ATLANTA, GA -- Among 53,510 college basketball fans at the Georgia Dome and millions more watching on television, one man was beaming more than most Saturday night.
Gary Walters, chair of the NCAA men's basketball committee, got it right.
The former Union College basketball coach who has been Princeton's athletic director since 1994, Walters and his committee seeded the NCAA Tournament bracket accurately enough to get four powerhouse teams to Atlanta. Two regional No. 1 seeds were playing against two No. 2s.
The Final Four coaches praised his work. "Phenomenal job," Ohio State's Thad Matta said. "Great job seeding people," according to Florida's Billy Donovan. "Great job selecting the field, and the seeding of the field," UCLA's Ben Howland added.
Even one of the nation's foremost critics had praise for Walters, a 61-year-old disciple of former coaching greats such as Pete Carril, Butch van Breda Kolff and Dave Gavitt.
"Gary Walters should be a permanent chairman of this committee because he's an extremely bright guy with a basketball background," Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight said. "Not all of us with a basketball background are extremely bright, maybe including me."
Walters, a former coach at Dartmouth and Providence who went into private business before re-emerging at Princeton, took 10 minutes out of a busy weekend to reflect on the job of his committee and how he advanced from Union to the spotlight of the NCAA Tournament.
"I thought we had done a pretty good job of seeding," said Walters, wearing a Final Four identification badge that read simply "Gary Walters" around his neck, "although to be fair, Kipling had it right. You have to treat both imposters the same. The committee gets far too much credit and far too much blame as it relates to any number of our responsibilities.
"Once the field is selected, as I like to say, there's a lot of serendipity that plays into the outcome, and whether or not you have upsets or don't have upsets. I think we really did do a good job on the seeding process, the fact of the matter is, whether or not you have upsets, I don't think in any way validates or invalidates the work on the committee."
If a basketball background is imperative to landing on the committee, Walters is qualified.
He played at Reading (Pa.) High School under Carril, then teamed with Bill Bradley at Princeton, which made the 1965 Final Four under van Breda Kolff. At 24, Walters was the youngest head coach in NCAA history when he took the Middlebury job in 1970. He moved on to Union in the fall of 1970, compiling a 53-13 career record before giving way to a young assistant he hired.
Gary Walters with then assistant Bill Scanlon (right)
Bill Scanlon, now Union's associate athletic director, won more than 300 games and remains the school's winningest coach.
"Gary never let grass grow under his feet," Scanlon said. "He's a very bright guy, and he was a terrific basketball coach."
After not-so-successful stints at Dartmouth and Providence, where he succeeded Gavitt, Walters went into private business for 13 years.
"Since I was young and brash, I was developing not only my coaching philosophies but also my motivating philosophies," Walters said. "If you talked to my players, I'm sure they would tell you that I was pretty tough, and I was. I'd probably use more variable reinforcement today than I did in those days."
Walters stayed involved in basketball, keeping his National Association of Basketball Coaches membership and working as a color analyst on the Big East network. He almost took a job as New York Knicks director of player development in 1992.
"I was living in Wellesley (Mass.) at the time, and my children were at an age where we didn't want to make the move to New York," said Walters, who met his wife, Susan, at Union. "Because of my past involvement in coaching and having played at Princeton and getting involved in management in the financial industry, I guess those were qualities that were attractive to Princeton, and I got a call out of the clear blue sky that asked me whether I'd be interested in the athletic director's job. One thing led to another, and I ended up moving back in education. It's been 13 years now. It's been a nice run."
Walters remains in touch with Scanlon and others from his time at Union. His youngest son, Matt, will attend the Schenectady college in the fall.
In his first two seasons as Union coach, Walters was 18-3 and 19-3 -- the best records in the school's 71-year basketball history to that point -- then led a 16-7 squad to an ECAC title.
"Union was sort of a strange culture in that I was fortunate to inherit some very good players from (coach) Chris Schmid, who preceded me," Walters said. "They were not only solid as players, but they also had great character."
Those were the days when Union often packed its 3,500-seat Memorial Field House.
Jim Tedisco, a 1972 graduate, was the best player of that era, though Walters recruited a kid from New Jersey named Bill Carmody, a 1975 Union graduate. Carmody was hired by Walters to replace Carril as Princeton's coach in 1996 and now coaches at Northwestern.
"Obviously, we were very close in the three years we spent together," Scanlon said. "For a guy who has bounced around as much as he did, he always advanced himself. He often said that his three years at Union were maybe the best years he ever spent."
Gary Walters in his first season at Union, 1970-71.
Walters credits a lot of the "friends and mentors" he has encountered along the way to his subsequent professional success.
"I'd have to say the professional pinnacle for me has been being involved with the men's basketball committee and then chairing it this year," Walters said. "We have wonderful people being on the committee, a long legacy of quality people who have served on the committee. As chair, I certainly feel an extraordinary amount of pressure to uphold the overall quality of the work that has been done in the past."
The atmosphere Saturday night in the Georgia Dome spoke of a job well-done.
Dougherty can be reached at 454-5416 or by e-mail at pdougherty@timesunion.com.
