Taking a Cut: Tubby, since you can never really know what it takes to be the coach at UK until you are the coach, I would think it would be almost impossible to explain the job to the next coach......hopefully 20 years from now.

Tubby: "You can never be too prepared. This is a job and an opportunity to coach the greatest college basketball program in sports, in my opinion. If you look at it like that, I don't think you can do the job. I don't think I could do the job. You know what they say, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. It's kind of the way you approach this program. You can't look at the whole big picture. You have to look at each individual person, how good they are and what they mean to the program.....as if they are special. They are important when you do that. l break it down into minute proportions and you can digest that."

Taking a Cut: Myron Anthony tells me, "I look at Tubby like a father, I didn't have one." Tubby, that is a lot of responsibility !

Tubby: "Yes it is, especially....ah.....It's good to hear that coming from Myron because I can see, and there are quite a few players in our program that are fatherless who look at Coach Smith and other coaches on this staff as role models. These players have also had role models along the way, whether it was their high school coach or junior high coach or some male figure in their life that has given them guidance. That's what we are . We just want to be an extension of their family and in my particular case, I'm a male, I'm a coach and I've got to be a father as well because we are their parents away from home."

Taking a Cut: Being a father figure, is that a recruiting tool when you go in the home ?

Tubby: "But I always tell them, we have a responsibility to them to help them reach their goals, to be a better person, to develop their morals and values to make them a better citizen, to raise their own family someday. But, it is an awesome task. But, I also tell them it is their responsibility to be responsible for themselves, their own actions. When I go in their homes, I try to tell them up front what it is going to be like. We are going to be disciplined. They are going to have to conform to the things we want done. I think because we've had success here, they want to be champions and I think that is what we can offer them."

Taking a Cut: Tubby, will you reflect on winning the National Championship ?

Tubby: "No, I try not to....to be honest with you. I don't want to...for a while, because I just want to continue to make sure that I'm doing all the things, like I said before, taking one bite at a time to try and look at the whole picture. It's like teaching and coaching, you put in the whole thing, and then you break it down.....teach them how to screen, how to cut, to pass, to catch, to shoot, and those are the things you do repeatedly.........over and over again until they become instinctive. That's the way I see it at Kentucky. You have the big picture, the great Roman Empire, but you can't control it. I can't be in charge of the whole thing. I got a lot of people in charge of a lot of things, great folks like my staff who make my job a lot smoother."

Taking a Cut: Tubby, you get more publicity than the governor, is there anything about you that we don't know ?

Tubby: "I'm pretty plain. I'm pretty bland. I'm just a Joe bag of donuts. The same guy that goes to work next door. Up every morning. I get that from my parents, my upbringing. My dad worked 43 years and never missed a day. That's amazing ! That's just an amazing story. He was honored by the governor of Maryland because of that. I say to myself, are you serious ? Here's a guy that raised 17 kids, worked three jobs, so when I think about what I do, it all puts it in perspective."

Taking a Cut: When you get tired, do you think of your Dad and what he accomplished ?

Tubby: "Oh, absolutely, I see him now at 78, he was excited as I was being at the White House with President Clinton. He's just as happy for me, that he is still with us."

Taking a Cut: Tubby, when I first met you after Pitino hired you, if I would have told you that you would someday be the head coach at Kentucky and take a National Championship team to the White House, what would you have told me ?

Tubby: "I'd said you are crazy. I would.......but then again, most people think that about you. ((Tubby then laughed for a few seconds)) I probably wouldn't be too far off. I don't know. You take it one day at a time. Certainly you have long range goals.....to be a college coach, a head coach. Then you adjust your goals as you go along."

Taking a Cut: Tubby, this is a yes or no question. Can Kentucky win it all this year ?

Tubby: "Yes, Yes we can very easily win the National Championship. But we can very easily not win it. The potential is there. But, then again, the potential is there for a lot of teams."