Coach's journey from small town to world stage

PLAINS – If you were to ask the average college basketball fan what they remember from the 1987 NCAA Tournament, they will more than likely say Keith Smart’s shot that captured Indiana’s fifth national title against Syracuse.

Plains graduate and Mineral County native Eric Stang has a fonder memory of that tournament. He remembered being in Seattle for the national semi-final with his father and his father’s friend. He remembered watching Oklahoma lose to Iowa and change his career path.

“Experience changes your perspective,” Stang said. “The goal was to always be a high school coach after I got done playing, but then I thought, well maybe college would be great.”

Stang, now an experienced professional basketball coach, had humble beginnings in a small Montana town only to end up coaching the sport he loves at the professional level all around the world.

He had several jobs making next to no money, living out of his car and relying on the help of friends and family to keep him going. Stang is living proof that just because you come from a small town does not mean you cannot make it to the top of the sporting world.

After high school Stang went to Eastern Montana College and later transferred to Carroll College.

“We had eight guards on the team at Carroll,” Stang said. “I wasn’t going to see much playing time. I actually broke my jaw and had to have surgery.”

After breaking his jaw and realizing that a professional basketball career was not in his future, Stang decided to focus more on coaching.

He had remembered his days as a manager for John Douglas at St. Regis and the trips his dad made to the coaches clinic in Great Falls. He got to listen to coaches that really changed his life as a young boy.

His first taste of coaching was sixth grade girls where he went 3-3 over the six game schedule. While in Helena he had the opportunity to coach the youth league on one side of town.

“It was a pretty extensive interview process,” Stang said. “I’m 20 years old going in front of this board to get hired. Luckily one of my dad’s buddies Jim recommended me for the job.”

After seeing the politics of middle school athletics take over the reigns of youth league basketball, he decided to pack up his car for the summer and travel to basketball camps all over the country.

“I went to all the camps I could - Villanova, Syracuse, Providence, West Point, Northwestern to network,” Stang said. “I wanted to see what everyone else was doing and pick coach’s brains.”

He lived out of the back of his car traveling from camp paycheck to paycheck. His networking skills from working all his summer camps landed him in Minnesota as an assistant coach. Stang got his first taste of recruiting and real life work in Minnesota.

“I had never recruited before,” Stang said. “I would spend two or three weeks at a time on the road trying to find kids who wanted to play basketball at a D3 school in Minnesota.”

After his Minnesota trip, he found himself in Indiana. He was working at St. Joseph’s College under former Florida Gulf Coast coach Dave Balza.

“I learned organization and planning from him,” Stang said. “He would have practices broken down to the second. If a drill said we would do it for two minutes and 37 seconds, it’s what we did.”

The journey was only in its infancy for Stang. He took a graduate assistant job back near his home. He was going to Spokane to work at Gonzaga. The grad assistant got to see a new college basketball powerhouse be built right before his eyes.

“I learned more at Gonzaga than anywhere else. They have a system and they do it right. They seek out the right kind of players and they get them,” Stang said. “When I was there recruiting was the one thing they lacked. Now that is gone. In my opinion they are a top ten program in the country every year.”

His days in Spokane were not over. He ventured to Spokane Community College as an assistant coach and a professor. He got to teach classes like bowling and CPR certification. After a year, the coaching bug struck him. A head coaching job was available at Portland Community College. The gig paid $5,000 a year to be the coach. Luckily for Stang he had family in the area for a supportive network.

“I worked as a bartender at a restaurant one of my family members owned,” Stang said. “I was lucky to have the support network that I had.”

Portland Community College had been a lackluster program for many years. The young daring coach thought he could come in and rebuild it. The funding wasn’t there to establish a good, solid program.

“We had eight scholarships we could give out,” Stang said. “I had a $15,000 budget to work with for travel and warm-up gear so not a lot for recruiting. We didn’t offer on campus housing so players were forced to pay their own way. The scholarship couldn’t cover housing. It put us at a disadvantage from all the other teams in the area.”

Despite the disadvantage the team was able to win nine games his first year. After a lackluster second year with injuries galore, Stang left the college ranks for high school basketball near his home. He became the coach at Eureka. Eureka led him to Julio Delgado at Whitefish. Stang took over for the retiring coach but after the school shrunk from 750 students to 550 students Stang lost his job due to cutbacks. He then took a supportive role at Providence College and later the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. He then wanted to give the professional ranks a shot, and overseas gave him the best chance to achieve his dream.

“I thought what they heck,” Stang said. “I wanted to give the pros a chance and got an opportunity in China.”

He quickly discovered the cultural difference between the countries when it came to athletics.

“Chinese officiating is a bit corrupt,” Stang said. “If you have the money you can pay to win games. Unless you are up by 20 points going into the fourth you better have deep pockets.”

The Chinese game was different in other ways too. Stang said he was surprised at how robotic the players were and how they did not have the free flowing skills of American players. It is also a Cardinal sin to change the game plan in China.

“If a coach abandons his game plan in China, it’s a sign of failure,” Stang said. “The coaches get paid well and they don’t want to look weak.”

Stang did not stay in China long. He moved on to the Czech Republic. The opportunity did not last long for Stang. Red flags shot up when the team did not offer him a contract to sign.

“I had heard about it happening to other guys overseas,” Stang said. “You get an offer and they bring you over and keep changing things on you. You can’t get any help from FIBA because you don’t have a contract. They pretty much own you at that point.”

Stang was able to come back home and visit his family in St. Regis before taking off again. This time, state side. He had attended the Golden State Warriors Developmental camp for a try-out scout. The overseas game is not far off his mind. He is currently waiting to see if another Chinese offer comes along for a junior team or to travel to Beirut for a coaching job.

“Lebanon is one of my favorite countries,” Stang said. “You can see the after effects of the war but it’s no different than any American city. They accept three different currencies. It’s not uncommon to be walking around with Euros, US dollars and Lebanonese dollars.”

The world of basketball has been good to Eric. He has built his life around his dream of coaching his favorite sport. He still remembered the days of playing for hours at Plains Elementary School after they put up the lights so they could play until two in the morning, playing in his driveway on Stanton in front of the park and how he could not shoot from the left side because of the big tree in the front yard. He remembered most of all the hard work he put in for Coach Green in the Plains gym. Stang has never lost his roots no matter where in the world he has been or could possibly go.

Stang is surprised to see how the game is changing for students in the United States.

“Kids are lazy these days,” Stang said. “Coach Green used to kick us out of practice and we’d get mad because we wanted to play. I tried that trick a few times and the kids were happy to get out of practice.”

Stang does not know what his future holds, but he knows basketball will be a part of it. His journey has been a long one. The road behind him has shaped not only who he is as a coach, but who he is as a person. By following his dream he has been able to coach at the high school, college and professional levels of basketball. He has had the opportunity to travel around the world to coach a game.

“If you had asked me where these places were on a map back in the day, I could have shown you,” Stang said. “I wouldn’t have known they played basketball or that basketball would be the reason I traveled there.”