No Pilots basketball coach has ever taken another coaching position after leaving The Bluff. Until Thursday. Following a week of rumors, background checks and contractual paperwork, Georgia Tech head coach Josh Pastner officially added Eric Reveno to his staff as an assistant Thursday morning.
Reveno knew he was facing an uphill battle when he left UP, and he had to weigh his motivations for trying to coach again.
“When I left I had to ask myself, ‘Am I just trying to continue coaching to be that guy?’ But after having that little time to take, I realized that wasn’t the reason or my motive for wanting to stay in it.”
Staying in it by going from head coach to an assistant could be seen as a step backwards, but Reveno will be stepping into a higher-profile conference. Reveno jumps from the WCC, a league of mid-majors, into the ACC, which he describes as possibly the best basketball conference in the country. Georgia Tech will look to improve on a 21-15 (8-10 in the ACC) season under Pastner, who was hired away from Memphis in April to replace the fired Brian Gregory.
Reveno said he feels like Georgia Tech’s core values are in line with the academic and on-court excellence that he preached at Portland.
“(In) both places, I think the reality is you want someone who wants to take advantage of both (academics and basketball). I’ve always worked in schools like that. I imagine I always will. (Players) want an education. They want to be the best basketball player they can be. Everyone on GT is dreaming of being in the pros...maybe at a higher level but all the same dream.”
This isn’t Reveno’s first assistant coaching gig. He coached at Stanford, his Alma Mater, from 1997 to 2006 before his ten-year stint with Portland. Reveno said his experience as a head coach, sandwiched between assistant coaching positions, will make him a better assistant.
“I get what it’s like to make those tough decision and juggle all these things that people just don’t understand,” he said. “My job is to help the program be successful and on a day-to-day basis my job is to make the head coach’s job easier. I know what I was looking for in that at UP and now I’m trying to be that way myself and be the great assistant coach.”
The ball started rolling quickly. After a trip to campus last week, Reveno will leave for Atlanta on Friday and sublet an apartment. His wife and two children will join him shortly.
Contact Editor-in-Chief Malika Andrews at andrewsm17@up.edu or on Twitter @malika_andrews.
