It's impossible to overstate Gregg Popovich's 13 years in the Air Force and its role in his illustrious Spurs tenure. It instilled within Popovich his guiding philosophy — a phrase that is perfectly 'Pop.'
and made him the Spurs’ general manager and executive vice president of basketball operations in May, 1994.It was the greatest hire in franchise history, facilitated by a longtime connection between the McDermott and Popovich families. Gen. McDermott’s daughter, Betsy, and Erin Conboy became close friends during their grade school days in Colorado Springs.
After playing six games, Robinson suffered a season-ending broken bone in his left foot. The Spurs finished 20-62, which put them in the 1997 NBA draft lottery, which they won. GM Popovich used the pick to select Wake Forest center Tim Duncan. Coach Popovich paired Duncan with Robinson as a dominating low-post duo that turned the Spurs into one of the NBA’s all-time most successful teams.
“No, I don’t think should have been on that team,” Brown said of a snub that Popovich still rues. “But he really did play great in that camp. People don’t realize what an athlete he was and, obviously, a great competitor. He was a legitimate basketball player and very, very intelligent.”in the American Basketball Association, he invited Popovich, then one of Egan’s assistants, to Nuggets training camp in Denver.
“Pop and I were out on the road, recruiting,” Minton recalled in a 2014 interview. “An old friend on the faculty at Pomona-Pitzer called to see if I was interested in the job. At that point, I was committed to the military, beyond the point I could pick up and leave without making a sacrifice to my years in the service. I turned it down but told him Pop would be perfect for the job.
“It’s an incredible setting and environment with the five colleges,” said former Popovich assistant and two-time NBA Coach of the Year Mike Budenholzer. Budenholzer became a star player at Pomona-Pitzer after Popovich convinced him to matriculate there. “You might go from one campus to another and not even know it’s five different campuses. I don’t know that it exists anywhere else, to have five liberal arts schools that are one community that really get along.
“He has qualities it doesn’t take long to know make him special. I just loved him as a person. I respected his knowledge, obviously, but he’s also one of the most decent, loyal guys I’ve ever been around, and I just wanted us to be connected.” When his players gave up lob dunks to the Jayhawks on four straight plays after tipoff, Popovich called a timeout and lit into them.
As much as Popovich enjoyed being Nelson’s assistant, when McDermott asked him to interview for the top job in the Spurs basketball operations department, it was an offer he could not refuse, in large part because it had come from someone for whom he had the utmost respect. “They obviously lowered their criteria to include somebody like me. But it’s all the same principle. They talked about how we run the program and about the virtues we hopefully espouse in our program with the character of the guys that we have and things that make the Academy proud.”
“He is just an incredible leader and he sets a tone for all the players and all the coaching staff that there is something a lot more important than just basketball going on in our world and, hopefully, your eyes are open to it and you are seeing it and you are trying to make a difference.” In four seasons as a player with the Spurs, Kerr discovered Popovich’s penchant for frequently quizzing his players about history, culture, science and geography and taking them on field trips, especially during the rodeo trip. Popovich has taken his teams to The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and the United States Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C., among others.
“Pop is a student of all this and understood, early on, that he had a platform and could make a difference on issues he felt strongly about.”, the sports and pop culture website owned by ESPN and now known as, self-described as “the premier platform for exploring the intersections of race, sports and culture.”about Popovich’s social and political engagement.
“As a player, as a person and, especially, as a young Black athlete, it makes you proud to play for a guy like that. proud to be affiliated with a guy who pushes forward and tries to make sure he fights for what he believes in any way he can, speaking his voice and letting it be known.”
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