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“He believed in me that much,” Terry said. “He really instilled in me to dream big.”
Phillips coached his final game last year, forced into retirement by bone cancer. He died in August, months before Terry seized an opportunity born of turbulence and validated the belief his father had in him. Handed an awful mess, Terry has delivered a dream season.
In the wake of midseason domestic violence allegations that rocked the University of Texas and cost Coach Chris Beard his job, Terry became the Longhorns’ interim head coach in December. Having received the grandest opportunity of his career amid dreadful circumstances, Terry guided Texas to the Big 12 tournament championship and the school’s first Sweet 16 since 2008.
By both seed and performance, the second-seeded Longhorns are one of the best teams remaining in the NCAA tournament, a threat to trim nets in both Kansas City this weekend and Houston the next. Under Terry’s steady leadership, a saga with the potential to crush the program became a blip. And yet he still has scant clarity on his future.
Texas’s administration has neither removed Terry’s interim label nor committed to Terry beyond this March. Texas is a school with an imperious predilection in coaches. It remains an open question whether school leaders and boosters prefer a coach with a glossier résumé than the 54-year-old who had been a journeyman before he rescued their season.
No such ambivalence exists within the locker room. Longhorns players, many of them recruited by Terry, have openly advocated for Terry’s full-time hire. They understand the deeper they advance through the bracket, the less choice their school will have in making the man they fondly call R.T. — or Hot Rod, if they’re being cheeky — the permanent coach at Texas.
“The people around him love him,” senior forward Timmy Allen said. “It doesn’t seem like some, ‘I feel bad for you’ or, ‘Let me help you out.’ We’re winning for each other, and he is included in that. We’re genuine as hell when we say this. It’s love for R.T.”
A son of Angleton, Texas, Terry played point guard at Division II St. Edward’s in Austin and stayed there to start his coaching career. He worked five years as a high school coach before jumping to be an assistant at Baylor in the mid-90s. He spent nearly a decade as an assistant at Texas, helping coach Rick Barnes build a national power that attracted stars like Kevin Durant and D.J. Augustin. He developed a reputation within the coaching business for mentorship, never turning away an aspiring coach who approached him at a clinic or recruiting showcase.
“There’s not a better human in college coaching than Rodney Terry,” Texas assistant Chris Ogden said. “You’ll get that sentiment from a lot of people.”
Terry became a college head coach for the first time at Fresno State in 2011. “You know, when you’re on the sidelines against somebody, sometimes you can really feel the opposing coach’s personality,” said Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman, who overlapped for three seasons with Terry in the Mountain West while at Nevada. “Loose balls were hard to get against Coach Terry’s teams.”
Terry’s seven seasons at Fresno State peaked with a Mountain West tournament championship in 2016, followed by a first-round NCAA tournament exit. Terry hopped to UTEP, where he improved from eight wins to 17 between his first and second seasons. After another year with the Miners, he returned to Texas as Beard’s associate head coach in 2021.
Terry ran Texas’s defense and helped assemble its roster, heavy on transfers in the pop-up style of modern college hoops. Texas had long been an underachieving power, and after losing in the second round last year it expected a breakthrough this season. The Longhorns returned three starters and several key reserves while adding transfers Tyrese Hunter and Sir’Jabari Rice along with two top-20 freshmen. They started 7-1, coalescing with an unselfish and hard-nosed style.
On the morning of Dec. 12, as the Longhorns were preparing to host Rice, a grenade hit their season. Austin police arrested Beard at his home after his fiancee, Randi Trew, alleged Beard had thrown her down and strangled her following an argument. The school suspended Beard instantly and installed Terry as the interim coach. Texas played that night, squeaking past Rice in overtime.
“Coach Terry wasn’t a guy who was a back seat coach,” guard Marcus Carr said. “He was a guy who’s been coaching us. He was in charge of our defense. Him stepping up into that role, it wasn’t anything different getting used to R.T.’s voice.”
Beard maintained his innocence. On Dec. 23, Trew released a statement backing Beard’s claim he had acted in self-defense. Christmas and New Year’s passed with Beard still suspended, no final decision made by Texas on whether Terry would remain the interim coach all season or if the school remained open to Beard’s return.
In the face of awkwardness and uncertainty, Texas marched through the season. The experience of both their roster, studded with six seniors in the regular rotation, and the coaching staff helped. Terry led the way. He focused players on each workout, each practice, each film session. He repeated the mantra, “Be where your feet are.” At the start of practices, he would announce to his players, “Great day to be alive!”
