With his mentor (current Missouri head coach and former CSU head coach) Dennis Gates in attendance, new CSU head coach Rob Summers gushed about being back in Cleveland. “I don’t want to be a head coach. Everyone’s like, well, you want to be a head coach and run your own program,” Summers said. “I’m like, okay, that’s fun and that’s great. But to be a head coach here was where I wanted to be.”
Coming back to Cleveland after stops at Miami University and Mizzou (for a full breakdown of Summers past, read Bob’s breakdown here), Summers steps into a program that has won 20 games the last five seasons between two different coaches.
Coming to a job that has high expectations doesn’t scare Summers. Instead, he wants to put his name alongside the other great coaches in the school’s history. “Coach Gates,[…] Gary Waters,[…] Rollie Massimino, […Kevin] Mackey,[…and] phenomenal John McLendon. You have a lot of great coaches that have [come] through Cleveland State. And I want to be mentioned in that, in that I want to make sure that years from now, (years from now, you know, whenever I’m done with this, you know), that Robert Summers was considered one of the great ones to come through.”
Two stand-out themes in his welcome press conference were offense and authenticity. The first shocking theme of offense will be a welcome site for fans. “We’re going to play an exciting style of basketball. I’m an offensive-minded coach,” Summers announced. “It’s fun to score the ball. Nobody wants to watch 45-47.”
This offense-first approach will be something new for recent CSU. The Vikings have not been an offensive threat other than one recent season. They finished second in the conference in points scored in Gates’ final season, but outside that they’ve not scored much. In the last ten seasons (outside that one year), they’ve finished 5th in scoring once, 6th twice, 8th twice, and 10th four times.
So where will this offense come from? The Vikings currently have no one on their roster. This conundrum also doesn’t worry Summers. “I’m excited for[…] a blank canvas, but you also have some guys that, you know, are possibly in the portal that we can go and get back.” He continued, “And we are going to recruit the junior college ranks at a high level. But we’re also going to hop in the portal.”
This answer leads right into the authenticity of Summers. Not only did he shed some happy tears (“And if you guys are watching this and making fun of me, for crying up here, I’m gonna give you a call”) but every answer he had was genuine (”Everybody raise their right hand,” he said about NIL money. “Now put it in your right pocket because I’m going to need y’all.”)
Cleveland is a place that yearns for their coaches and players to be genuine. Jose Ramirez, the Cavs’ Core Four, Joe Flacco. These are the genuine people in sports and they’re adored by the Cleveland fans.
Director of Athletics Kelsie Gory Harkey remarked on the way Summers sounded. “I think he was kind of surprised by the emotion that he felt, and I was a little surprised by the emotion I felt seeing him get to be here [and] live out his dreams.”
An obvious important issue Summers (and the rest of the athletic staff) has ahead is getting the school and fans engaged. CSU averaged just under 1500 fans a game last season. Coach Summers on day one was already buying students coffee the morning before his introduction. “Everything I can do, I will do,” he mentioned. “I told Kelsie that in my interview. I said, wherever you need me at, however you need me, I am going to be available.”
The players, the coaches, the students, and the fans will all be hearing a lot about the culture of B.U.I.L.D. at CSU. Summers wants to cultivate. “[W]e’re going to hang our hat on five core principles: brotherhood, unselfishness, integrity, love, discipline.”
These values call to mind Coach Gates’ “FLAT DUET” values of friendship, love, accountability, trust, discipline, unselfishness, enthusiasm, and toughness but B.U.I.L.D. has an extra meaning this season.
“This isn’t a rebuild,” Summers assured. “This is: we’re just going to build. We’re going to build on what we’ve done from our championship programs to our big time wins.”
With the hiring of Summers, the Kelsie Gory Harkey era officially begins for the basketball team. Hiring someone almost at the same time you’re signing your own contract is certainly a challenge. “I didn’t ever focus on the contract for myself. I really come from a place of ‘how can I serve and impact?’”
Summers may not have been the only choice for the job, but he was a clear choice when you look at the basketball mind he brings along with his approach already to the team and campus. Gory Harkey put the athletic department’s goals best as they try to “provide a transformational student-athlete experience.”
Building a roster and building off a program that saw Daniyal Robinson win the most games in a coach’s first three years in school history will not be easy. Add in the state of NIL and the portal and it’s a whirlwind, but Summers knows there’s a lot more to it than just money. “I think the lessons I learned [in the SEC] really were, you know, kids want to be compensated, I get that. But they also want to have relationships with their coaches.”
Rob Summers is in town. But it’s the Rob Falls and Rob Winters (and hopefully Rob Springs) that CSU fans should be thinking about.
Subscribe to our emails, and get our latest posts in your inbox, plus a weekly digest of everything we've published!
