The Longwood Lancers only joined the top-tier of college basketball in 2007 and are heading to the NCAA tournament this week as the 14th seed.
It’s a different kind of T14 for Longwood coach Griff Aldrich, who always longed to coach basketball, but took a detour along the way to attend UVA Law and wind up in Biglaw.
Aldrich hoped to begin his coaching career right out of college, having accepted a graduate assistant position with Dave Odom at Wake Forest. Unfortunately, Aldrich also hedged his bets with a law school application and Odom withdrew Aldrich’s coaching offer upon learning that the graduate had a chance at a law school education, a reminder that everyone thinks it’s great to be a lawyer except lawyers themselves.
After a year trying to pay off T14 loans with D-III coaching, Aldrich realized it was time to get a real job, joining up with Vinson & Elkins in Houston. From there, he got into the oil and gas business and took a top job in an investment firm. He was making around $800K/year.
But basketball kept coming back for him. He started an AAU team to help kids in Houston. And when his best friend from college — Dave Odom’s son, Ryan — took the head coaching job at UMBC, Aldrich called and asked to help him out.
He joined UMBC as Director of Basketball Operations with a $32K/year salary.
After UMBC entered the national consciousness as the first and to date only 16 seed to upset a 1 seed,[1]
Aldrich was ready to move to a head job. Longwood’s school president — who overlapped with Aldrich at UVA Law — lined Aldrich up with a $150K salary and an opportunity to finally be the D-I head coach he’d always wanted to be.
A dominating season in the Big South ended with a conference tournament victory and a bid to the tournament. Some burst bubbles over the weekend helped the school crawl up to the 14 line.
The Lancers take on SEC Tournament champs Tennessee this Thursday at 2:45 Eastern.
He left a lucrative law career to become a college basketball coach. Now he’s in the Big Dance. [Washington Post]
[1] In the men’s tournament. It’s worth noting that in the NCAA Women’s tournament, 16th seeded Harvard upset 1st seeded Stanford in 1998.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
