SALT LAKE CITY — It didn't take Dave Rose long to return to the bench.
Just a few months after stepping aside as BYU basketball's coach, Rose will be coaching Jimmer Fredette’s team in the TBT tournament this week at the Maverik Center.
Must've been bored in retirement, right?
Couldn't stay away from hoops?
Missed growling at referees and ripping off his coat jacket?
The answer is D: none of the above.
Rose is coaching Team Fredette as a favor to the former NCAA player of the year and his brother, T.J. He'll get some good quality time with some of his favorite old basketball players in the process.
"The funnest part of the job is (for) the games you don't have to do much except just kind of show up and coach them up in a practice or two and see if you can go win three games and get to Chicago," Rose said. "With Jimmer and Ty (Haws) being around, I thought it would be fun to just hang out with those two guys again for a little while."
The Fredette-sponsored squad is one of eight teams in Utah this week vying for a chance to move on to the next round in this winner-takes-$2 million tournament. Games will go from July 25-27.
Two other teams have strong local ties. The Utah Stallions include USU's Sean Harris, Spencer Butterfield and Preston Medlin, while Team Utah has the likes of former Jazz/UVU point guard Ronnie Price and ex-Utes Shaun Green, Tim Drisdom, Justin Hawkins and Dakarai Tucker.
With Jimmer and Ty (Haws) being around, I thought it would be fun to just hang out with those two guys again for a little while. – Former BYU head coach Dave Rose
This is just the latest adventure in a busy season for Rose.
Rose and his wife have traveled to Hawaii for a Nike event and extended vacation, visited their daughter in Portland and spent time in Las Vegas.
"I think that’s probably our favorite thing to do is travel. I have a lot of time to go to places and stay longer than we maybe have been able to stay at other times," Rose said. "We went to Vegas for a week and actually didn’t have a game to play or any recruits to watch and just enjoyed the city like normal people do."
Sadly, Rose has also spent time mourning the passing of his father since he retired from BYU, which he understandably describes as being "a tough time."
"It seems like it’s been really busy," he said about retirement. "It doesn’t seem like I’m looking for things to do. We’ve got something going on all the time. I think my wife and I are really enjoying our time together."
And, yes, Rose has even had time for keeping up with BYU basketball's busy offseason, which has included cordial colleague Mark Pope being hired away from Utah Valley to replace him and the surprising return of standout players Yoeli Childs and Jake Toolson.
"I follow it from afar and was really excited when Yoeli decided to come back, excited for the recruits that he’s signed, the new guys that will join the program," Rose said. "I think that Mark got the very best guy he could get when he got Yoeli to come back. Obviously Jake Toolson has had a tremendous career."
The same could be said of Rose, who's the BYU program’s all-time leader in win percentage. In 14 years, Rose's Cougars went 348-135 (.720 winning percentage), went to the NCAA Tournament eight times and had 13 20-win seasons.