Cuonzo Martin sounds off on teaching players beyond basketball

Missouri is in the thick of its best basketball season in at least three years. The Tigers, currently tied for third in the SEC standings, will return from two consecutive road games Saturday to host TCU in the annual SEC-Big 12 Challenge.

Yet when head coach Cuonzo Martin spoke to members of the media via Zoom on Friday morning, the conversation wound up focusing less on basketball and more on issues that far transcend the sport. That's not abnormal for Martin. The East St. Louis native has been outspoken about race and social justice since last summer, when protests over George Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer gripped America.

Martin didn't just push those conversations to the side once the season began. In fact, in between Missouri's game at Tennessee on Saturday and its matchup at Auburn on Tuesday, he took his players to see the Equal Justice Initiative Museum and Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. A question about the experience during Martin's press conference prompted him to talk for nearly 11 minutes about the history of racism in America, how he strives to teach his players life lessons and why he doesn't worry about being fired for wins and losses. The full transcript of Martin's quotes is below, as is video from his press conference. The transcribed portion begins at the 6:15 mark of the video.

Why did you take the team to those places and what did you gain from it?

“For me, I think just in society with COVID, we all have a chance to just pause and reflect, just in your personal life, how can you become better as a person, in your relationship, whatever that is. In your job. And I just think, for me, it’s like, when you have time — we go on these road trips, and I’ve been doing it since I was a college player and as a coach, an assistant coach, now I’m here, never did those things unless they’re mandatory, like if you’re at tournaments and you go see this sight. And you just start to think, man, what are we really doing? What are we teaching our guys? You have to give them life experiences, and I just felt like there was an opportunity. Like I said to Paul (Rorvig) before the season, who’s our director of operations, before the season started, any time we have opportunities to see events — not just African-American, it could be anything that culturally we can grow from — let’s try to do that, because I think we owe it to our players. And I think it’s amazing how you sit back and talk to the guys after and, as players, just things that they say. ‘I didn’t know that, I had no clue about that.’ But it’s American history, but they had no clue about it, and they’re taught American history in schools. That is a part of American history, and you know, it was really tough for me walking through there, because often times, when you come from areas like me, coming from East St. Louis, you get information from your grandparents and it’s passed down from what they experienced or moving from the South to the Midwest or wherever you come from, from the South to the West coast. So you hear about it. And then as you get older, I’ve never experienced any of that. I’ve had snippets in certain locations, but just to go into that facility, everyone was speechless. Normally after those events, we’ll get together as a team that night and say, guys, what did you think about this? I had nothing in me to speak about it, just because life can’t be hard for me. I’m grateful to be in this position. And there were a lot of people back then not living today, as ancestors, did a lot of things, made a lot of sacrifices, lost lives for me to be sitting in this position right now, today. So I don’t take that for granted. I’ve never taken that for granted.

"But just some of the horrific things, like you see a 12-year-old kid who’s in solitary confinement, who spent the rest of his life in a cell with no windows, and maybe an hour of daylight. For the rest of his life, for a young man who’s 15 years old, put in a prison with adult men, and I don’t want to be graphic here, but raped and brutalized for years. And then you find out what was the crime. That was the crime? And that’s consistent. And then you’re talking about all the lives that were lost that we never found out about, or you even talk about the hangings on public display, like it’s a party, like you’re downtown, let’s look at the light show, and then it’s a postcard that’s sent all around the country. And that’s normal. Man, that’s tough. That’s tough. And then can we shift from that, we gotta figure out another way, so let’s build these prisons up, let’s turn these prisons into $80 billion industries. That’s another way to shift it. And I’ll read something to you guys, and this was on the wall. ‘A presumption of guilt has been assigned to the Black people. A presumption of guilt has been assigned to the Black people.’ In most cases, always guilty until proven innocent. Even if proven innocent, ehh, still do a little time. And can you imagine living life like that? Your whole life. Can you imagine you’re on a plantation and they take your child away from you and you’ll never see that child again? Each one of you guys, if you have families right now, you’ve got children right now, I’m coming to take your child right now and you’ll never see him or her again. That’s pain. And I gotta live with that. I’m scarred for the rest of my life, and I gotta live with that. But I gotta get up at 5 in the morning and go to work, I still gotta go to work from dusk to dawn. That’s real pain, and I got it every day until they put me in the casket. And the best chance I got to survive is to run, because maybe death is probably a little bit better. That’s pain. That’s every day. Like Jeremiah (Tilmon) said, it brought him to tears. So I’m prayerful that we can get to a point in our society that we can be better. We don’t have to agree upon everything. We don’t. That’s the beautiful thing about life, society, making your own decisions, democracy. I don’t have to agree with what you agree with. But if that’s the best thing for all walks of life, then it’s the best thing for everybody.”

