After finishing his Mountaineer basketball career, Darris Nichols was working down at Waterfront Place Hotel parking cars to make a little extra money while he was on the mend from a knee injury. His plan was to get his knee better and then go look for someplace to continue playing professional basketball and live what he calls "the good life."
He had no intention whatsoever of becoming a college basketball coach.
"I blew out both knees and I'm parking cars and (Bob Huggins) says, 'Why don't you come and be my GA (graduate assistant coach)? I think you would be good at coaching,'" Nichols recalled earlier today. "I debated it, and I didn't want to do it. I had a hard time giving up playing, and I look back on that now and think, you never know who is going to help you in life.
"He helped me get into the business," Nichols said.
Darris played at West Virginia for two of the most successful coaches in college basketball history - John Beilein and Bob Huggins. The two have combined to win 1,659 college basketball games and counting.
Since 2003, West Virginia has won 420 games with both of them. And 99 of those wins came during Nichol's four-year career from 2005-08.
He was here as a freshman in 2005 when Beilein began West Virginia's most successful run of hardwood success since the early 1960s with an Elite Eight appearance against Louisville in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
He was here in 2006 for the Sweet 16 season, the NIT championship in 2007 (he hit the game-winning shot to defeat Mississippi State in the semifinals) and he was also here for another trip to the Sweet 16 when Huggins took over the program in 2008.
Nichols still holds the NCAA record for the most career games without fouling out (141) – a record that might remain intact for a while with all of the changes taking place in the game today.
Many of the players on the teams Nichols was on are making their marks in basketball. Joe Mazzulla is now an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics. Rob Summers (Cleveland State) and Frank Young (Appalachian State) are college assistant coaches, while Patrick Beilein is back in the game as a head coach of the Syracuse Stallions and Da'Sean Butler is coaching the Atlanta Hawks' G-League team.
Mike Gansey is assistant general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Jonnie West is the director of operations for the Golden State Warriors and Johannes Herber is a players' rights advocate who also runs the German basketball federation.
And, of course, Nichols is now head basketball coach at Radford – putting him in a small fraternity of former Mountaineers-players-turned-Division-I-head-coaches that include such notable names as Fred Schaus, Gale Catlettt and Bob Huggins.
In fact, Schaus is believed to be the only former WVU player to coach against West Virginia in the WVU Coliseum when his Purdue team defeated the Mountaineers, coached by his former player Joedy Gardner, 90-79 on Dec. 6, 1975. Huggins was also involved in that game as a Mountaineer player.
On Saturday afternoon, Darris Nichols will become the second.
"Whoa, I didn't know that," he said.
The Radford, Virginia, native is getting used to these homecomings, however. Radford once had one for Nichols when he was a West Virginia player (he received the key to the city), and he also returned to Morgantown last year when he was an assistant coach on Florida coach Mike White's staff.
Nichols was on the winning side of that Radford game, 90-60 in 2008 when he played for Huggins, and he was also on the right side of the scoreboard in Florida's 85-80 victory over West Virginia in last year's SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
"A lot of these situations I've been at it has felt like home," Nichols admitted. "I always felt like home is where the ball bounces. When you go back to West Virginia or you go back to Radford, it's home."
Nichols said his most memorable game as a Mountaineer player was WVU's 60-56 victory at 18th-ranked UCLA on Jan. 21, 2006. That's because it came shortly after the Sago mining disaster in Upshur County that claimed the lives of 12 miners.
"I remember hearing the stories of those who were trapped in the mine and survived, and the first question they asked was, 'Did the Mountaineers win?' That really stuck out to me more so than any other game," he said.
Nichols admits he's taken pieces of what he learned from Beilein and Huggins and incorporated it into what he's doing at Radford.
With Beilein, Nichols says he's adopted his ability to tell his players stories.
"Everything he did has a story behind it and those stories stick with you and help you remember why you did what you did," Nichols said. "His terminology, mixed in with his storytelling, was really special."
With Huggins, it's his demanding nature.
"Sometimes, he doesn't let his guys get comfortable, and he prepares you for life by how you handle those situations," Nichols explained. "He always correlates it into something that's happened in his life, and what has happened in your life, and I always remembered that. He never lets you get too high or too low.
"The thing I always tell my players, 'I played for Huggs for one year and it seemed like for that entire year I was on a job interview every day and I didn't even know it," Nichols said. "Imagine if I didn't handle that situation right."
Nichols also talks to his players about the unique bond he had with his West Virginia teammates. They always knew what they could and couldn't do, which is one of the reasons why they were so successful then and now."I don't know if it was the chicken versus the egg," he admitted. "We are all successful now because of why? Because we were great teammates. When I think about all of those guys who are successful now I couldn't tell you how many points any of them averaged, but I can tell you who were great teammates. We knew who we were and we accepted who we were as players."
Nichols says the young Radford team he is bringing into the Coliseum on Saturday is improving. As he's gotten to learn what his players can and can't do, and he's tweaked some things since suffering consecutive losses to Virginia, Virginia Tech, Furman and Navy.
The Highlanders have since won three straight, including a 13-point victory over Eastern Kentucky last Sunday – the same EKU team that nearly knocked off the Mountaineers at the Coliseum two nights prior.
"Every game is different and every matchup is different," Nichols noted. "You don't know what guys are going through when they play this team or that team. You can check the box score and say, 'Oh shoot, look what this team did' but every game is different.
"I think with us, we've gotten better and grown as a team," he continued. "We've obviously had a tough schedule, and we still have a tough schedule, but we've gotten better through it and over the last few games we've been playing better. We play a lot of guys so we're learning the different combos, the different defenses and which offenses work with which groups."
Will we see a John Beilein system Saturday afternoon? A Bob Huggins system? Some of Mike White's Florida style?
Nichols said you will see some of each and more.
"I've taken bits and pieces from everybody that I've worked and played for," he said. "I don't try to be somebody that I'm not. I take the stuff I like and don't use the stuff I don't like. It's more about what fits the players we have."
Nichols has a couple of guys on his Radford coaching staff with West Virginia ties. Assistant coach James Haring was head manager for Huggins at WVU before getting into the coaching ranks, first as director of operations at Illinois before moving on to Dayton and Jacksonville State.
Former West Virginia Tech player Jaren Marino is Nichols' director of operations while Darris' brother Shane is his No. 1 assistant.
Nichols said the "normal number of Radford fans" will be traveling up to Morgantown for Saturday's game.
"I think before the game it will be a little emotional when I see all of the people there who have helped me in my career and my life so far," he said. "That makes it bigger than the game, but once the game starts it's just another game."
Tickets remain on sale and can be purchased by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
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