Gottfried takes helm at Murray St.
Assistant basketball
coach leaves UCLA for
head-coaching position
By Scott Yamaguchi
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Less than one month after he helped lead the UCLA men’s
basketball team to the 1995 NCAA Championship, assistant coach Mark
Gottfried has left Westwood for the head coaching position at
Murray State University in Murray, Kent.
In a statement released Tuesday, the Murray State athletic
department announced that it had selected Gottfried, 31, from a
pool of 87 candidates to fill the position vacated by the
resignation of Scott Edgar. Edgar stepped down earlier this month
to assume the head coaching job at Duquesne.
"We think we have found an excellent coach with impeccable
credentials as a basketball coach, and as a human being," MSU
athletic director Mike Strickland said in the statement. "We have
someone who is an educator, someone who is concerned with young men
and someone who will run a basketball program that will fit into
the University community."
Gottfried spent seven seasons at UCLA, during which time he was
credited, along with fellow assistant coach Lorenzo Romar, for
attracting such prize recruits as Charles O’Bannon in 1993 and Toby
Bailey and J.R. Henderson in 1994.
He never kept it a secret that his primary goal was to become a
head coach, but Gottfried’s departure comes as a bit of a surprise
because it was Romar, not Gottfried, who was expected to be the
first to leave UCLA for his own head coaching job.
Both coaches were in their third season as full-time assistants
last year, though it was Romar who was more actively pursued by the
likes of Oregon State and UNLV during the Bruins’ 31-2 campaign.
Eventually, Romar opted to return to UCLA under head coach Jim
Harrick.
Gottfried was contacted by three schools, but declined to name
any besides Murray State, which, he says, first expressed interest
at about the time UCLA was competing in the NCAA Final Four.
"Mike Strickland contacted me, and quite honestly, it was a time
where I wasn’t sure I even wanted to let myself get interested in
anything because of all that our team was going through," Gottfried
said Tuesday during a telephone interview from Kentucky.
"Emotionally, doing what we did, there were times when I felt I was
cheating myself for even thinking about something else.
"But they were very persistent, and it’s a great opportunity for
me. The more I kept thinking about it, the more it started to make
a little bit of sense."
UCLA beat Arkansas in the NCAA Championship game April 3, and
Gottfried was flown to Murray last week to begin the interview
process.
Having graduated from the University of Alabama in 1987, and
with his father serving as the athletic director at the University
of South Alabama, the former Athletes-In-Action head coach had
always rooted a strong desire to return to the southern part of the
U.S. to raise his two children with wife Elizabeth, who is
expecting a third child in July.
"With the young children that I have, coming back to this side
of the country was something that probably was more attractive to
me than anything else," Gottfried said. "Having been in Los Angeles
seven years, there was a part of me that kept pulling me back
toward this (the south) side of the country."
But Gottfried developed strong ties in California during those
seven years and  even as late as Monday morning  was
still wavering on his decision.
So, on Monday, Gottfried arranged meetings with some of the
returning players that helped Murray State to a 21-9 record and an
NCAA Tournament berth in 1995, and the positive feedback sealed his
decision.
"A lot of times, you can go into a new situation, where a new
coach is coming in, and it can appear to be a mass exodus Â
everyone wants to leave," Gottfried said. "I didn’t necessarily
want to go into a situation like that, and I didn’t feel like I
needed to go into that from UCLA.
"I think talking to the people here and getting to know some of
the players better gave me a much, much better feel for this
particular job."
Harrick, who has also been at UCLA for seven years, gave the
former assistant coach his blessing and expressed confidence that
Gottfried would succeed at his new position.
"I think Mark was born to coach," he said. "He grew up in it,
he’s been around it all of his life, and to top it all off, he’s
probably the best assistant coach I’ve ever been around.
"There is no doubt in my mind he will be a highly successful
head coach."