English Class: Study Up on the New PC Basketball Coach Ahead of the Next Game

Providence College Friars men’s basketball coach Kim English, far left, with his coaching staff during practice. Photo by Mary Murphy

Black blazer, gray slacks, crisp white dress shirt open at the collar, Kim English stands off to the side of the basketball court at Madison Square Garden.

A few hundred journalists have gathered at the world’s most famous arena on this sunny autumn afternoon in midtown Manhattan for Big East Media Day. It’s the biggest turnout in a decade, a Big Eastpalooza celebrating a conference at college basketball’s summit. Three national championships in the last seven years. Three Final Four teams in the past four. A fraternity of coaches that has won more than 3,000 games in its collective decades patrolling the sidelines.

This tableau was once just the glimmer in the eye of a visionary college basketball coach in Rhode Island. Dave Gavitt, who coached the 1973 Providence College Final Four team starring Marvin Barnes and Ernie DiGregorio, went on to unite Eastern basketball’s independent schools and put their games on a fledgling sports television network in Bristol, Connecticut, called ESPN. The rest was history. Marquee Big East tournament games here at the Garden. Three teams in the Final Four in 1985. Two more in 1987, including a Cinderella Friars team starring Billy Donovan and coached by Rick Pitino.

English straightens the Friars pin on his lapel and steps onto the court. The Big East commissioner, Val Ackerman, greets him with a hug and asks how he’s doing.

 “I haven’t lost yet,” he deadpans.

Coach English during practice with the team. Photo by Mary Murphy

Like students on the first day of school, the coaches assemble near midcourt for a class picture. English takes his place at one end of the line, next to his friend Shaka Smart, coach of Big East defending champion Marquette, and Dan Hurley, coach of the defending national champs at the University of Connecticut and, before that, the coach at the University of Rhode Island. Pitino, seventy-one, a Hall of Fame coach making his return to the Big East with St. John’s, stands near the center. Near the other end of the line is the avuncular, back-slapping new coach of Georgetown, Ed Cooley, the twelve-season ex-Providence coach whose departure last March sent shock and anger through Friar Nation.

The coaches head to tables spread around the perimeter of the court. Reporters hurry from table to table, like speed dating. A large crowd of reporters surrounds Pitino, who vows to jump in the East River if he fails to lead St. John’s to a national championship. Another big group surrounds the Georgetown table, asking Cooley about the angry mob he’s expected to face when the Hoyas visit Providence at the end of January.

English receives a smaller but steady stream of interrogators curious about the new Friars coach. How will the country’s youngest coach in a major college sports conference — he turned thirty-five four weeks earlier — fare in this land of giants?

“You are in awe, thinking about where you are,” he says calmly. “But I’m not having fantastical thoughts. I’ve played against these guys, coached against guys who have been in Final Fours. We’re not playing the pick and roll today — that would be a lot more stressful.”

English says his focus is on the next practice, the next workout, building his players into a tough, resilient group that has one another’s backs.

“My feet are planted,” he says. “I’m not emotional. I’m actually boring.”

can kim english save Providence basketball? Can he maintain Ed Cooley’s level of success, and raise it? These are the questions hovering over a program that has, in the absence of major league sports, been Rhode Island’s unofficial pro team since the days of Lenny Wilkens and Jimmy Walker in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Two days after Cooley bolted to Georgetown, the keys to Friartown were entrusted to a thirty-four-year-old coach with two years of head coaching experience, a onetime kid from Baltimore who grew up fighting to articulate the ideas surging in his agile mind, a stutterer who found release on the basketball court, a former college star who made it to the NBA only to see his dream fall apart.

The answer may lie in a word emblazoned in big black letters on the wall of the PC gym, on a billboard along the highway into Providence and imprinted in English’s DNA — Mindset.

