Practice for the Syracuse women’s basketball team was drawing to a close as assistant coach Rick Moody was just finishing up a long defensive session. He barked out his signal calls with his always-present southern accent.

Sometimes, it would be a compliment; other times, when something didn’t go as planned, Moody would force the team to run sprints.

As the players answered questions for the media after practice, Moody’s name came up. Even though only minutes earlier he was this loud, pesky, self-described ‘redneck’ from Alabama, the players’ faces lit up at the inquiries.

‘I’ve never ever played for anybody so enthused to get us going,’ Fantasia Goodwin said. ‘When we aren’t acting right, I know I can count on him to get us going.’

Moody is in his first year as an assistant at Syracuse under head coach Quentin Hillsman. Just a few years ago, their roles were reversed. Before coming to SU in 2005 as an assistant coach, Hillsman worked under Moody for a year at Alabama, where Moody was one of the longest tenured and most respected coaches in the Southeastern Conference. Now, in his attempt to help Hillsman build his SU program, Moody is bringing intensity, and a few laughs, to a different squad in a much different role.

So far, there hasn’t been any sign of a power struggle between the two coaches. At least from the player’s viewpoint, the two look as though they had grown up together.

‘They’re like brothers from different mothers,’ Goodwin said.

Moody said he knew he wanted to help out Hillsman the day his former assistant was hired at Syracuse. When Hillsman received the job as an assistant, Moody was coaching a small private school boy’s basketball team. Even though it wasn’t a high-profile position, the coaching job at the school reinvigorated him.

‘When I got on the floor, I was excited, I was passionate, I was intense and I knew at that point that I was missing something in my life,’ Moody said.

Hillsman was promoted officially to head coach for Syracuse last October. When Moody came knocking at Hillsman’s door this spring, the coach had no other option but to accept his offer, especially with Moody’s resume. In 16 seasons as the head coach at Alabama, Moody earned 310 wins, the most in the program’s history. Eight times, the Crimson Tide finished with 20 wins or more.

Moody also found success in March. He led Alabama to eight NCAA Tournament appearances with five consecutive Sweet Sixteen appearances from 1994-98. In 1994, Moody’s squad made it as far as the Final Four – still the program’s only appearance in its history.

But Moody didn’t come to Syracuse to boost his resume. He came to boost his friend.

‘I just want to see Coach Q be able to experience some of the great, great things that happened to me as a head coach of Alabama for 16 years,’ Moody said. ‘Final Fours, Sweet Sixteens, my resume is complete as far as I’m concerned, but he’s making his resume, he’s building a legacy.’

In order to help Hillsman get to those places, Moody brings energy to practice and expects the team to, as well. The players have already seen a change in intensity during practice from last year to this year.

‘It’s tough for me sometimes because I value his opinion so much that we still talk about a lot of things,’ Hillsman said. ‘I still make the final decisions on the court, but nine out of 10 times I run it by him first because I know he’s been in these situations before. I’m not at all intimidated, I’m not at all worried about him being here and not being a good balance.’

Those intense moments, though, can turn comical, but only after practice. Moody, spending much of his life in Alabama, still springs some Southern flavor to practice that sometimes catches his players off guard.

‘After practice, when we go in the locker room, we’re like, ‘Coach Moody said some funny stuff today,” Goodwin said.

Those antics often extend to practice itself. In an attempt to imitate their feisty assistant coach, Nicole Michael and Goodwin got into a defensive stance, tried on their best Southern accent and said, ‘God darn it! Get over here, Erica! You gotta git git git there!’

But the two teammates deferred to freshman Erica Morrow, who they said does the best Moody impression.

After 10 ‘pleases’ from Goodwin, Morrow finally indulged them. But she always had her head turned to be aware of where Moody was in relation to her.

Moody, for his part, takes the good-natured antics in stride.

‘I’m sure they laugh at the way I talk, and some of the one-liners I sometimes use to make a point,’ Moody said. ‘But it takes all kinds to make life exciting and interesting. So me joining a bunch of kids from the North up here like this, it’s been quite exciting.’

Moody said the thing he enjoys most about coaching is the people involved. The best part of coaching, he said, is being able to develop a close relationship with the players and having the opportunity to help them become better people. Even if that means hearing Goodwin, Michael and Morrow taking in a Southern accent, it’s all in good fun.

‘There’s rednecks in New York and there’s rednecks in Alabama, and I might be considered a redneck, I don’t know,’ Moody said while fighting back his laughter. ‘But I do know this: People are people, and I might talk just a little bit different than some of the folks up here. But that’s OK.’

As the season progresses and the players get more accustomed to Moody, there will probably be even more impersonations and more laughter as a result of phrases uttered by the assistant coach.

One thing that won’t be happening is Moody impersonating his players, but that’s not because he doesn’t want to play like his new pupils.

Moody said: ‘There are some of them that I’d like to be able to impersonate (on the court), but if I did, I’m so old I might hurt myself. And (Goodwin)’s one of them.’

Published on December 4, 2007 at 12:00 pm