I have a couple memories of Coach Tarrant. Back in the early 80's, he would come around to the men's dormitories and have a face-to-face "season preview" in the dorm lounges. He would talk about the newcomers on the team, who was doing well, what he felt the prospects were for the season, Q&A, etc. I though it was great, he was engaging everyone at a very personal level, and I think a good number of students would go to the games who might not have if he hadn't made those appearances.
I was also friends with a few guys on the team at that time (Jeff Pehl, Bill Flye, Kelvin Johnson, Dave Phillips). They would regale me with tales of ball-busting practices, getting the "Marine DI" treatment when they did something wrong, and how if you were thin-skinned and/or couldn't take criticism (i.e. serious verbal abuse), you wouldn't last a New Jersey minute in the gym with Coach Tarrant. I heard more than a few times that he really earned his first name.
But at the end of the day, I think any one of his players would jump off a cliff for Coach Tarrant, and I think that his brand of discipline and his demands for perfection from his players are what made him and his teams special. Most importantly, his players believed that if they could survive his practices, and execute to the level that Tarrant expected, they could go out on the court and play with any team in the country.
I'm really looking forward to seeing and hearing from him at halftime tonight. He single-handedly put University of Richmond on the national map, and we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to him.
