Illinois’ Brad Underwood coached for 26 years before landing his first Division I head coaching job.
Now in Year 39, the well-traveled 62-year-old is finally heading to the Final Four, where the Fighting Illini meet UConn on Saturday.
He’s doing it in what he’s long referred to as his dream job. In 2013 while in that first DI head coaching job at Stephen F. Austin, he told his administrative assistant about his ambition to coach the Fighting Illini
one day. And she wrote it down.
When he was named Illinois coach in 2017, she presented him with that meaningful piece of paper containing his intention to lead this team.
In the place he always wanted to be, Underwood has the Fighting Illini in the Final Four for the first time since 2005, trying to bring home a first national title.
“I’ve been fortunate to be around great mentors, great coaches,” he said. “I just bided my time, found a group that’s magical. We’re living the dream.”
Though he’s living the dream now, it came only after decades of toiling in relative obscurity.
There were four years at Dodge City Community College starting in 1988 where he was not only the coach but the team’s bus driver for road games. Then came 10 years as an assistant for Jim Kerwin at Western Illinois, where he was “not making very much money and raising three kids and literally being gone five days a week.”
The next stop was Daytona Beach Community College from 2003-06, which also was not the most glamorous job but had a nice perk.
“It was an incredible place to help raise our kids, going to the beach every weekend," he said. "And I loved coaching ball in junior college.”
After that he worked as an assistant, first for Bob Huggins followed by Frank Martin, at Kansas State from 2006-12. He followed Martin to South Carolina, where he spent one season before landing at Stephen F. Austin.
“I’ve been blessed along the way because I’ve worked for nothing but winners for head coaches and people who allowed me to grow,” Underwood said.
At Stephen F. Austin he was named Southland Conference coach of the year in each of his three seasons. The Lumberjacks won the league tournament to advance to the NCAA Tournament every year under him.
He spent one season at Oklahoma State, where he went 20-13 and led the Cowboys to March Madness before landing his coveted job in 2017.
After three seasons building the team, he turned the Fighting Illini into perennial NCAA Tournament contenders. This is their sixth straight season in the tournament and the second time in three years that they have advanced to the Sweet 16.
“It’s been maybe a different path than most, but one that I sure wouldn’t — there’s not one step of it that I would give up,” he said. “Because I’ve been beyond blessed to work for great people who helped prepare me to get to these moments.”
His success this season comes after he began prioritizing recruiting in Eastern Europe. The Illini have a roster that includes four players from Eastern Europe and Andrej Stojakovic, who was born in Greece but whose father is Serbian three-time NBA All-Star Peja Stojakovic.
The squad is led by consensus second-team All-American point guard Keaton Wagler. The freshman scored 25 points in a win over Iowa to earn South Region tournament MVP and punch the Fighting Illini’s ticket to the Final Four.
Wagler said he knew soon after meeting Underwood that Illinois was the school for him.
“He’s super competitive and that’s what I like about him,” Wagler said. “He hates to lose. I hate to lose. So, it just combined really well. Just talking to him just throughout the whole recruiting process, I knew that this was the place I wanted to be.”
Underwood got emotional as he was cutting down the net after the victory over the Hawkeyes. So many years and all those stops brought him right where he was supposed to be.
Now he’s just two wins away from bringing Illinois to heights never seen before.
“You believe in something so much that it drives me every single day to want to make it happen,” he said.
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
