At the press conference Tuesday to officially announce his new position as Wisconsin men’s basketball head coach, Greg Gard took the time to thank everyone who had helped him get to this point in his life.
He thanked both former and current players he has coached, coaches he has worked with and played under, various members of the University of Wisconsin staff and even his extended family. Gard continued to give an overwhelming amount of thanks to the most important people in his life.
But then Gard stopped. His eyes started to swell and his face began to quiver. Someone was missing.
“Dad is here as well,” Gard said. “He’s just watching from above.”
Gard’s father passed away Oct. 31 at the age of 72 due to Glioblastoma Multiforme, a form of brain cancer he had been battling for six months.
While Gard’s father may not have been able to be there physically to see his son earn the job he’s been waiting more than a decade to take on, and as emotional as it made the head coach, it didn’t make the moment any less special.
Gard described the moment as as surreal.
“I’ve never really got caught up in where I was in terms of my career,” Gard said. “But the last 24 hours has been surreal. Everything has been moving so fast.”
[Updated] Men’s basketball: Greg Gard officially named new head coach of Wisconsin
During those 24 hours Gard met with UW officials to discuss the official job offer and then met with the 17 players he has been coaching since he took over as interim head coach in December.
It was a meeting that Gard described as emotional for both himself and the players.
“It was emotional because they’ve been on the journey with me,” Gard said. “There were a lot of high fives and hugs.”
But while the last 24 hours have been surreal for Gard, it’s back to business for the head coach and the Badgers.
Thursday marks the start of the postseason, and the Badgers will take on either Nebraska or Rutgers in their first game of the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis.
With no opportunities to relax and reflect, Gard has no time to let this monumental moment in his life sink in.
“If you try to look at too big a picture, you’ll drown in the surroundings that you see,” Gard said. “Maybe in May after the season’s wrapped up and the recruiting is wrapped up, we’ll be able to step back a little bit and take a breath. But for right now, we’ve really approached it one day at a time.”
But no matter when the situation will sink in for Gard and his family, that doesn’t take away from the reality of it all. Gard is the man for the next five years at the very least, and there is no doubt he is the right man for the job.
That is something Athletic Director Barry Alvarez was sure about when he opened the application for the job just a couple weeks ago.
“We had talked to a number of people already, felt as though we had done our due diligence,” Alvarez said. “We had done our jobs and we knew who the right man for the job is. The timing was right.”
