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BOONE New Appalachian State basketball coach Buzz Peterson grinned at his sweating players last week as he explained the intricacies of defensive footwork.
"He may not be getting exactly what he wants from them in practice -- yet," said David Jackson, an associate athletic director for the Mountaineers. "But he hasn't stopped smiling."
Why should he? The Buzz is back -- both around the scenic mountains of Watauga County, which Peterson left nine years ago to scale the coaching ladder; and within the spirit of the former Tar Heel, who opted to return to his first head coaching home because he so passionately missed being on the sidelines.
He can still alternate smacking his gum with adjusting his whistle, but Peterson's hair has more salt blended in with the pepper, and he insists his emphatic foot stomps aren't quite as dramatic as a decade ago. At 46, after leading ASU to the NCAA Tournament in 2000, only to be fired by Tennessee five years later, he's determined to rejuvenate a coaching career that has been hibernating behind an NBA desk for too long.
"For the last couple of years, I'd go to work, get through the e-mails and the day planner, and then I'd get to the afternoon, and think 'I should be going to practice' -- but there's no practice for me to coach,'' said Peterson, who spent the past two seasons as the Charlotte Bobcats' director of player personnel. "And then I'd go to the games, and just watching the coaches and coaching staff -- it just eats you up; it was just driving me crazy.
"Then people would say 'Hey, Coach -- How ya doin' Coach?' But that wasn't me -- I wasn't a coach anymore. ... But I knew I needed to be, again."
That was obvious Thursday, when he led the Mountaineers through one of their 10 days of early practices in preparation for this week's two-game exhibition tour in the Bahamas. Notes stuffed into the back of his khaki shorts, whistle shrieking, he watched ASU's 12 returning players adjust to his Asheville twang and protect-the-ball style.
"His return really gives us a lot of hope," said Goldsboro's John Dobbs, who played for ASU from 1961 to '65 and stopped by the open practice to watch. "He has the charisma to bring people into the arena and the ability to put really good teams on the floor ... and the hope is that the basketball team can bring the same excitement as football."
Fast rise
Indeed, it was the excitement of Peterson's success from 1996 to 2000, which included 79 victories and three Southern Conference titles, that helped build the Holmes Center, where he was putting his new team through its paces. Among other crack-and-cranny details, Peterson sketched out the laundry facilities now located just off the spacious locker room; he insisted on the comfy meeting space that's nearby, too. Until now, though, he has never gotten the chance to enjoy the benefits of all that planning.
Shortly after ASU lost to Ohio State 87-61 in the first round of the 2000 NCAA Tournament -- only the second time the school had made the tournament -- Tulsa came calling.
"I'd just turned 36 years old that May, and I was wanting to know what it was like to coach against the best,'' said Peterson, who had flirted with other teams throughout his previous tenure in Boone. "I saw that as my opportunity to move up the ladder." And he did so quickly -- maybe too quickly, he realizes now.
While the Mountaineers were breaking in their new court the following fall against Peterson's alma mater (coincidentally, UNC's Jason Capel, who now is an Appalachian assistant, played in that game), Peterson was taking his first steps toward leading Tulsa to the postseason NIT title.
Riding that success, he bolted for Tennessee after only a year. He expected patience. Instead, he got a new school president and athletic director, and after a 14-17 season in 2005, he was canned. He went on to coach at Coastal Carolina but never got the sense he could consistently win there. So he stayed for only two years, leaping at the opportunity to work for the Bobcats when partial owner Michael Jordan, his former UNC roommate and national championship teammate, called.
"I was always intrigued about seeing what the NBA was all about,'' Peterson said. "But it didn't take long for me to miss being on the sidelines. ... Coaching is like being on a roller coaster, you love all of those ups and downs and twists and turns. I wanted that, again."
Back in the game
With three kids and a wife, however, not just anywhere would do. A year ago, Peterson said, he turned down inquiries from Toledo and Mercer because they weren't a good fit for his family. And as much as he was interested in returning to Appalachian State, where he was also an assistant coach from 1987-89, he said he turned down the Mountaineers' first offer in April.
"I didn't think I could do it financially," he said.
The opportunity kept gnawing at him, though, even as ASU looked at other candidates.
Having grown accustomed to NBA money, Appalachian State's offer amounted to a pay cut. Peterson eventually agreed to a $177,500-per-year (plus incentives) contract.
Peterson and his wife Jan talked to the kids about having dad live in Boone for a season, while they stayed in Charlotte and commuted 100 miles to games, until his oldest daughter graduated from high school.
He chatted with former coach and mentor Dean Smith. He discussed his options with Jordan, who tried to keep him, but didn't know when and if an assistant coaching position would open up with the Bobcats. And he got a blessing from fired ASU coach Houston Fancher, who had been his assistant nine years before.
"He told me, 'Buzz, I'm going to miss coaching them. But I'd rather you coach them than somebody else I don't know.' " Peterson said. "That meant a lot to me. And that right there got me over the edge a lot."
He celebrated signing his five-year contract in Boone by eating at Makoto's Japanese Steak House, where the owner was one of scores of familiar fans who have welcomed him back. Pre-sale season basketball ticket sales are already up from a year ago; school officials credit that to the buzz about Peterson.
"We had three criteria for what we wanted in a basketball coach," ASU athletic director Charlie Cobb said. "We wanted someone who could energize our program, we preferred someone with proven success, and we wanted someone who wanted to come to Appalachian State for the right reasons. And we got all three of those in Buzz."
Focused on the future
It's hard to imagine anyone is as energized as Peterson these days.
Fresh off spending the night on his office couch Thursday (he's still moving furniture into his new apartment), he was on the court, experimenting with plays and players. Peterson wants to run a ball-control offense with an emphasis on limiting turnovers and hopes his team can contend for the division title in a conference that seems wide open now that Davidson's Stephen Curry has gone pro.
"We know he has the experience of being here, we know he's been in these footsteps and gone through this process, so we're confident," Mountaineers guard Kellen Brand said.
But Peterson also knows he has to adjust his scheme to the talent he has inherited from last year's team, which finished 13-18. To that end, written on a wipe-off board in the team meeting room is one of Peterson's favorite phrases: "Your past doesn't define you; your past prepares you for the future."
It's a reminder to the coach as much as to the players.
For all the familiarity of returning full circle to his first coaching home, Peterson is determined that this experience will be different.
A dozen years ago, he said, he was always looking for the next victory; now, he wants to savor each one. Back then, he said, he was always searching for the next job opportunity. Now, he said he's ready to settle in and build a consistent, winning program, much like that of Davidson coach Bob McKillop.
"I don't want anybody to think I'm going to be complacent now that I'm here; I've got a lot of drive in me, and I want this program to win,'' he said. "... But I feel like I lost my job at Tennessee because I let pressure get to me. And when that happens, you start tearing up your players, your student- athletes. And I felt like I got on them too hard, and they lost confidence in their game.
"So my approach now is totally different; I want to enjoy it, I want to encourage them, I want to teach them. I want to make it positive." And he wants to keep smiling, as he enjoys being back on the sidelines, smacking his gum and blowing his whistle.
"It's like Christmas Day for him out here," Capel said. "You can just see the passion coming back out. For a lot of us, this [basketball court] is our sanctuary -- and that's definitely the case for him."