This has been quite a year going back to last summer, and you’ve been able to share so many things with your players. Can you get closer with the team when you’re talking about such big, national topics that are outside the realm of the sport?

“Good question, but for me, I never really do it to try to get close to them. My job, I don’t think, is for them to really like me. Now, do I love all of them? Yes. I don’t like them all the time because of some stuff that they do, miss class. That’s part of it, it’s just like being a parent. Or guys don’t play, they’re upset with me, or sometimes parents might be upset with me because their child didn’t play. That’s part of it. All that goes with the territory. But I don’t do those things for them to validate me as a good guy, or coach is cool, I like coach. That’s not why I do it. I do it because I have to give it to them, owe it to them to give them this. Oftentimes you think in college what are we really teaching them? Think about the stuff that you learned in college and then all of a sudden what you learned when you got out of college. And you paid to go to that university. That’s a lot of stuff I think we need to be teaching while they’re in school. College should be uncomfortable. It should be uncomfortable education. That’s how you grow. I learned all that stuff K through 12, now I’m an adult, start teaching me those things so I’m ready for life. Probably 70 percent of athletes, and I would say all walks, all colors, are not prepared when they leave college. And I just got a degree, I just walked away with a degree, I just walked across that stage. I want that life education. That life education, so when pain hits, I’m prepared for pain, struggle hits, I’m prepared for struggle, because that’s life. That’s real life. And that’s what I try to prepare guys for, that life is going to be uncomfortable, sometimes painful, and tomorrow is not guaranteed.

"So how do you deal with that? How do you deal with the fact that one of your teammates is struggling to make ends meet and you knew him 10 years ago, you saw him 15 years later struggling to make ends meet? He’s homeless, how do you deal with that? Do you help him out, or do you say he should have went to class? How do you deal with that? That’s life, that’s going to happen. How do you deal with a guy you coached, and then all of a sudden, ‘hey coach, can you loan me $100?’ ‘A hundred dollars? You got a degree.’ How you deal, that’s real. That’s life stuff. How do you help them understand, man, you can start your own business in college? You can start your own lawn service now. You can start your own cleaning service now, you can do that. Assets, liabilities. I need the real assets and liabilities, not that one I took in class, that stat class where I really struggled or the econ class where I really struggled. Give me the real so I can make a living with these stats. That’s what we have to help them with. And it’s so hard because often times we don’t see it, and how do you get them to understand life is hard? And that’s what I tell my sons all the time: Life is hard, man. And I’m not always going to be here. But I hope you take these lessons that I taught you over and over and over again, because when you brace yourself with tough blows, I think you’ve got a chance to survive in life. Gotta be ready for tough blows.”

I know a lot of coaches say I get into coaching to help kids and not so much wins and losses, but how do you balance that part of it with the fact that you are judged on winning and losing basketball games? I know it doesn’t have to be one or the other, but how do you keep that balance in your day to day life?

“I don’t worry about it. I’m not sure how other guys do it. If they fire me, I’ll shake Jim Sterk’s hand, I’ll give him a hug, because I think Jim Sterk is a good man. You know, ‘appreciate it Jim,’ I’ll go on and live my life. Because it’s business. The painful part of this, if there’s pain, you develop relationships, and I think Jim is a good man. So if Jim had to come and say, 'coach, this is not going to work,' appreciate your time, Jim, I thank you for the opportunity, I’m going to move on. You’ll never hear or see from me again. That’s part of it. And so I don’t worry about me losing a job. I got a great wife, God blessed me with beautiful children, I’m winning the game. I’m not a guy who spends a lot of money, I got enough money to live the rest of my life, and it’s not like I have a lot, so I don’t need all that. As long as I got the people around me, the family, love, I’m good. I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma at 26 years old, they didn’t think I was going to make it. I came from East St. Louis. I’ve seen humble beginnings. I mean, God trained me with less, so I knew I would survive. So to me, you talk about somebody losing a job, that’s not even, man, you do what you gotta do, because this university is going to be here when I’m dead and gone, but I’m going to live a heavenly life when I’m on this earth. I’m not waiting to get to heaven to live in heaven, I’m living it right now. Now it might not look like it because I’ve got a scowl all the time, but I’m enjoying life, best believe that. As long as my family is happy, we’re healthy, I’m winning the game. I don’t care what the scoreboard says. Thank you guys, enjoy your day.”