‘We’re starting to look like UConn again:' Kimani Young

[HooperScooper]

Podcast on the Courant website with Kimani.

Thought this was funny.

“My job as an assistant is to try to keep him (Hurley) focused, try to keep him locked in on the game, try to keep a balance between pushing the refs but not pushing too hard,” Young said on the latest episode of the UConn Insider podcast. “We’re playing Indiana at the Garden last year. He was arguing a foul call and it’s me, him and the official that made the call. Right to his face, I say to him, ‘Coach, that was a foul. You’ve got to lay off the official on this one. That was a foul on Josh [Carlton].'

“He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Look, I sign your paychecks. You better roll with me from now on.’ It was a light-hearted moment. We all laughed. I got the job done because I was trying to defuse the moment.”

‘We’re starting to look like UConn again:’ Kimani Young joined the UConn Insider podcast to discuss his recent promotion, his role with Coaches For Action and more

Kimani Young is acclimating to a new role as associate head coach of the UConn men, but one important function of his old job remains: Dan Hurley wrangler. Few head coaches test their assistants&#8…

www.courant.com

 

[UconnU]

Kimani has been the best assistant hire in recent memory.

 

[CL82]

UI: You’ve referred to George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer as “the straw that broke the camel’s back." Why was it so important for you to get involved with Coaches for Action and begin to use your platform to affect change?

KY: Growing up in New York City, being a Black man, you hear the stories and you want to make a difference. My parents raised me to go to school, do the right thing, get your degree and become a productive member of society. Through some ups and downs I feel I’ve done that. And now to be involved with college basketball, you’ve got this huge platform. You’re celebrated three times a week during basketball season. You’re garnering all this attention on social media. But I think there’s responsibility that comes with that. With everything going on in our country, myself and some colleagues in the Big East just felt like we had to be a part of that change. We had to have a voice, and create a platform for our players and for the families of our players. So that they know that the people who recruited them and swore to their families that we were going to take care of them and help develop them as young people in an image that’s worthy of a role model — that’s what we wanted to do with Coaches For Action. We didn’t want to be hashtag activists. We didn’t want to be retweet activists. We wanted to do something that was going to create some change.

I thought that was an intelligent, succinct and persuasive presentation of the CFA goals and thought process. Love the call out of "hashtag activism."