It was on April 8, 2003 that Jim Jabir began again. He was once again given the reigns to a major college basketball program. He was once again given the opportunity to do what he enjoys. He was once again given the opportunity to change people’s lives.

“I’m blessed with an Athletic Director that cares. I’m blessed with a great coaching staff and I don’t see why we can’t do great things here. In the end, if that doesn’t happen, then it is on me. I’ve been successful when I am given a chance and I expect that to happen here.”

Jabir knows the same things that Jaci Clark knew when she took the job. It is a program that is seemingly going nowhere without a logical reason for that being the case. The University of Dayton is not just a good school, but, a great one. The facilities take a back seat to nothing short of the NBA. The league consists of several teams regularly battling for a spot in the Top-25. There is more than enough budget to get the job done. The University wants a winner and will do everything it can to allow that to happen. It is now Jabir’s opportunity to make it a reality.

He realizes it is no small task, yet feels confident that he can pull all of the necessary pieces together and the beginning of that is filling the stands, “I think we have a perception problem here. I don’t think there is any feeling about us one way or another. I could be very wrong, but my sense is that the people in Dayton will follow a good product. If you look at the number of people that came to watch the Women’s Regional here you have to be impressed.”

It’s not just the perception of potential fans, but also how the program is recognized by potential recruits, “You have to take a different approach when you have not been a winner. Everything is perception. Take Syracuse, for instance. They haven’t won in a long time. They have a new coach that is bringing in the big names to look at the school because the men just won a national championship.”

The program is not one that is in shambles. Jabir does not face the same problem that Jaci Clark faced when she took over the women or Oliver Purnell faced when he took over the men. This is a program that has bordered on the edge of respectability for most of Clark’s stay. She could just not get it over that imaginary hump. The real problem came in the area of recruiting. You can’t win a horse race with anything but a thoroughbred.

If anything, Jabir would be viewed as a recruiter that succeeds when he shouldn’t. He has been able to recruit levels of players that in the past would not have considered either Marquette or Providence. That success does not come easy; there is a technique that must be used to succeed in a business that turns on the whim of a 17 year old high school student.

“Recruiting is different at every job. Right now we sell the school, facilities and the opportunity to be the start of something great. In the past, I’ve sold me because we didn’t have a whole lot else to sell. You create relationships with kids. You create a relationship with their family. You have to develop trust. At Providence, we were able to successfully recruit kids that we had no business winning because they believed that they were important to us and the fact that we cared about them and they trusted us.

“For the most part, you end up selling you, your philosophy, your personality, your energy, your dream, your style of play. Your physical resources can only take you so far. The good kid will be sold on the school by the personal relationship that you create. I try to talk to them as I hope someone will talk to my daughter some day. I treat all of my players the way that I want someone to treat my daughter when she leaves our house. That is my baseline. That is what I use to tell me how to treat other people. When I go into someone’s house, I tell them the things that we can do for their daughter. I tell them what the University of Dayton is about.”

Two things go hand in hand when it comes to sports: winning and fans. To paraphrase Kevin Kostner, “Win and they will come.” There seems to be a catch 22 when recruiting and attendance are discussed. Do you need fans to show up to be able to recruit or do you need to win to make the fans show up. With that in mind, Jim will do what it takes to accomplish both, “You cannot substitute humor for wins, but if you start winning you can bring people in to follow the program by utilizing a good sense of humor. If people like me and we are winning, it will only bring more to the program. My hope is to start getting 4,000 to 5,000 people to games and if I can be the lightening rod to get that to happen, then so be it. I can relate to different kinds of people and if that helps get people to the games to cheer on the Flyers, so much the better.”

Humor is a way of life with Jim Jabir. It is impossible to have a casual conversation with him for more than 30 seconds and not at least crack a smile. He has the ability to make even a complete stranger comfortable in a very brief period of time and it probably comes from the fact that he refuses to take himself too seriously.

“A lot of my humor comes from self-deprecation. I feel if I goof on myself first, I beat the wise guy to the punch. I used to go around telling Jimmy Durante jokes because I got tired of nose jokes. I think it puts people at ease. I think you can convey a lot of meaning through a joke. I’ll walk into a home visit and there tends to be a lot of tension just because of the newness. If I can make you laugh, you will be much more at ease. Kids relate to that. In this job, more than any profession, you are a scoreboard away from getting fired. Life is too short and it is too important to not have the ability to laugh and be happy. I lost sight of that for a while at Providence. Everything was doom and gloom and it can’t be that way.”

Basketball is his business. That and his family is what he lives for. His desire to succeed is there for all to see. He has expectations, but like all of us, those expectations change as we mature and gain valuable wisdom, “I honestly think that if I can get us competitive in the Atlantic 10 and get us into the NCAA Tournament, anything can happen there. I have come to change my opinion of what success is as a coach. When I was young, I thought that winning the national championship was what it took to be a success. Success to me is vying for the Atlantic 10 championship every year. We should have a shot at going to the NCAA Tournament every year. If I do that, then I would stay here 100 years if they keep me.

“As we begin to win, I’ll begin to ratchet up my expectations and I think that is good as long as they are realistic. I have to have the ability to recruit the right kids. You have to have the ability to hit a home run recruiting now and then. Right now, I can’t even get those kinds of kids on campus. We are going to keep going at it. We will look in Europe, in the Junior College ranks and at transfers if that’s what it takes. We will get it done.”

It hasn’t taken Jabir long to understand the tradition at the University of Dayton and appreciate all that the city of Dayton has to offer. With the recent movement by Oliver Purnell, Dayton has become a stepping stone for bigger and better. Many coaches now leave successful programs just to move only an inch or two higher on the food chain.

Coaches leave Kansas for North Carolina, Illinois for Kansas and the vicious circle continues. They often forget that there is more to coaching than that next rung on the ladder. Not so with Jabir, “Because it is so comfortable here, I would like to coach here for 20 years and then just go away. For the first time, I really feel like the house we live in is where we belong. I feel like I belong here in this job. I have this sense, this desire to lay down some roots. I’ve never been anywhere longer than six years. I want my kids to feel like this is home. I have a lot of reasons for wanting this to be my last job. Having said that, it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to work my hardest. For me to stay here, I have to stay sharp.”

If hard work brings success, Jim Jabir will succeed. If nurturing young women not only on the nuances of basketball, but life after basketball, brings success, Jim Jabir will succeed. This is a man that cares not only about winning, but the people he touches along the way. Jim Jabir is a winner and he will bring a winner to the University of Dayton.