“Because of the uncertainty of everything, we just approached every day as the next day of practice,” Ogden said. “We didn’t talk much about what was going on. We just talked about what we’re doing that day. In some ways, being in the middle of the season helped us, because we were insulated and just had to concentrate on winning the next game.”
On Jan. 5, Texas fired Beard. (In February, the Travis County District Attorney dropped all charges against Beard, suggesting it didn’t have sufficient evidence to pursue a conviction and citing Trew’s wishes. Ole Miss hired him earlier this month.)
Texas kept rolling, unperturbed by the storm around them. Terry won eight of his first nine games. The Longhorns didn’t lose consecutive games until March 1. They responded by upsetting Kansas, winning the Big 12 tournament and advancing to the Sweet 16.
The latest victory may have been the hardest. Having controlled the entirety of Saturday night, Texas yielded 10th-seeded Penn State a 10-0 run that created a sudden 58-55 deficit. As Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines erupted with just under five minutes left, Terry called timeout. He exuded calm as his players encircled him.
“We’ve been in this position a ton of times this year,” Terry told them. “Get back to what we do.”
As the huddle broke, Terry encouraged each player individually. He looked at Allen, a fifth-year senior assigned to defend Penn State all-American Jalen Pickett.
“Be a dog,” Terry said. “I need you.”
“One-thousand,” Allen replied.
The Longhorns executed a “kill” — three consecutive defensive possessions without a score — and reclaimed control. Forward Dylan Disu’s succession of hook shots and turnaround jumpers iced the game. On the sidelines, Terry coolly pumped his fist.
“He don’t got to prove nothing no more to nobody,” Allen said.
That, though, has been the backdrop of Texas’s season. Terry has become a leading candidate for national coach of the year while effectively performing an open audition. He has swatted away questions about the program’s future, insisting he just wants to cherish this chance with these players.
“Throughout the course of my career I’ve always really tried to live where my feet are,” Terry said. “You’ve got to treat every job like it’s your last job. You can’t be looking at this job or that job. You have to do your job to the fullest, and if you are given another opportunity, like I thought I would at some point in the mid-major level, I had to do well where I was at an unbelievable level.”
Late Saturday night, a reporter at a news conference asked three Texas players, seated next to Terry behind a dais, if they would lobby Athletic Director Chris Del Conte on Terry’s behalf. Terry interjected and took the question himself, expressing his pride in coaching Texas and asserting that the moment and the accomplishment belonged to his players.
“But give R.T. his credit,” Allen interrupted.
“We need R.T.,” Rice followed.
Players’ affection for Terry contributes to their campaign. It is separate from their argument. “There’s no handouts,” Allen said. “Winning shows. Character shows when it comes to players responding to him.” Players readily admit that Terry’s status has motivated them, knowing each win makes his hiring more likely.
“Already now, we’re like, ‘Give that man the job,’” senior forward Christian Bishop said. “But it just adds to his résumé. He’s been coaching for a while. He’s done a lot of great stuff. Why not just add some more to the résumé so he can take care of business and take over the team?”
After the Longhorns dusted Colgate in the opening round, Bishop realized something in the locker room. He walked to the center of the room, hushed the celebration and called over his coach.
“Everybody!” Bishop announced. “This is R.T.’s first tournament win!”
Players roared. Terry wrapped Bishop in a hug.
“I think we have a picture of it,” Bishop said the next day. “I’m going to hold on to that forever.”
“He’s trying to win all this for his dad,” Bishop added later. “I know my relationship with my pops. Being able to help him with his situation, it’s just everything.”
More than half a year since his death, Terry feels Phillips’s presence. He still drives his father’s Jeep and wears his father’s Rolex during games.
“People loved my dad, just by the way he carried himself,” Terry said. “A lot of his former players, the respect they had for him after they finished playing for him, he inspired me to want to be a coach and continue to work with young people and hopefully have an impact on young people’s lives. I learned so much from him in that regard.”
After Texas beat Penn State, Terry’s players surrounded him at midcourt as CBS interviewed him. He bounded down the hallway to Texas’s locker room, high-fiving assistants and staffers outside the door. “R.T.!” assistant coach Brandon Chappell shouted. “Let’s go!” Terry bolted inside, Chappell blowing a whistle behind, into the embrace of players.
Terry headed to the news conference a few minutes later, answered questions and then walked back down the hallway. “Back in the Sweet 16!” he said to one friend.
He didn’t know what would happen next, but Terry carried things nobody could take away. In his right hand he gripped the nameplate from his news conference and the box score from the biggest victory of his career. On his wrist he wore a watch that once belonged to the man who had always seen it coming.
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