The results tell his story, sort of.
Ernie Kent is simply the best coach — through four years — in the last half-century of Oregon men’s basketball. He has gone to the NIT Final Four and the NCAA Tournament. Five Oregon coaches went their entire careers without tasting the madness of March.
“It means a lot to me to have people come up to me on the street and tell me this is the best basketball team they’ve ever seen at Oregon,” Kent said. “That tells me we’re doing something special, and I’ve always wanted to make this program the best it’s ever been.”
But Kent’s success as a coach tells only half his story. The rest runs through his veins. The rest of the story is rooted in green and yellow.
Kent started his Oregon career as a scrub-faced freshman in 1973, and played four years of varsity basketball under coach Dick Harter. He was a member of the “Kamikaze Kids” — nicknamed for their physical and flashy game play — which included All-Americans Ron Lee and Greg Ballard.
Though he is absent from Oregon’s record books, Kent’s time in a Duck uniform had several lasting effects. He carries a strong desire to keep McArthur Court small and loud, as it was his Kamikaze Kids, by some accounts, that first packed “the Pit” and got it rocking. Kent also carries a sense of Oregon basketball history, which he tries to impart on to his current players.
“He wants us to know about the time he spent here, and how he wants to get the program up to the level it was when he was here with the Kamikaze Kids,” sophomore guard Luke Ridnour said.
Fast forward 20 years: Kent, after doing time as an assistant at Colorado State and Stanford, a head coaching stint at St. Mary’s and with a traveling team in Saudi Arabia, returned to Oregon in 1997. Two years later, the Ducks made a run to the semifinals of the NIT and reached college basketball’s pinnacle, the NCAA Tournament, in 2000.
Kent led the Ducks to that NCAA Tournament by preaching the values he learned at Oregon.
He is calm, always willing to trumpet a player’s strengths instead of pick on their shortcomings.
“He’s really patient with his players. He lets them come, and that’s been really good for me and my development,” Ridnour said. “He’s got a lot of confidence in us, and it’s really key for a player to realize his coach has that confidence.”
He is optimistic.
“We feel like we’re putting together a team that’s capable of winning the Pac-10, and if this team play’s like it’s capable of playing, it could come this year,” Kent said.
Most importantly, he is a Duck. First, last and always.
“He’s been through this program, he knows what it’s like to go to school here and play here,” Oregon center Chris Christoffersen said. “He’s got a lot invested in this place.”
To hear Kent speak of it, “this place” is now a permanent home, despite any offers that might come his way, like the Notre Dame contract reportedly offered to him two summers ago.
“It allows you to handle pressure, coaching at your alma mater,” Kent said. “You have such a personal relationship with the job and your community. Number one, I don’t want to let my family down, but I also don’t want to let this community down.”
Kent’s family is an important part of his Oregon story. One Kent offspring, Marcus, is a walk-on freshman Duck. Another, highly-recruited Jordan, signed a letter of intent to come to Oregon — for the track and field team — next year.
Kent, it seems, has his Ducks in a row.
As he enters the winter of his fifth year, Kent has his accomplishments, his records and his team marshaled around him. But his statistical success is only half of the success story of his life as a Duck.
E-mail sports reporter Peter Hockaday
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