Call me homeslice.
Some months ago — never mind how long precisely — having little else to accomplish and nothing particular to interest him in Texas, Todd Buchanan thought he would journey about a little and see the other parts of the world.
So he came to Iola, Kansas.
“I’m sure there’s been some people like, ‘Are you sure? What are you thinking?’” said Buchanan through his thick southern twang, spilling from his mouth like molasses from a Mason jar.
He’s thinking he’ll find his white whale: Happiness.
In his three-plus seasons at the University of Houston as the women’s head basketball coach, the slightly silver-headed man struggled to find joy staring at his office’s ceiling in the middle of the night.
Another slumber away from home. Another 20,000 miles on the road recruiting — in the month of July alone. Just another day in the life of a Division I coach.
“After 20 years or so of that, it takes a toll. It takes a toll on you mentally, physically,” Buchanan said. “(Life’s) all really too short to be unhappy.”
So after a career that has been highlighted by a trip to the 2011 NCAA Tournament, an undefeated conference slate (twice) and a Conference USA Coach of the Year award, Buchanan, 48, is returning to his roots.
Well, sort of.
As a player, Buchanan started his collegiate career at the community college level. But in 28 years as a coach, he has never attempted to lead a group of JUCO athletes from the bench.
Until now.
Following a year-long hiatus from the sport his father, Tom, taught him to love, Buchanan is back in the saddle again.
From Kentucky to Oklahoma to Alabama and more, the basketball lifer has embraced every challenge and every destination.
“I’ve been a little bit of everywhere,” he said. “I’ve been kind of like Johnny Cash, man.”
So it’s appropriate that he’s facing a totally new test.
Last season, the Allen Community College women’s basketball program stumbled to a 5-26 record, losing its final 13 games.
The Lady Red Devils finished last in their conference in five major statistical categories, and second-to-last in three more.
Suffice to say, it’s not how sophomore Ashley Washington pictured her first year at college.
“No,” she spoke quietly. “We don’t want to lose like last year.”
Fortunately, Allen’s starting point guard and its new head coach are on the same page: Losing stinks.
So since Buchanan took over the program in late August, he’s been putting in the hours to find success — just like the old days.
But unlike the old days, he’s doing so with a renewed and refreshed attitude.
From the practice floor, he calls his players “homeslice” and “honey.”
He cracks jokes and spits out his Texan metaphors (something involving jackrabbits; his drawl sometimes blends together into one funny yet indistinguishable mess).
And because Buchanan has been geared for coaching D-I players ready for an NCAA Tournament run, he knows he has to slow things down at times for his new team.
“I’ve had to really rein in myself at times,” Buchanan said. “I’ve been very honest with them. I’ve caught myself at times going way too fast and trying to put many of the pieces of the puzzle too quickly. We came together one day and I told them, ‘I’m sorry. I know I’m going too fast. I know I’m speaking a different language to some of you. So my promise to you is that I’m going to slow down, I’m going to be more patient.’
“And at the end of the day, I’d rather do six, seven, eight things really, really, really good and do them the best we can do rather than be out there and be a jack of all trades and a master of none, so to speak. They got that. They understood that. They really appreciated that.”
Yet he knows what he’s here to do.
Toward the end of Thursday’s practice, he takes the ball and asks what the word of the day is.
“Consistency,” say his players, some adding “sir” to address the head ball coach.
Consistency is something Allen hasn’t had since before these players were born.
“See that banner,” assistant coach Rachel Janzen points inside the ACC gym.
It reads 1990, the last time the Lady Red Devils were anything close to a power in southeast Kansas.
“That’s why I’m here,” she continued. “To get another one.”
The journey begins today at 2 p.m. when Allen hosts Ottawa JV for its first game of the year.
“We don’t want people to look past us anymore,” sophomore Haley Wilson said. “For (opponents), it was like, ‘Oh Allen County? This is going to be easy.’”
Now, Buchanan has the job of making it anything but.
There are still sacrifices. His wife, Michelle, and his 7-year-old son, Colton, are still back in the Houston area because of Michelle’s job.
“It kills me everyday,” Buchanan said. “But they know. They get it.”
He’s a basketball coach, so sometimes, he must sail through the vast prairies of America to finally find that white whale.
In the meantime, Allen is simply hoping Buchanan can help harpoon another banner on the gym’s wall.
— — —
It’s hard to imagine a world where Andy Shaw is a veteran of anything.
Todd Buchanan has been drawing up plays for as long as Shaw has been on this earth.
But Shaw, the 28-year-old men’s basketball head coach for Allen Community College, is now entering his fourth season at the helm of the Red Devils while Buchanan has yet to coach a single community college game.
So yes, in that single respect, Shaw is the old timer. But in reality, he is part of the nation’s quick-rising youth movement within the collegiate coaching realm.
At 24, the former Oklahoma State walk-on was named head coach of the ACC men’s program.
He needed just one season as the team’s assistant before making the leap.
Now, with three years of head coaching experience within the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference, Shaw is ready to make another leap.
“I think this team can compete at the top of conference,” Shaw said. “It’s going to be tough, but I think it’s plenty doable for us.”
Last season, the Red Devils managed to finish first in the Region VI Jayhawk East Division I while finishing third in their own conference.
“People never understand when I tell them that,” Shaw said.
But this season, he’s hoping to make it easy and finish first across the board.
Step No. 1 is taking care of a visiting Ottawa JV squad that matches up against Allen at 4 p.m. today.
Although he won’t have Josh Sweet or Courtney Stockard, ACC’s two leading scorers from last season, Shaw is optimistic he’ll be able to replace 50 percent of the offense with a newcomer and a returner.
“Jah-Kobe Womack has been playing really well in our scrimmages up to this point,” Shaw said. “I think he’s a guy who can come in as a freshman and help with that scoring load for this year.”
Womack, a 6-foot-2 guard out of St. Louis, has proven to be one of the Red Devils’ most athletic weapons in an already athletic-heavy team.
“I think we’re a little more athletic and we’re going to try and use that to our advantage and try and press teams more than we have in the past and try to get up and cause turnovers on the defensive end,” Shaw said.
“And hopefully that will lead to some easy baskets for us. We’ve seen that in scrimmages so far and so we’re hoping that can become our identity this year as a team that can cause some havoc on the defensive end and make easy points for us on the offensive end.”
Helping Womack transition into the college game will be sophomore Jermaine Long, the team’s third-leading scorer from the 2014-2015 campaign.
“He’s proven in conference and through his freshman season that he is a good player and we’ll lean on him at times,” Shaw said. “But it’s going to be more balanced overall as a group this year.”
Of all people, a former team manager should help provide some of that balance Shaw has been striving to find.
Darius Redrick earned a spot on last year’s squad after serving as the manager during the 2013-2014 season. But now as a veteran of the program, Redrick might prove to be Allen’s secret weapon.
Like the women’s team, the men’s team hopes to find more consistency on the floor this season.
“We play hard, we compete every day in practice, but we have to consistently make the right decision, the best decision, sometimes the simple decision,” Shaw said. “Sometimes try to force things, take a bad shot, make a crazy pass, we got to eliminate those things and just become more consistent where we’re not having these peaks and valleys.”
