Over 25 years as a basketball coach, Charlton Young has developed a reputation. The reputation is that of a great recruiter.
There’s a reason for that. He has landed five-stars Thaddeus Young, Matthew Cleveland and Patrick Williams. He was heavily involved with identifying players like Tre Mann and Trent Forrest and Dwayne Bacon and Jonathan Isaac. Missouri’s new associate head coach knows what he’s looking for when he hits the recruiting trail.
“High energy,” Young said. “Length at every position and a guy that can play one through five, switch one through five. From a character standpoint, we want high character gym rats. There’s some guys out there that they love the lifestyle and they don’t love the game. If you dig in deep enough, you can figure out real quick who really loves the game.”
“We want to stay connected as a staff with our kids every single day,” Young’s long time friend and new boss, Dennis Gates, said. “To give the mission, to give our mantra, to give them excellence in sight and vision and spirit to move what we need to move forward ahead. And that's what it's about, for me, as it relates to the recruiting portion.”
But getting the guys is only part of the battle. And Young wants people to know, he’s got more than that to bring to the table at Mizzou.
“To be honest that’s a big part of me making this move,” Young said of taking the job at Mizzou. “Perception is reality and sometimes when you are a guy like me that’s naturally very, very good in the recruiting piece, people assume that’s all you do. This opportunity to come with Dennis really gave me a chance to really show people the total package in terms of my coaching career.”
Young may be known as a recruiter, but the rest of the package was a big part of why he was Gates’ first call—or actually Young’s wife was—when he started looking for his lead assistant.
“I've had an opportunity to see him work, see him recruit, but also see how intelligent of a basketball coach he is,” Gates said. “Whether it's the offensive side of the ball, defensive side of the ball. But more importantly, the relationship he has with the student-athletes. I was a student-athlete that he recruited.”
Young is only a few years older than Gates. But Young was already beginning his coaching career when Gates was coming out of high school in Chicago. The pair said they originally met when Young tried to recruit Gates.
Gates ultimately went to California and Young’s path took him to Northeastern, Auburn, Chattanooga, Georgia Tech, Georgia Southern and Florida State. It was in Tallahassee where the two re-connected. Gates had been on staff for two years when Leonard Hamilton hired Young. From there, they always expected to work together in the future. But Gates isn’t just hiring his friend. He’s hiring a widely respected coach with 25 years of experience, 21 as an assistant and four as the head coach at Georgia Southern, where he was one of the best players in school history. Of all his experiences, Young thinks those four years being in charge might have taught him the most.
“Being under J. Leonard Hamilton the last nine years, I learned the importance of controlling your emotional intelligence,” Young said. “I didn't always do a good job of controlling my emotional intelligence, which hurt me as a CEO. I think after the success we've had, the time that’s passed, being able to look back on it, you understand that.”
Young sees his role as the opposite of what it was at Georgia Southern. When he was the head coach, he had an assistant named Steve Smith. In their third year together, Georgia Southern went .500 and Young was named the Southern Conference Coach of the Year. Following that season, Smith left for a job at Clemson. Young went 14-19 and got fired after year four.
“You can't Google experience. I think my experience will help him,” Young said. “I think baseball got it right. Baseball calls the coach ‘manager.’ And I think Dennis, I need to be in his ear, saying, ‘young fella, trust your gut.’”
Of course, it does, in the end, go back to the recruiting. You still have to have the guys. Missouri didn’t have enough of them last year and that’s why the Tigers went 12-21 and Gates and now Young are charged with rebuilding a program that has now gone a dozen years without an NCAA Tournament win.
“I begged my wife to let me come down and join Dennis because I knew what we could do,” Young said. “We judge people on consistent behavior. Not what they say, but what they do. Dennis is a winner. He’s won all his life. I’ve been a winner, I’ve won all my life.
“You don’t want to come off as arrogant, but you’re definitely confident because you’ve done it before.”
The work starts immediately. Missouri has six visitors on campus throughout the course of this weekend. AAU Tournaments are beginning across the country. Young is the only full-time assistant Gates has officially hired and he’s going to be back and forth between Tallahassee, Columbia and various recruiting stops over the next few weeks. But Young has no doubt he and Gates will get the job done.
“It’s going to be a whirlwind but I’m going to be on the phone 24/7 and I’m going to be back and forth 24/7 to be heavily involved in building Missouri basketball with some urgency,” he said. “This is a perfect seat for me. I know some people look at it and say that's an out of the box move. But for me, it makes perfect sense. And I think we could be really, really good.”
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