NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Dana Ford wants being the youngest Division-I men's college basketball coach in the country to work for him.
"It's a big deal to everyone else," the 30-year-old Tennessee State coach said at Ohio Valley Conference Basketball Media Day, "but not necessarily me. I am going to be the same coach in terms of philosophy when I am 50: defense, rebound, take care of the ball. That's going to be my three things."
It's a philosophy melded while working under several top head coaches, especially his mentor, veteran coach Gregg Williams at Wichita State for one season before spending the last two as assistant at Illinois State under coach Dan Muller, a former Vanderbilt assistant.
Ford, a former Illinois State basketball standout and 2006 graduate, was previously an assistant at Tennessee State from 2009-11 under successful former Tigers coach John Cooper. When Cooper departed in 2011 to become head coach at Miami (Ohio), Tennessee State athletics director Teresa Phillips considered hiring Ford then.
But instead, Phillips opted to hire another Tigers assistant, Travis Williams, who guided TSU to a 5-25 record last season before being fired.
"I thought Dana was a little too young then," Phillips said of Ford, who was 29 when he was hired this time around to be TSU's head coach. "He's still young. It was a risk even this time, but I knew the risk was going to pay off. Dana is special.
"He has a package that, as you just watch and see him move, how he works rooms, how he is already working Nashville in relationship building, he's a special person."
But can he rebuild Tennessee State basketball to where Cooper had it before he left? There's a lot of work to do to relive glory days of the 1990s under coach Frankie Allen, the former skipper at Virginia Tech, Howard and Maryland-Eastern Shore.
"He is just a good, young coach with such a tremendous high side," Phillips said. "I just wonder how long I can keep him. It is a little bit of a risk. But almost anything that ends up being a really big success, there is a risk involved with it. We didn't need to safe.
"I just went avant-garde. We had some good candidates who had a lot more experience than Dana, but I felt like we needed a jolt. We needed a shot in the arm at TSU and the program, and I think Dana is it."
The media picked the Tigers last in the East Division behind predicted winner Belmont and veteran coach Rick Byrd. Murray State was picked to win the West Division and the overall crown.
Byrd can identify with Ford becoming a head coach at such an early age, getting his first head coaching job at age 25 at Maryville College. Byrd has been coach at Belmont for 28 years, nearly as long as Ford has been alive, and his 689 career victories rank seventh among active Division-I head coaches.
"A guy like Dana has been in the Division-I level and seen it for some time now," Byrd said. "He is far more capable than I would have been at the same age moving up from a smaller level. What I have learned since I was 30, I hope is a whole lot. But youthful enthusiasm is a plus that shouldn't be underestimated, either."
Ford will need that youthful exuberance to be mixed with mounds of patience this season, considering there is only one returning roster player -- senior guard Jay Harris -- from last year's five-win team. But recruiting is a Ford strength, especially considering he was instrumental in signing former Tigers stars Robert Covington, now with the NBA's Houston Rockets.
"We are preparing for this year just like we would any other year," said Ford, whose team opens Nov. 14 against visiting Reinhardt University in Gentry Center. "I don't even talk about having 12 new players to the guys that much. There's just a right way and a wrong way to play basketball, the right way we are going to play. My coaching style is very disciplined, very intense. I'm a non-negotiable guy. There's only one way to do certain things."
Harris said that he and his teammates can relate to Ford because of his age, but that's not a factor in how they will perform for him. They look at him as he is: a Division-I head basketball coach.
"I really don't pay attention to that, really," Harris said. "I look at it all as if he's just the standard age coach. He has a plan and that's what I'm interested in. Any man with a plan, he can be my leader.
"We're learning as we go, also learning each-other, learning what will we be good at, etc. But all in all, I really don't pay attention that my boss is a couple years older than me."
Ford does admit that his age works for him when relating to college-age kids, but it pays the most dividends in recruiting.
"What it shows is that even though you're young, you can still accomplish your dreams," Ford said. "You can still accomplish great things. You don't have to wait until you're 50-, 60-, 70-years old to accomplish some things. I am able to communicate with them very easily, whether that be text message or Instagram or Twitter. It really helps in recruiting more so than in coaching.
"And they've been very receptive to that. We just want to develop a winning mindset at our university this first year and continue to build off of that."
