Here’s the thing about OU basketball coach Lon Kruger: He doesn’t separate his personal life from his coaching life.
It wouldn’t have worked that way.
There are a lot of people who try to separate family and work, but Kruger said that he’s intentionally done the opposite. His wife, Barbara, said that was the only way she could see how balancing the two could work — by not having to choose.
A lot of it has to do with the way Kruger was raised. He grew up in Silver Lake, Kan. When he lived there, the population was less than 1,000.
“We thought we had the best of everything,” Kruger said.
The entire community was supportive. It was a typical small town — everybody knew everything about everybody.
And it was that upbringing that shaped his perspective on life and coaching.
The core of everything came from what he learned from his parents: to never think of yourself, if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all and to always help others.
It was those same qualities that made Barbara so sure that she would marry him after their first date.
“I don’t even think Lon knows, but after our first date, I knew I wanted to marry him,” she said.
The two met when they were both students at Kansas State University. He was a basketball and baseball player, and she was on the pom squad. They practiced in close proximity to each other, and one day he asked her to be his date to a banquet.
As it turns out, the banquet was in his honor.
“He was so humble and unassuming,” she said. “I just knew at that point.”
Lon eventually graduated from Kansas State with a degree in business administration. He never really thought about life after graduation, and his life just took a natural progression into coaching.
“You always think you’re going to play forever,” he said.
“I really always thought baseball would be the career opportunity. I grew up in the ‘60s thinking I was going to be a major league baseball player.”
When a baseball career didn’t pan out, he turned to coaching. As it would turn out, he liked that aspect of basketball more than baseball.
His first head-coaching job came at University of Texas-Pan American. He was 29 years old.
He made a lot of mistakes, he said, but at that point people weren’t so quick to notice them.
From there, he took on the head coaching role at his alma mater, Kansas State. While he enjoyed his time there, coaching for his old team put more pressure on him.
“The losses seemed to sting a little bit more,” he said. “There was probably a bit more pressure.”
He was at Kansas State for four years before taking a job at Florida.
There was a lot of turmoil surrounding the program at the time, and Kruger said he wanted to create an atmosphere the fans and players could buy into.
It took two years, but the Gators made it into the NCAA tournament. They played their first two rounds in New York, and then the regional game was in Miami. It was the closest to a hometown game they were ever going to get in the tournament. The fan support in that game helped propel Kruger’s team to its first-ever Final Four appearance.
“To be able to share in that experience and see them feel good and enjoy it was really great,” he said.
And that’s really where he began his reputation for turning programs around.
Kruger will deny having any part in his success. It’s clear he believes in the players and coaches around him, and he believes that attitude is half of making a team great.
“That’s what it takes to turn around a team,” he said. “Players that are genuine and who have bought in…Show them that you’re in it for them.”
“When they see that you’re genuine about that, they want to play for each other and play for the school. They feed off that and start to have a good time competing.”
Barbara was at a loss to describe what has made her husband successful.
“I’m his wife; I have no idea,” she said. “I would guess it has something to do with the same things that make him a good person. He’s genuine, passionate, caring and unassuming. I think players are drawn to that.”
His success at the college level is unparalled. He reached his 500th win last season, and is the only Division I coach to take five teams to the NCAA playoff.
His time in the NBA, though, is a different story. His stint in the pros with the Atlanta Hawks lasted about three years. Then he was fired.
“It was humbling in a positive way,” he said.
It was hard to walk into the losing culture in Atlanta, Kruger said. With teams used to winning, things come easier, but when a team is used to losing, things change so quickly. It was hard to implement his style.
“I really believe if he had had more time, he could have turned things around in Atlanta,” his wife said.
The NBA is just a different animal than college basketball, and Kruger had to learn that the hard way. He said the NBA is much more business oriented, instead of making it about people and putting them in the right positions to be effective. He couldn’t do that in Atlanta.
After his time in the NBA, Kruger came back to college basketball and coached at UNLV. That’s where he met close friend D.J. Allen. He helped Kruger establish himself at UNLV and push the program farther.
“Lon is just one of those guys you want to play for,” Allen said.
Kruger stayed at UNLV for seven years before coming to Oklahoma.
He’s helped turn around the culture at OU. It’s a school that’s become football-obsessed, and the fans have shifted their attention away from basketball.
Kruger came in, opened up practice, the team and the atmosphere in Oklahoma. He’s urged the student section to by in, and reached his 500th career win. In his second year at OU, he led the Sooners to the NCAA tournament.
Despite all of this, he still remains as humble as always, conscious of who he is and was raised to be.
“It just happens over time,” Kruger said of his win total. “It’s like when you give someone a gift for Christmas, and the best part is watching them open theirs. We’ve had a lot of good fortune and good memories for a lot of young players. Last year’s senior group hadn’t been to NCAA tournament. They’ll have that memory for rest of their lives. That’s really what matters. The number of wins really doesn’t mean too much. But seeing people have good memories and have those relationships for the rest of their lives feels really good.”