Mindset is a term popularized by psychologist Carol Dweck in her 2006 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Dweck says there are two mindsets. People with a fixed mindset believe that success is a product of their natural abilities, so they fear failure and avoid challenges. People with a growth mindset embrace failure as part of learning and believe they can get better by challenging themselves in the face of adversity.

English, a voracious reader, has an autographed copy of UCLA coaching legend John Wooden’s Practical Modern Basketball in his office, along with Prophet of Freedom, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Frederick Douglass. He reads inspirational passages from different books to his players and plays video clips, like one from NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo on the importance of imagination in basketball.

Friars guard Devin Carter calls mindset “the ability to put all the negative things to the side and look at the big picture.” Transfer Josh Oduro, who followed English from George Mason, calls it a philosophy not only for basketball, but for life.

One of English’s favorite passages from Mindset  — “Which is the enemy: success or failure?” — involves longtime Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt, who won eight national championships but couldn’t shake off losses. Gradually, she came to recognize the value of failure, praising her team’s effort after a sixth straight loss. The Lady Vols went on to win a national title.

“Mindset is a mantra, a rallying cry that we use whenever we are falling beneath our standards,” says English. “What is failure? It’s not even a thing. It doesn’t exist … it wasn’t failure when I first fell off a bike. The only way to adequately grow is to learn from mistakes. Failure seems so final.”

English looks for challenges large and small for his players to navigate.

Seventies’ PC basketball legend Ernie DiGregorio (left), with English and fan Dominic Colletta. Photo by Mary Murphy

“Bryce Hopkins,” he says, citing his star forward. “He’s been working out with me every morning at 6 a.m. Yesterday when he came in, he slammed the door on his finger. He had some blood on his finger and I taped it up. And I told him, ‘Man, that’s so awesome. You get some adversity this morning.’ And he went out and shot the ball great.”

The month before the season opener, English’s Friars are practicing on Billy Donovan Court, in the House that Cooley Built, guarded by statues of early PC coaching legends Dave Gavitt and Joe Mullaney.

English is not happy with his team’s mindset. He huddles them up and plays a clip of a Colorado football practice where coach Deion Sanders has brought in his former NFL teammate, Hall of Famer Michael Irvin. As Irvin speaks to the team about the importance of bringing it every day, English shouts over the audio.

“Ninety percent of games are lost before the ball goes up,” English says. “We lost today. If you think you can just coast and be cool and then you gonna (bleeping) show up when it matters, you’re (bleeping) fooling yourself!

“I’ve seen (bleeps) like that my whole career. They have a good game, a bad game, good game, bad game, then you wind up playing overseas … you don’t make no money. Your life is (bleep bleep).

“Basketball ain’t just playing hard. Playing hard ain’t nothing. You SHOULD play hard. But can you play hard and execute? Can you play hard and have the skill and precision to make a pass? Can you play tough enough to stand your opponent up? It’s the skill AND the will!”

you wouldn’t know it to listen to the articulate English today, but as a boy growing up in Baltimore, he was tormented by a terrible stutter. It led to a lot of teasing. And fighting. And frustration.

English recalls the stress of the teacher going around the room having students read passages aloud from a book. When it’s Kim’s turn, he reads, “I was listening to a mu, a mu…” and then another boy blurts out “musician.”

 “And I’m like, I know the word. I can read very well,” says English. “You’re fighting yourself because you have the anxiety, the fear of knowing that this boa constrictor is about to grab your vocal cords. Then you have to fight the pressure when it grabs your vocal cords — how am I going to get out of that moment?”

English will still stutter in the huddle or other moments. But he taught himself to master it with the same determination he attacked basketball. The movie The King’s Speech was a major influence — and so was Barack Obama.

“Obama was a big person I imitated because he speaks — like — this,” says English, slowing his cadence. “That allowed me to find the song in my speech.

“One of my favorite moments is to see a recruit who stutters. And I say, ‘Hey, you stutter.’ And they’ll try to be defensive and say, ‘No, I don’t stutter.’ And then I tell them I stutter. And once they know, they let down their guard and we can talk about it.”

