Quote:Hamilton Gaining Ground
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By DOUG CARLSON
Tampa Tribune
Published: Oct 26, 2005

Leonard Hamilton glanced around as he sat down Sunday afternoon at "Operation Basketball," the Atlantic Coast Conference's annual preseason gathering of coaches and media in Greensboro, N.C.

The event is a big deal along Tobacco Road, where football season is nearly forgotten this time of year when area newspapers and television stations begin cranking up their basketball coverage.

Florida State's fourth-year men's basketball coach found himself at a table with a handful of reporters, while Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, to his right, and North Carolina's Roy Williams, to his left, were surrounded by standing-room-only crowds.

Hamilton may never attract that sort of attention in his football-crazy home state, but he is starting to turn heads from people accustomed to ignoring the FSU basketball program with his success on the recruiting trail.

Particularly, ACC media wanted to know, how did Hamilton persuade prized forward Uche Echefu to sign with the Seminoles instead of with defending national champion North Carolina last spring?

And what does that coup say about his program?

"To be honest, I don't know what it says," Hamilton said. "From our standpoint, we worked very hard, we believe we have a very good product to sell, we think we're in an excellent conference and our track record says more than likely, if we stay the course, we can get this thing turned around."

Getting recruits to pay attention is far more important for Hamilton, and the Seminoles, at this point than getting more media exposure, though they wouldn't mind more of both.

Hamilton has seen how the process works at blue-blood programs like Kentucky, where he was an assistant for 12 years, and at places like Oklahoma State and Miami, where he built his reputation for building programs.

"What I've found is some youngsters like being a part of making a difference," he said. "Some youngsters like going places where it's already been accomplished and just to be a part of the tradition, and some youngsters find it very appealing to want to go in and be an agent for change, to be a part of making a difference."

Krzyzewski said he remembers the difficulty he had selling kids on going to Army when he was the head coach for five seasons before leaving for Duke in 1981. He echoed Hamilton's comment about knocking on a lot of doors.

"It was like I was running for alderman," Krzyzewski said. " 'Hi, is there anybody here who wants to play basketball at Army?' ... Half of the kids who turned us down didn't even go to school."

Hamilton's task at FSU isn't quite that difficult. And it will get easier when he begins to have some success on the court to reflect the progress he's made with recruits.

Two years ago, he talked guards Jason Rich and Isaiah Swann into signing with the Seminoles instead of Kentucky, UConn, Arizona or Kansas. Last spring, it was Echefu.

Before long, Hamilton won't be eyeing other coaches in the room. He'll have them looking his way, too.

"This is how we've built programs in the past," Hamilton said. "We find kids who are motivated by this type of situation.

"I think the kids that we have on our team, not only Uche, but the rest of them, are excited about that scenario."