New Pitt coach’s ‘meet-up’ to connect with ex-Panthers
Brooklyn born and northern New Jersey raised, Tray Woodall now calls Pittsburgh home. This former Pitt standout spent five years in the city in college before embarking on a professional career that took him to Turkey, Greece, Mexico and Kosovo. When that chapter of his life came to a close and he had the option to live virtually anywhere, he returned to Western Pennsylvania.
The coach who originally lured him to the region — Jamie Dixon — is no longer at Pitt, having accepted the same job at TCU in March. Dixon’s departure put Woodall at the extreme end of a predicament many of his former teammates faced — cradling an attachment to the program for which they played, but having no sort of relationship with the people presently presiding over it.
For Woodall and many former Pitt standouts, this weekend might alleviate that disconnect.
Today, new Panthers coach Kevin Stallings is hosting a meet-up of about 40 or 50 former players and their families, one in which they will watch a workout for the current team, as well as have lunch and dinner. Stallings is hoping the event will build a valuable link between the program’s past, particularly those involved with the most decorated era in Pitt history, and the future he’s trying to create.
“It’s imperative to me those guys know how much we value them,” Stallings said. “I’m not going to try to pretend I was their coach in the years they were here, but I’m the coach of the program now and it’s important to me those guys know they’re welcome and valued.”
At a school that had the same basketball coach for 13 years, the transition to a new leader can be trying, even for those who are no longer directly involved with the team. Woodall, who was at Pitt from 2008-13, described Dixon’s move as “a shock” and when Stallings was hired a week later, he, like others, was admittedly confused.
Though he has yet to meet Stallings in person, he talked to an old friend, Lance Goulbourne, who played for Stallings at Vanderbilt from 200812. What he heard impressed him.
“He’s a coach that relates to his players, understands his players and lets them play freely, to the best of their ability,” Woodall said. “He wants them to go out there and show all the skills they have instead of trying to control and micromanage a game. He seems like the guy we need and the change we need. My impression definitely changed once I figured out what kind of person and coach he was.”
The idea for the event came from Stallings’ time at Vanderbilt, when a group of former players would pick a weekend to return to campus and play pickup games, something that in later years became an organized alumni game.
Dan Cage, an ex-Commodores player and Stallings’ director of basketball operations, spoke with former Pitt players and current athletic department employees Marcus Bowman and Sam Clancy about trying something similar at Pitt. They liked the concept and helped the staff reach out to people they knew. Rather than an alumni game — which he said could very well be a possibility in the future — Stallings wanted to use the first iteration of the event to meet and get to know former players.
That attempt at relationship-building came with legwork. Cage said he sent handwritten letters to players who were at the school as far back as the 1950s.
“If they’re alive and still in our system, we reached out to them,” Cage said. “We wanted to make sure every single one of those guys knew about it.”
Among those in attendance for the reunion will be Woodall, Clancy, Billy Knight, Curtis Aiken, Chris Taft, Ronald Ramon, Mike Cook and Cam Wright. Not all of them are faced with the same situation as Woodall iteration working to embrace a new coach who replaced the one who recruited him iteration but all are fused together by the school for which they played.
“In my heart, I’m a Pittsburgh Panthers guy, period,” Woodall said. “Coach Dixon going elsewhere, it’s great for him, but I’m stuck to this program like glue. Whatever guy we’ve got leading the helm, I’m with him. I’m a soldier for Pittsburgh forever.”
“In my heart, I’m a Pittsburgh Panthers guy, period. Coach Dixon going elsewhere, it’s great for him, but I’m stuck to this program like glue. Whatever guy we’ve got leading the helm, I’m with him. I’m a soldier for Pittsburgh forever.” — Tray Woodall, former Pitt basketball player