 2014. She was hospitalized for over two weeks and underwent different therapies. She's still dealing with some repercussions from the fall.
"We looked at each other and realized something has to give — we weren't functioning well as a family," said Michelle. "Right after that, we found out about Glen's diagnosis."
Glen Gard was diagnosed with brain cancer last May.
"There's no way I'm in this position without her," Greg Gard said of Michelle. "I could not have survived the last year. You talk about the highest of highs winning a Big Ten championship and coming off a Final Four and the lowest of lows going through my dad's situations for six months.
"The last year has been best year of our lives and also the worst year of our lives. But she has been by my side, step by step; she has been phenomenal in terms of support from the day we got the news about my dad through the whole journey with him and with our kids. I'm a lucky guy."
Greg Gard's profile has never been higher.
Michelle Gard is making sure it doesn't affect the status quo at home.
"One of our goals has been to keep our kids even-keeled and humble and as normal as possible with all of this," she said. "Their dad is in the public eye, under the microscope on a national basis daily.
"I've had many conversations with them on how to avoid some social mediums and how, 'Your dad is always going to be your dad. Things have not changed.' If you walk into our house, it doesn't feel or look any different than it has been."
Michelle has read many of the same motivational books as Greg has and they've discussed how they would handle potential scenarios, including taking over his own program.
"I think he has been ready for this for a long time," she said. "But there has never been a time since I've known Greg that he has ever made a decision that hasn't considered myself or our kids."
Today, they know where they're headed and why.
"We're still living in the surreal part of it because everything is happening so fast," she confided. "I've said to him that we're going to step back from all of this a year from now and go, 'Wow, look at everything that we went through this past year.'
"But none of it has been a gift. He has worked hard for where he's at."
"I've said to him that we're going to step back from all of this a year from now and go, 'Wow, look at everything that we went through this past year,' Michelle said. "But none of it has been a gift. He has worked hard for where he's at."
Greg Gard was drawn into playing the "What if" game.
What if ...
Gard had followed through on his original intent of majoring in agricultural business at UW-Platteville?
"I might be selling tractors today," he said.
While at Iowa-Grant High School, he worked at Ritchie Implement in his hometown of Cobb.
"One of the largest Case IH dealers in the U.S.," he said proudly.
What if ...
Gard had switched his college major from ag business to what intrigued him, criminal justice?
"I might be working for the DNR today," he said.
For summer employment, Gard worked at Blackhawk Lake, a recreation area near Cobb and Highland. He started as an office attendant selling admission stickers and camp sites.
"Then, I got to be a park ranger," he said.
The certification program was sponsored by the Iowa County Sheriff's Department.
"I took classes with a group of guys on Wednesday nights for four hours at Southwest Tech in Fennimore," he said, "to be certified as a law officer."
Gard wore a badge and carried a gun.
"It wasn't like Barney Fife," he joked of the Don Knotts character from the old Andy Griffith television series that used to carry one bullet in his breast pocket. "The gun was loaded."
On weekends, Gard might work part-time for the sheriff's department or the Dodgeville police. "I'd pick up for guys who went on vacations, things like that," he said. "I'd go on ride-alongs."
There were still more questions about his future than answers.
"I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up," he acknowledged.
Upon being advised on the vagaries of law enforcement, he didn't switch to criminal justice.
Instead, he changed his major to physical and health education.
"I figured out pretty early," Gard said, "I was not going to be a person who could have an office job. Sitting behind a desk all day was not going to be something that was going to appeal to me."
What if ...
Gard hadn't been cut from the UW-Platteville baseball team during his sophomore year?
"I joke with (coach) Curt Fatzinger," he said, "he derailed my Major League baseball career."
Not really. By his own admission, Gard wasn't very good. He played second base and outfield.
"Mostly left out," he said. "I just appreciated the opportunity that he gave me to try out."
Seeking to fill that competitive void, Gard answered an ad in a weekly shopper. Southwestern High School was in the market for an eighth grade basketball coach.
"They even paid me to do it," said Gard, who made a little over $700. "Payable at the end, not installments. You had to finish the season before you got your check."
Besides helping Jim Nedelcoff, one of his first mentors, with the boys' varsity basketball team on the side, Gard also coached the junior varsity girls' softball team at the high school.
This was really in his wheelhouse because he had played a lot of fastpitch softball. Plus, it was another source of income. He was going to make another $800.
"It helped me pay for school, or part of it," he said.
What it did was pay dividends because Gard came in contact with Ryan and worked his summer camps. One thing led to another and another and another ... and a part-time job on Ryan's staff.
"Your never went into it with the idea that you were going to be a college coach," he said of his early steps in the profession. "You had no idea what it entailed, what the road was like to get there. I thought, 'Hey, one day, I'll be coaching at a high school, coaching and teaching.'
"As I got into it with Coach Ryan, I started to see what college basketball was about and then it started to materialize a little bit more and become clearer."
What if ...
Gard had left Ryan and UW-Platteville and taken the assistant's job at Wayne State in Nebraska?
"I'd probably be on the Creighton staff today," he said.
The Wayne State coach was Greg McDermott, who's now at Creighton.
"Michelle said, 'You're going to Wayne on your own,'" Gard recalled, laughing.
They were engaged back then.
Gard also turned down a graduate assistant position at North Dakota State.
In 1998, he got a full-time assistant offer from Sam Houston State, a Division I program.
"They looked at my resume and said, 'If you come down here, you've got the job,'" he remembered. "As fate would have it, I decided not to go and the coach got fired the next year."
Gard kidded that he would likely be working at a fast food chain in Texas today if he had gone.
"Really, who knows where I would have been," he said.
That same year, Ryan promoted Gard to a full-time position. A year later, they left together for UW-Milwaukee, a path that would lead them to Madison two years after that.
"Gut instincts," Gard said. "I've really made a lot of decisions that way. Some of it has been financial. Some of it has been personal. You can sit back and throws the pros and cons on paper, but it still boils down to what your gut tells you."
Money has never been an overriding issue.
"When I was at Platteville (High School)," he said, "I thought I had the best job in the world. I was making $2,000 a year and I had $100 in my checking account and I was coaching basketball and helping a team get better.
"Same thing at Southwestern, I remember telling my first team, 'If I can help you have half the experience I've had with this game, then you'll have an unbelievable experience.'"
Despite overtures from some mid-major programs, like Toledo and Green Bay, Gard felt like it was in his best interests — moreover, the family's best interest — to stick it out with the Badgers. He was compensated well, the family was happy and he got to learn every facet of the business under Ryan.
What a great ride, too, culminating with back-to-back Final Fours.
"I've never looked in the rearview mirror with regret, I never have," Gard said, "because I always knew in my heart that I was happy with where I was and with the decisions I made. And it has been more than just my decision. It also affects Michelle and it affects our three kids."
So many people have helped Gard get to this point. And he's grateful to all of them. Especially his mom, Connie; his late father, Glen; and his two brothers, Gary and Jeff, the UW-Platteville coach.
Wisconsin's hiring of Gard as its head coach was, in a way, their payback for believing in him.
"Things happen for a reason sometimes," he suggested.
Yet, there was a lot of work, a lot of sweat equity.
"It wasn't like it happened overnight," he said.
But all along, this felt like it was meant to be.