English, the second oldest in a family of two boys and two girls, was a smart, energetic boy. He attended an arts magnet school in Baltimore, loved reading and history and enjoyed watching the Discovery Channel and “Jeopardy!,” shouting the answers. 

“He’s an old soul,” says his mother Brenda Fowlkes, a retired Baltimore math teacher. “He was a different type of child, always busy, never in the streets. I never had to give him a curfew. If he was out and I was out, he’d be home before me.”

English talked about being a doctor or an architect. But he discovered a passion and an aptitude for basketball. His father — Kim Sr., or Big Kim — had been a good player in Baltimore, the No. 3 high-school scorer in Maryland who later played for Baltimore Community College in the national junior-college tournament. He played pickup with two local stars who went to Georgetown — Reggie Williams and David Wingate, a cousin — and visited his stepfather’s family in Providence when Ernie D. and Marvin Barnes starred for the Friars. When his son, “Little Kim,” was young, he’d tag along as Big Kim played adult league games with Baltimore basketball royalty like Muggsy Bogues, who starred in the NBA. Another Baltimore native, future NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony, offered Little Kim advice when he was in college.

English coaches the team at a game at the Amica Mutual Pavilion. Photo by Mary Murphy

“Basketball was my everything,” recalls English. “When other kids were going to the prom and homecoming and senior trips, I just wanted to know every single thing there was to know about this game. I’m still that little boy, chasing this game.”

English blossomed into a talented, six-foot-five player who could shoot and defend. He went to Missouri, where he played in two NCAA tournaments and won two Big Twelve tournaments, including his senior year when he was named the most outstanding player.

The Detroit Pistons drafted him in the second round of the 2012 NBA draft, and his fellow rookies voted him the most likely second-round pick to succeed. But he averaged just ten minutes and 2.9 points his rookie year, and the next year was cut. Over the next two seasons, he would have unsuccessful tryouts with the Chicago Bulls and Orlando Magic while playing in Italy, France and Venezuela.

It was a tough time, his mother says, and he had an epiphany. During his long love affair with basketball, English realized he had pursued the wrong dream — getting to the NBA, not staying there. It’s a lesson that he shares with his players.

“I didn’t live in the gym as much as I had. I wasn’t as obsessive over my individual improvement … in college, I literally slept in the gym,” he says.

English still looks like he did the day he was drafted and could still be playing — as he proves to his players when he challenges them to go one-on-one, jumps into drills or runs sprints with them. But after two years of living out of suitcases, he chose to follow his passion to coach. When his college coach, Frank Haith, tried to dissuade him, English stayed up late in Europe watching college film and sending his coach scouting reports.

 “I’ve always thought about the game differently,” says English. Growing up, his mother notes, he would sit next to his coach, listening and learning. 

English went to work for Haith as his assistant at Tulsa in 2015 and rocketed through the ranks — two years apiece as an assistant in Tulsa, Colorado and Tennessee. In Tennessee, he found a mentor in Rick Barnes, who coached at Providence from 1988 to 1994. The two FaceTime daily.

“I love him to death,” says Barnes. “When we met, I knew that he had ‘it.’ He wants to get better every day, and he’s fearless and won’t back down. He’s also genuine and likes to engage people. He’s going to do a great job getting out there and meeting the Friar Faithful.”

In 2021, English landed his first head coaching job at George Mason, where Barnes also had his first head job before coming to Providence. English was 14-16 his first season, then 20-13 last season, battling injuries to win eight close games down the stretch. The day the Patriots’ season ended with a loss in the Atlantic 10 tournament, Georgetown fired its coach, Patrick Ewing, the former Hoyas star and NBA Hall of Famer. 

The first domino that would bring Kim English to Providence had fallen.

father jordan zajac was teaching his Renaissance Literature class at Providence College on the Monday the news broke that Ed Cooley was going to Georgetown.

