Sometimes, Mark Macon is silly.
The second-year coach of the Binghamton University men’s basketball team is known for what he does on the court, but not many are aware of how he acts off the court. Macon is chock full of zany analogies and quips, both for his players and for the media.
When senior guard Chretien Lukusa was asked whether he understands the things Macon says, he responded, “Oh no. He gives us some crazy stuff. I think about a week ago, it flew right over my head, I didn’t understand, but I nodded and said, ‘Alright, Coach.’ He has a million of them; I don’t know where he gets them. He must have a lot of time on his hands to think of them.”
Senior forward Greer Wright even tried to quantify how often the team comprehends his witticisms.
“75 percent of the time, we don’t [understand],” he said. “We get at least one every practice.”
Macon has repeatedly likened his squad to a snail on a skateboard rolling down a hill, compared losing at home to strangers entering your house and eating the food off the kitchen table and even used the word “doo-doo” in a press conference. Perhaps his most infamous quote came in January 2010 when he discussed his Bearcats’ surprising opponents.
“We want people to know we’re coming,” he said. “When I knock on your door, I want you to know who it is. If you don’t, I might steal something. We’re not trying to surprise anybody. Like I said, if I knock on your door and you ain’t there, it’s your fault your TV got stolen, not mine.”
On Jan. 29, when describing his efforts to make his players get to the free-throw line more often, he broke out another metaphor: “You can put the horse near the water at the river, can’t make him drink it. He might think it’s poison. He might not be thirsty.”
On Nov. 30, Macon got up to the podium after Wright was done speaking and remarked, “Good evening … Whatever he said,” and walked out. He then went a step further and started the post-game interview by talking about various foods for nearly 10 minutes. “Don’t ask no basketball questions right now,” he joked while in the middle of a lengthy digression about sweet potato pie.
Wright recalled another goofy moment from Feb. 16, when the Bearcats tallied a 77-47 win over Hartford.
“He believed that Hartford could make a 30-point play — I don’t know how — with two minutes left to go,” Wright remembers. “He believed [they could hit] eight 3-pointers in 30 seconds. I never seen that before in my life. But we’re just going to leave it to the imagination.”
During games, Macon is usually mild-mannered, but when his team makes mistakes, he gets riled up, as any coach would. When he screams, his voice comes out high-pitched and flat.
“All I can picture is him screaming, ‘Oh my God, get back!'” said senior forward Moussa Camara. “His voice is like a girl voice. That’s all I can hear. I don’t really pay attention to what he said; I just focus on the game, but I can hear him screaming.”
“I talk crazy sometimes,” Macon admits. “With you guys [the media], it’s coming down for me … because I want you to know I really, really appreciate who I have playing for me. When they hear it, I want them to know as well. I want them to know that I know they’re playing hard even though I might not tell them that all the time in the locker room.”
All humor aside, Macon is beginning to truly come into his own as a coach. He finally shed the “interim” label this year when Binghamton gave him a three-year contract. Macon has a unique perspective as a coach because of his past: he was a star at Temple University, where he set the Atlantic-10 scoring record, before being drafted eighth overall by the Denver Nuggets in the 1991 NBA Draft.
“He knows how to show us stuff that he sees on the court that we don’t really see because he was a good player,” Camara said. “He can actually show us stuff in practice.”
Assistant coach Ron Brown also discussed how Macon’s playing days affect his coaching technique.
“Did you see him play?” Brown asks. “I’ve seen him. He almost cost me my job. The way he plays, he wants the best out of everybody. You coach the way you play … You can see the transformation in the team from the beginning to now. He’s done it quicker than most people, because it takes years if you can do it.”
“Coach Macon is aggressive,” Wright said of Macon’s style. “I think that’s what we need. We have a really laid-back team, and I think he fires us up going into games. He takes every play seriously, every possession seriously, he’s always up talking … it just puts pep in our step.”
“I would love for my players to be an extension of me out on the floor: think like me, be aggressive like me, play like me,” Macon said. “Be mean and mad all the time, have a chip on your shoulder at all times against the other team out there.”
When asked to characterize his own coaching technique, Macon wasn’t yet ready to provide a definitive answer.
“Right now, I’m still trying to find that niche,” he said. “My coaching style is very intense, but I’m more of a teacher … Having my own team, now I’ll be able to teach the way I want to teach where I can sit back and not have to gripe and growl because guys aren’t here or there, because they’ll know it, and they’ll do it.”
While Macon may consider himself a teacher, he also said that he is still a student in many ways, particularly when it comes to learning from the rest of his coaching staff, all of whom are older than Macon.
“That’s most important: I’m learning from them. Remember, I’m the baby; I’m just at the head of the horse,” Macon said. “I’m still learning from them … I get more from them than they get from me, believe it or not, I truly do.”
Despite a 7-22 regular season finish this season, Macon never once became pessimistic. He never altered the team’s game plan and never told his players to stop shooting, no matter how poorly they were playing that day. He has instilled confidence in his student-athletes and re-established the men’s basketball program as one that can be trusted and be successful, and as Macon has said, success is not always measured in wins and losses.
When asked to judge the Mark Macon era of coaching to this point, he unsurprisingly kept that same optimism.
“[It is] one of progress: one of slow progress on this journey. Everything is a success; even a loss is a success,” Macon said. “But there is no failure. There is no fear. There is no pressure. All of those things I make for myself. If I don’t make them, there isn’t any. If I don’t fear, then there isn’t any fear. So in my journey, it’s always progress toward success.”
Macon’s impact has already resonated quite deeply within his young players.
“Coach Macon has been great,” Wright said. “[He] is a great individual coach; he knows how to get by defenders, how to guard guys, how to get to the rim. He teaches me a lot. I try to soak it in; he never thinks I’m listening to him, but I’m always listening, I’m just trying to soak it in like a sponge before I leave.”
Brown was also very high on Macon’s positive influence.
“Who’s a better example than Mark? If you’re a high school player, and you want to have a model, you can pick Mark Macon. How many guys can coach and play? Not many.”
But for Macon, becoming a truly great head coach is still a work in progress, whether he is victorious or not.
“I want to win every game,” he said. “If I win, I’m great; if I don’t, I’m still great because I’m still moving toward success.”
So this is the head coach that the team, the students and the community have to look up to. For Macon, it seems as if that snail is rolling down the hill on that skateboard, riding its way into an evolving coaching career in search of success, or perhaps in search of sweet potato pie.