It seems like every year when the weather starts to get nice outside, the fans of the University of Dayton talk about two things: (1) who will we sign in the late signing period, and (2) who is going to swoop in and steal Assistant Coach Ron Jirsa from us. In all of the years that I have been following the Flyers and the men’s basketball team, the topic of assistant coaches rarely came up. That’s all changed in recent years since Oliver Purnell came to town. Purnell is one of a growing group of head coaches that rely heavily on their assistants for the everyday running of the program in addition to the all-important recruiting responsibility.

We all remember what happened the year after Pete Strickland left for Coastal Carolina. We went from playing in a post-season tournament for the first time since 1990 to finishing the season 11-17. Although there were a number of incidents and injuries, there also seemed to be a lack of fire and it’s quite possible that the team missed what Strickland brought to the bench. The next year brought Ron Jirsa and a trip to the NCAA tournament.

Jirsa had just been fired from his job as head coach at the University of Georgia. Following in the footsteps of someone like Tubby Smith is often very difficult as Jim O’Brien found here at UD by following Don Donoher. Despite winning 35 games and making two post-season trips with the Bulldogs, Jirsa was out of a job until the University of Dayton came calling. After Oliver Purnell received a call from Tubby Smith and spoke to Jirsa himself, we had a new Senior Assistant Coach.

Ron Jirsa grew up in a family that was very familiar with sports due to the fact that his father played minor league baseball until he suffered a career ending arm injury.

“I guess that’s where my athletic background is centered,” Jirsa says. “I have an older sister and a younger brother and we played all the sports in high school. I played baseball, basketball and football.” There was both a strong work ethic and love for sports in the family. “My dad started little league in our town. He built the fields, put up the backstops and raised the money so that my brother and I could play baseball. My brother played at Dickinson College. We saw a lot of the coaching and teamwork very early.”
Jirsa knew at an early age that he’d never make a living playing sports despite his almost rabid love for the competition. He was the kind of

ball player however that every coach loves to have: not a star, but willing to give it his all on every play in every game. As a football player, he played the entire game as either a quarterback or safety. As a basketball player, he describes himself as a rebounder and a loose-ball getter.

Jirsa reminisces, “When I got out of college I played in a men’s league and I got the hustle award. That kind of tells you the level of talent that I had.” I’m sure there was never a wall that he didn’t think that he could run through, whatever the sport.

Before that however, Ron attended Gettysburg College, a small Division III school that seemed to fit his abilities well.

“That was the right level for me because I was an inside player. Gettysburg was a good place for me to play. I had to work hard to make the team. I had a very good experience there.” After graduation in 1981, he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do with his life, but he did know one thing: he missed the thrill of competition. With that in mind, he applied for a job as an assistant coach at Connecticut College. It’s a rags to riches story in that the small-town boy gets a break and puts it to good use.

“My first real job after graduation was at Connecticut College, which is close to my parent’s home,” he says. “I could work there and still live at home. I only made $500 per year so I got a second job. That was really a big break for me. The only thing I have ever really done is coaching. I would deliver fruits and vegetables as my second job. Whenever I would deliver to the school, I would whip through there so no one would see me.”

It didn’t take long for Jirsa to begin his move up the coaching ranks but he never forgot what he learned at an early age. “If you are a guy that wants to be a coach you pay attention to what is going on with your coaches,” he says. “Those are the kinds of things that stick with you. My high school basketball coach, Chris McKean, really taught us to love basketball. He made practices tough. Those are the formative years for any player or coach.”

Jirsa has had the good fortune to work for a number of excellent coaches through the years and feels that he has been able to take something away from each of these experiences. Some you’ve heard of and some you haven’t.

“I had a number of different coaches in college that gave me very different experiences. I worked for some great coaches, J. D. Barnett who is a very tough disciplinarian. He taught me about how the different parts of basketball fit together. Tubby Smith is a coach’s coach. He bases everything that he does from growing up on the farm. Tubby always had time for people. To me, that is one of the things that makes him great. He’s a guy that keeps it simple. He has been able to keep it in perspective.”

It was through Smith’s guidance and help that assisted in Jirsa landing the Georgia head coaching position. He had worked under Smith while at Tulsa and moved with him to Georgia. In his four seasons at Tulsa, Smith turned around a program going nowhere and took them to consecutive Sweet-16 appearances in his last two seasons. With that success, Smith moved on to Georgia and took Jirsa with him as his Associate Head Coach. Smith spent two seasons at Georgia where Bulldogs went from a non-contender to a 45-19 record and the first back-to-back 20-win seasons in school history.