His students quickly shifted to a discussion of what this would mean for the basketball renaissance Cooley had created in his twelve seasons at PC — an unparalleled stretch of stability and success not seen since Dave Gavitt in the 1970s.

“It felt like dad was getting a divorce from mom,” recalls Father Jordan. “Coach Cooley was a father figure. The students felt betrayed and abandoned.”

The rumors swirled for weeks that Cooley wanted a change, but people didn’t want to believe it. He was the hometown hero, born and raised in South Providence, not like other successful coaches — Rick Pitino, Rick Barnes — who weren’t rooted here and eventually left for higher-profile jobs.

English in his office with a “Mindset” sign, a motivational word the coach uses often. Photo by Mary Murphy

Cooley and former athletic director Bob Driscoll had upgraded PC’s fundraising and athletic facilities, opening the gleaming $30 million Ruane Friar Development Center in 2018 and providing the resources for the program to compete at a high level. Cooley, named the 2022 Naismith Men’s Coach of the Year after leading the Friars to the Big East regular-season title and NCAA Sweet Sixteen, seemed poised to take the program to the next level — a Final Four or even the school’s first national championship. The Amica Mutual Pavilion, or AMP, had become one of the toughest home courts in the country, with students singing along to Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” as the Friars closed out another fierce Big East battle.

The new athletic director, Steve Napolillo, who had been Driscoll’s right-hand man for eighteen years, says he saw signs in January that Cooley might leave, and started doing his due diligence on a possible replacement. He turned to former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese, who had worked with Gavitt at Providence College and is widely respected throughout college basketball.

They identified English as a rising star, and Tranghese vetted him. He called Rick Barnes, who still has a soft spot for his time in Providence, calling it “the second-best job I’ve ever had.” Barnes told Tranghese that English was the best recruiter he’s ever had, and that he could handle the pressure of the Big East.

Convinced that English was their man and that Cooley was going to leave, Napolillo and Tranghese felt a sense of urgency. They knew they had to move quickly to hire a new coach, to avoid an exodus of players that could devastate the program.

Over the weekend prior to Cooley’s Monday introduction at Georgetown, Tranghese had a series of phone conversations with English. Ironically, English’s agent also represents Rick Pitino, who was in talks at the time to go to St. John’s. The agent initially thought Tranghese wanted Pitino to return to Providence.    

Two days after Cooley’s departure, English was on a plane to Providence. Napolillo, who had asked the players to give him forty-eight hours to find them a great coach, picked up English at the airport. Enroute to dinner that night with the PC president, the Rev. Kenneth R. Sicard, English bumped into Bryce Hopkins and a few other players at the gym. After dinner, English and Napolillo returned to the Ruane Center, where they worked until 2 a.m. hammering out a contract.

English set to work recruiting his first class — the players already on the roster. He convinced the team’s stars, Bryce Hopkins and Devin Carter, to stay. He brought three George Mason transfers, including all-Atlantic 10 big man Josh Oduro. And he flew to Los Angeles to meet with three top high school players whom Cooley had recruited, including top prospect Garwey Dual, who was also being wooed by Cooley at Georgetown and Pitino at St. John’s.

The new coach flew back to Providence, had dinner with his team, then took a private charter jet to Houston that night to meet with Dual’s AAU coach. Barnes, who recalls many a late-night commercial flight home from Newark, says PC didn’t have the resources in his day for private jets to chase recruits.

Dual agreed to keep PC on his radar, and a few weeks later dropped by the Ruane Center one night. He was late, which English chastised him for. But while English had been waiting, he saw talented Friar point guard Jayden Pierre, who had entered the transfer portal, working out and challenged him to play one-on-one. If he won, English told Pierre, the player would have to stay. English won, posting an Instagram video that went viral. Pierre stayed. And Dual agreed to come to PC.

“That was a good night,” says English.

