Kelvin Sampson’s national championship, if he wins one, will be one for the old school

At 69, Kelvin Sampson would be oldest men’s basketball coach to win national championship if Houston defeats Florida Monday. (Photo by Sports Illustrated)

SAN ANTONIO — Kelvin Sampson grew up in Pembroke, a blue-collar town in southeastern North Carolina with a current population of 2,823.

It was there that Sampson, the son of a nurse and a high school basketball coach, authored his humble beginnings and dedicated himself to the game he learned at the hand of his father, for whom he played in high school. Sampson’s father was actually the person who urged him 11 years ago, when he was still a Houston Rockets assistant coach, to return to the college game because it was his belief that Kelvin would reclaim the success he once enjoyed before resigning in the wake of a scandal at Indiana in 2008.

Both of Kelvin Sampson’s parents are now deceased, but each still remains with him as he attempts to reach the summit of the sport Monday, when he leads Houston into battle against Florida for the national championship. It is the Cougars’ third appearance in the title game, having lost to NC State and Georgetown in 1983 and 1984, respectively, and the coach is now taking time to heed some longstanding maternal advice.

“My mother always used to tell me that I had to learn to smell the roses,” Sampson recalled on Sunday. “My mother passed away in 2014, and I never did learn. Our lives are so consumed by our next game. I’m glad (Saturday) was not our last game, that we do have a next game. That’s a good thing for this group, because I’ve enjoyed coaching this team.”

“It’s hard for me to think about the journey without thinking of my mother and father. My mother was a nurse, she worked 12-hour shifts, her shift was either 8 to 8 or 7 to 7. My dad was a high school basketball coach in a little country community at Magnolia High School. Coming from a small town where you had to outwork everybody was perfect for me, because I didn’t get to be an assistant coach for somebody and learn as much as some of these other guys do.”

Sampson credits his father and his former boss, legendary Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote, as the two men most influential in his life, citing their old-school values as central to his own core philosophies. Now in his 36th season as a head coach, he and his staff—which includes both his daughter, Lauren and son, Kellen—in assistant coach positions with Kellen having already been designated as his father’s successor when that day does come, the elder Sampson is on the grand stage having driven there his way.

“I used to come to the tournament when I was a young coach,” Kelvin, whose first NCAA Tournament coaching experience came in 1994 with Washington State, recalled. “I used to sit in those stands and look at the two coaches in the championship game. You think you’d like to be there one day if you could ever get a chance. So for me, it’s a lot of gratitude, a lot of appreciation for having this opportunity. You don’t do things like this in a vacuum. I’ve got a great team,  great staff. We’ve kind of done it our way, and it’s worked out pretty good.”

At 69, Sampson—who turns 70 in October—would be the oldest men’s coach to win a national championship, eclipsing Jim Calhoun, who was a month away from 69 when he won the last of his three titles at UConn. And with Geno Auriemma winning his first championship since 2016 on Sunday, a Houston victory on Monday would be a second statement that the previous generation is still alive and well when questions have surfaced about how much longer the game’s legends would last in a new landscape that flies directly in the face of what the sport once valued most.

“When you’re pressing 70, you look at things a lot differently,” Sampson posited. “You’re grown up now. Over the years, things kind of come full circle in so many ways. I got so many texts…I haven’t returned any, there’s too many to even look at. I didn’t even get through all of them. I saw Tubby (Smith) and Rick Barnes, Tom Izzo, (Gregg Popovich), a bunch of the older coaches. They all kind of had similar messages to me, “win one for the old guys,” something like that. We were all young at the same time coming up.”

“But I haven’t thought a lot about what’s next. I get so focused on the team, trying to figure out how to help them. I see all our kids now, I’m happy for them, I’m happy for their families. They’re creating memories that will last them forever.”