By now, Dick Hunsaker is sick to death of the comparisons between himself and Rick Majerus.
But it's only natural that people have tried to compare the two coaches ever since Hunsaker took over for Majerus two months ago and became the temporary caretaker of the successful Utah basketball program.
Would the Utes own their current 11-6 record if Majerus had been coaching? Or would they be 13-4 or 15-2 or 9-8? Who knows?
"With a new team you don't know what's going to happen, even tomorrow," Hunsaker said. "I don't know if Rick were here if he would be going through the same scenario now or not."
Whether it's fair or not, the 46-year-old Hunsaker will be subject to comparisons to Majerus until the last Utah game is played in March.
On the surface, the two men couldn't be more different.
At 175 pounds, Hunsaker is barely half the man the rotund Majerus is. Hunsaker is blessed with a full head of dark brown hair with just a few flecks of gray on the side (undoubtedly caused by the stress of the past two months), while Majerus is the man who jokes about his bald pate. Hunsaker is a Mormon, baptized at age 31, who was raised in several rural settings in the Intermountain West. Majerus is a lapsed Catholic who grew up in an urban Midwest atmosphere.
Yet ask Hunsaker about taking over for Majerus and he sounds like a broken record, always talking about how the two longtime friends are on the "same page" in their coaching philosophies.
"This is Rick's team. This is Rick's program. I've simply been put in the position to try to direct the team that was recruited to play for Rick and had every expectation to play for him."
Dick Hunsaker is not Rick Majerus, and he's been put in a tough situation, coaching a young, inexperienced team still trying to find itself. He still talks to Majerus, who is in Wisconsin attending to his ill mother while trying to get healthy himself, on nearly a daily basis and says Majerus constantly apologizes for putting him in such a difficult situation.
Hunsaker insists he is coaching the same way Majerus would be coaching, and the Ute players, to a man, have backed him up, saying they do the same things in practice as when Majerus was coaching. Hunsaker has started to put his own stamp on the Ute club, showing a more up-tempo offense for one thing, but he's the first to admit he may not command the same respect Majerus does with his players.
"Our approach is very similar," he said. "But Rick is the most talented man in coaching at any rank or any level of any sport. He is a gifted man and would be a leader in any field he went into."
But it's not like Hunsaker is some inexperienced assistant who's in over his head trying to coach one of the top basketball programs in the country over the past decade. People forget that Hunsaker was a very successful Division I coach in his own right at Ball State.
In four years he went a remarkable 97-33, winning at least 20 games every year and always sending his team to postseason play (twice to the NCAAs, twice to the NIT). In his first season, he brought his team to the NCAAs at the Huntsman Center and captured upset victories over Oregon State and Louisville before losing to eventual national champion UNLV by just two points in the Sweet 16.
Hunsaker's four-year record is the seventh-best in NCAA history, and he is one of a handful of coaches to win 20 games their first four years of coaching (by contrast, Majerus' first four seasons as a Division I coach were 17-13, 20-11, 19-11 and 14-14).
"I've been down that road," said Hunsaker. "I'm very secure in my ability to coach."
So how did two guys with such different backgrounds and styles as Majerus and Hunsaker end up good friends and coaching colleagues?
Their relationship dates back 25 years to 1976, when Hunsaker was a reserve guard for Neil McCarthy at Weber State and Majerus was a young assistant coach under Al McGuire at Marquette.
They met at a summer basketball camp in Colorado prior to Hunsaker's senior year of college.
"We hit it off because we were both basketball junkies," recalls Hunsaker. "We didn't spend much time talking about girls or current events or things like that. All the time we talked about ball — how we'd defend certain situations or what was best for pre-game meals. We had a common denominator in that we both had a love and passion for the game."
The two stayed in touch over the years while Hunsaker was an assistant at Weber State and Majerus became the head coach at Marquette. Then in 1987, when Majerus took over at Ball State, Hunsaker jumped at the chance to join him. In their second season together, the Cardinals went 29-3 and made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Soon after, Majerus left to take over the Utah program and Hunsaker was elevated to the top spot at Ball State, where he produced the best four-year run in school history.
Hunsaker was on the fast track to coaching stardom at Ball State. He had a chance to return to Weber State to coach in 1990 and was up for openings at Utah State, Wyoming and Colorado State, among other places, during those years. But he was happy coaching in Muncie, Ind., and planned to stay awhile.
"I loved Ball State," he said. "It's one of the best 75 college basketball jobs in the country."
However, just before the start of the 1993-94 season, the bottom fell out for Hunsaker. He was forced to resign in mid-October for what seemed like the most marginal of NCAA violations. Some of his players had received small loans and gifts from boosters, under $2,000 each, to help pay for tuition four years earlier, unbeknownst to Hunsaker.
At the time, Ball State administrators didn't blame Hunsaker, who was quoted as saying, "It is important to me that my players, colleagues and members of the community know that I have never intentionally violated any laws, rules or regulations including those of the NCAA or otherwise."
Karl Benson, the current WAC commissioner who was Mid-American commissioner at the time, said the violation was so minor that it wouldn't even warrant a look by the NCAA nowadays.
When asked if his forced resignation put a cloud over his career, Hunsaker replies, "No. . . . It put it into a tailspin."
Instead of having the chance to build on four straight 20-win seasons and perhaps move up to a more prominent job, Hunsaker was relegated to the Continental Basketball Association to try to rebuild his career.
Hunsaker had to scramble, taking jobs with the Hartford Hellcats and the Grand Rapids Mackers of the CBA, before going back to Indiana in 1995 to coach at Manchester College, a Division III school. He compiled a 51-27 mark there before taking the job as director of basketball operations at Utah in 1998.
"If I didn't have that unfortunate circumstance, who knows where I'd be," Hunsaker said.
Indeed, one of Hunsaker's assistants at Ball State was Larry Eustachy. Since then, he became head coach at Idaho and Utah State before going to Iowa State, where he was named national coach of the year last year.
However, Hunsaker has made the best of the black mark on his resume and has particularly enjoyed the past 2 1/2 years back in Utah, where he went to college and where he met his wife, Diane, a native of Coalville.
He and his wife live in North Salt Lake and are the parents of four children, ranging in age from 23 to 6. Their oldest son, Lance, plays defensive end for the Southern Utah University football team, while daughter, Jodi, starts for the Woods Cross basketball team.
When asked what he does for fun, Hunsaker replies, "At this stage of my life, my family is my fun."
Some folks have speculated that Majerus may not come back to Utah next year because of a variety of reasons — health concerns, family considerations or perhaps a change of jobs (he's often talked about becoming a TV analyst).
Under such a scenario, Hunsaker could be the logical guy to succeed Majerus, especially if the Utes finish strong this year.
But Hunsaker scoffs at such notions.
"There's no question he's coming back," he said. "Rick will be at Utah for the next 15 years, and you can quote me on that."
However, as much as he likes Majerus and enjoys working with him, Hunsaker doesn't plan to work alongside the big man on the sidelines for the next decade and a half. He expects to get another Division I coaching job and prove himself again with a team he can call his own.
"I've had a few near-misses (on jobs)," he said. "I'm sure out there, somewhere, there will be another opportunity."
For now, Hunsaker will just keep doing his best to keep things intact and lay the groundwork for what could be a huge year for Utah in 2001-2002, when all but two players return and three top recruits join the program.
"I just hope that we can improve in areas that are critical to Rick's system and not have to re-teach them when he does, in fact, return."
E-MAIL: sor@desnews.com