While at Georgia, Jirsa was able to show what he could do as a recruiter for a major university. Bringing in top five classes, the Bulldogs were able to reach heights that they never felt they could reach. When Smith moved on the Kentucky, Jirsa was the logical replacement. This was an unbelievable opportunity for Jirsa and he knew it. There are few coaches that have an SEC head coaching job as their first.

“I really didn’t have any apprentice years as a head coach,” Jirsa recalls. “My first game as a head coach was against NC State in Madison Square Garden. Your first thought is that I need to take advantage of this opportunity. In retrospect, any level of coaching, any league is difficult — it is all relative. The SEC was truly a challenge just to get yourself to that high level of coaches within the league.”

In his first season, he didn’t disappoint. Georgia again won 20 games and made a trip to the NIT. His second season was not quite as successful, but another postseason NIT trip was made. The UGA administration obviously felt that the NCAA Tournament was the only goal that would be acceptable for their program after decades of mediocrity and fired Jirsa after his second season. Due to the fact that he was only given two years to show what he could do is obviously disappointing to Jirsa.

“No matter who is the coach, it takes time to adjust. No, I don’t feel like I got enough time. I thought we did a pretty good job and had some good wins. At the end of the second year we didn’t win and that is what they looked at.”

Like everything else in life, he has viewed this setback as a learning experience. “I really wouldn’t have done much differently. I think every coach looks back. We lost six overtime games and a couple of those games could have gone either way. Just a couple of those turning into wins and things can change a great deal. If I get a second chance, I’m sure that I learned from the first go-around and I might adjust things, but my basic approach is grounded in hard work and getting better. It is a key to keep learning.”

Recruiting is the lifeline of any program. You can be the best coach on the planet and still lose if you don’t have the right athletes. Oliver Purnell has been able to turn the Dayton program around and it is through improved recruiting that he has been able to do that. To be able to get it to the next level however, he is counting on Ron Jirsa and the rest of his assistants to help corral those better athletes. Jirsa, as Senior Assistant, is also in charge of recruiting. Certainly, it is the responsibility of the Head Coach to make the final sales call and close the deal, but it’s the assistants that lay most of the groundwork and Jirsa has to lead the charge. He sees himself as an important piece in the puzzle, but my no means does he feel like he is alone.

“The assistant coaches do the leg work, set the table for the head coach,” he explains. “The head coach has a lot more demands on his time than we do. It’s our job to get a good foundation for Oliver to come in and not have to worry about the fundamentals. We identify recruits, gather information on them, get the head coach in the position to see them himself and get some of them to come here so that we can meet with them in a one-on-one atmosphere. We have to identify younger and younger players all of the time. We have both players and coaches here that you can feel good about representing the University as role models in the recruiting process.”

If there is the belief by most fans that we do not go after the top recruits, there could be nothing further from the truth. That player, however, has to fit the right mold, no matter how well he plays the game.

“There is no player that we don’t think that we can recruit. All teams need the same type of players. There is no player that is too big to play here at the University of Dayton. There is no lead that we wouldn’t check out. We look at recruits on a number of levels: their academic ability, their athletic ability, what kind of people that they are, what kind of interests they have. We really care about what kind of person that they are. If their talent level is high but they are not the kind of person that we would want representing the University, we will probably pass on them.”

One thing that has changed in the type of recruit that comes to the University is where they are coming from. It wasn’t too many years ago that our base for recruiting was Ohio and any state that might be a half-day drive away. That is no longer the case as Purnell has brought in recruits from Connecticut to Colorado. Yet, the real thrust is in the Midwest and for good reason.

“There are only so many hours in the day,” Jirsa reminds fans. “We try to keep it regional. There is no reason that we should be driving or flying past people that we haven’t investigated just to see someone else. It is my belief that the closer that you are to Dayton, the greater the potential interest level.”

Whatever logic they’ve been using, the athletic level of the players has been improving and should continue to improve with the network that is currently in place. Jirsa, of course, is a very important piece of that network and his presence here is extremely important. This brings us back to the earlier statement concerning just how long he might stay and just how he views his career.

“My focus on head coaching jobs revolves around how well we do here,” he says. “If we do well, then there will be more opportunities for all of us as coaches. Not only do I like it here in a basketball sense, I think it’s a good situation here for my family and me. Would I look at other coaching jobs? Yes, but I’m happy where I am. Coaching is a lot like playing. Would you want to be the best player on a team that struggles or be on a team that goes to the NCAA tournament and the Sweet 16? It is a lot more fun being there, no matter who you are, than not being there at all.”