New LSU men’s basketball coach Johnny Jones emphasized the importance of his “Tiger family” after accepting the job last month.
One of Jones’ former co-workers knows he means it.
“Johnny is the closest thing I have to a brother,” said longtime former LSU assistant coach Bob Starkey.
Starkey, who is now an assistant for the women’s squad at Texas A&M, shared the bench with Jones when the two were assistants under former LSU coach Dale Brown from 1990 to 1997, forming a kindred bond in the process.
The pair have maintained close contact through the years, even as Jones left LSU in 1997 for Memphis, then Alabama and eventually North Texas.
“I have a tremendous relationship with Bobby,” Jones said.
“The good thing is what you see is what you get. He’s a positive energy for anyone, always up and never down.”
A year after Jones left, Starkey swapped roles at LSU, becoming an assistant on late women’s coach Sue Gunter’s staff, and he remained with the Lady Tigers through two other head coaches until 2011. Starkey was the interim coach in 2007 after former coach Pokey Chatman resigned, and he led LSU to a fourth straight Final Four.
But none of that may have happened without his friendship with Jones.
Starkey considered leaving the coaching profession in 1993. He was the third assistant on Brown’s staff – a limited earnings position – and had just married his wife, Sherie.
“Johnny came over to my house to talk,” Starkey said. “By the time he left, I was a coach again. I might be running a restaurant business in Baton Rouge right now if Johnny hadn’t taken the time to convince me.”
Jones said he didn’t want to lose his right-hand man next to him on the bench or see Starkey waste his basketball knowledge.
“Bob has a gift for teaching basketball, so he needed to share that,” Jones said. “He knew he’d be cheating himself if he didn’t see coaching through. I didn’t think he understood how valuable he was to the people he worked with.”
LSU Senior Associate Sports Information Director Kent Lowe said the duo’s special rapport was characteristic of the close-knit atmosphere around the Tigers at the time.
“The coaching staff in the Dale days was always very tight,” Lowe said. “With Bob and Johnny, it was always about caring for the kids they coached. They were naturals to work well together.”
Starkey penned a heartfelt, poignant blog post after Jones, a DeRidder native, accepted his “dream job” two weeks ago.
But Jones wasn’t the only one with a career move to consider.
Starkey was an assistant at Central Florida last season, and he had an offer on the table to become an A&M assistant as the LSU job opened up to Jones.
Starkey said Jones would barely allow any LSU discussions when they talked recently, instead focusing on his friend’s own decision.
“He put his talks on the back burner to help me with a decision to go to Texas A&M,” Starkey said. “Johnny was thinking more about me than his own dream. With Johnny’s Texas ties, he knew the program and told me I couldn’t pass up the opportunity at A&M. That held a lot of weight for me. He’s one of two or three people I always listen to.”
 
 
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Contact Chris Abshire at [email protected]