English and Napolillo had moved quickly to flip the script. In June, Providence announced that it had sold out its season tickets for English’s first season, at 10,500 — 2,000 more than Cooley’s final season.

Steve Napolillo, below right, vice president and director of athletics at Providence College. Photos by Mary Murphy

In Providence, things were once again divine. 

Father Jordan and students in his Renaissance Literature class attended English’s introductory press conference. That summer, English befriended the friar and invited him to practice. One day, English coached him on his shooting. Afterward, Father Jordan sank a three-pointer in his flowing white robe. The video went viral on social media. 

back at the garden, the questions keep coming.

English says he’s not even thinking about when Georgetown visits Providence. The Jan. 27 game was sold out before the season, and online tickets started at $300 ranging to $2,300 for courtside. The Providence and Georgetown contingents had arrived at the Garden that morning at the same time; there were hugs and handshakes, not animosity.

English jokes he may be the only person in Rhode Island who likes Cooley. Then, seriously, he says that Cooley has told him about the passionate fan base. He expresses gratitude to Cooley for leaving him a program in such great shape. English has embraced former Friars like NBA player Kris Dunn, who worked out on campus last summer, and Ernie DiGregorio, who chatted with the coach during a preseason scrimmage.

Nearby, Cooley says that he still loves Providence, and will be rooting for the Friars whenever they don’t play Georgetown. His words echo Georgetown’s legendary coach John Thompson, the first Black coach to win a national championship, who went to Providence College in the 1960s. Thompson always had a soft spot for the Friars and rooted for them when they weren’t playing his Hoyas.

A few tables down, Pitino reminisces about his days at Providence, when he upset Thompson’s Hoyas to go to the Final Four. He came back to PC last summer for a reunion and was “blown away” by the new facilities and how far the program has come.

For all his promise, English remains untested in the fires of the Big East. He also must navigate the brutal new economics of college basketball, where players can be paid for endorsements and appearances. Providence boosters say they have raised enough money to compete in the so-called name, image and likeness arena, but it remains a shadowy world that poses new recruiting challenges. Following Big East Media Day, English is on a plane to Atlanta to see a top recruit, Daquan Davis, who had verbally committed to PC. But five days later, Davis announces on social media that he has changed his mind and reopened his recruitment.

Still, English’s youth and energy, up-tempo style and NBA experience resonate with players. A lot of coaches talk about wanting to play fast, notes Kevin McNamara, but “from what I’ve seen early, English’s Friars actually do.” English is demanding but also playful, challenging the Friars to trivia contests, joking around with them and kicking his assistants out of a scouting meeting to learn magic tricks from a fan who also taught Rick Barnes years ago.

“His love and passion bleeds into his players,” says Friar guard Ticket Gaines, who was with English at George Mason and Tennessee. “He’ll get on the floor with you, take a charge.”

A fired-up English literally did that in PC’s home opener, reaching down and lifting Gaines off the floor after the player dove for a loose ball. Afterward, English marveled at the near-capacity crowd — “it felt like a mid-season SEC game at Tennessee.” By contrast, Rick Barnes recalls walking off the same court after a big win and hearing boos because the Friars hadn’t covered the point spread.

“Coming to the Big East is a great opportunity. Coach will be competing night in and night out with the best coaches, and that will help him grow,” says Gaines. 

Napolillo, the Providence AD, stands on the Garden floor, surveying the experienced Big East coaches.

“They were all Kim at one point,” he says. “I said to him, ‘Are you ready to go into the lion’s den?’ And he said, ‘Put me in and close the door.’”

As a boy, English would sneak into the janitor’s closet at school to watch Big East tournament games from the Garden. He can tell you precisely how many times he’s played here — once in college, twice with the Pistons against the New York Knicks. He’s grateful, but not overwhelmed, to be here.

“It’s the game on the court that’s my focus. If we lose, it’s because of me,” he says, then gestures towards his players. “If we win, it’s because of these guys.”