North Texas to West Virginia is quite the jump for many reasons.
New WVU head men's basketball coach Ross Hodge understands those reasons, with one of them being the caliber of coaches he's set to face during Big 12 play this season.
"The best way to describe it was just like humbling, you know, extremely, extremely humbling, extremely grateful, thankful. The truth is that, I mean, there's a lot of like really good coaches at a lot of different levels," Hodge said on OFF THE CAROUSEL! with Rob Dauster.
Hodge is entering a league with some of the most well-known coaches in college basketball, but he also understands that at all of his stops, whether at the junior college level or at the mid-major level, he has been around quality coaches.
"You mentioned some hall of fame coaches that are in the Big 12, you know, and I was a very young junior college coach, got to be a head junior college coach when I was 25 and coached against some really, really good hall of fame, junior college coaches, names that don't probably mean much to the everyday college basketball fan, but it meant a lot to me," Hodge said.
The Big 12 has coaches who have reached the sports highest peaks and have turned their programs into national powers. Hodge isn't shying away from these bigger names, but he certainly respects what they have done for the game of basketball.
"I'm thankful that I've been able to be in this position, and it's not something I take lightly, not something I take for granted. It's just like a very humbling, exciting time. A lot of emotions come with that phone call, but grateful jumps out as a big one and just like, it's, it's humbling in a weird way that you get a chance to compete at this level and compete against the best coaches, the best players and represent not only a incredible university and incredible basketball program, that has so much history, but also represent an entire state, and represent the state of West Virginia and the people. It's awesome," Hodge said.
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