2 days Ago By Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Apr. 1—Opening act Garnett Stokes started the show off with a zinger — an elephant in the room one liner that spoke to the almost mind-boggling flurry of transition Lobo Athletics has seen in the past 120 days."We have to stop meeting like this," the University of New Mexico President said as she kicked off the school's third major athletics department introductory press conference in the past 120 days.
On Dec. 2, it was for new Athletic Director Fernando Lovo. Dec.
17 brought in new Lobo football coach Jason Eck. Tuesday was for highest profile sports job in the state, the introduction of new UNM men's basketball coach Eric Olen."This is an exciting new chapter for our storied program.
We are building something special," the 36-year-old Lovo said, barely four months on the payroll but sounding like a grizzled veteran having already conducted two major national coaching searches.Then came the headline attraction — the 23rd coach of Lobo men's basketball, and one of the hottest young candidates in this year's college basketball coaching carousel after he led UC San Diego to a 30-win season and the NCAA Tournament.Olen wasted no time making clear he understands his place, and his duty.
"This is not my program," Olen said as he stood before several hundred Lobo fans, a pep band, cheerleaders, his family and media gathered inside the Rudy Davalos practice facility at the Pit."It's not about me. This is bigger than any single coach or individual.
Lobos, this is your program, and being the head coach here at New Mexico is a responsibility I take very seriously."Olen seemed at times emotional, maybe a bit nervous — "I didn't really have press conferences before," he told the Journal after the event was over — and at all times confident and calculated in relaying how he plans to get Lobo basketball to the NCAA Tournament."This is a championship program," Olen said.
"Richard Pitino and his staff did a terrific job, and they've been great in trying to help us hit the ground running. They've set the bar really high. That's where it should be here.
"No one will ever have higher expectations for our team and this program than me," Olen said. "I love the passion and ownership from our supporters. The best fans in the country deserve a team that walks into the Pit with the same energy and enthusiasm that you do, a team that shows a care factor that rivals yours.
"The back storyOlen, 44, accepted the UNM job over the weekend — signing on Saturday night a memorandum of understanding for a five-year, $6.5 million deal that starts with him being paid $1.2 million this coming season.
Lovo and Stokes signed the deal, and made the hire official Sunday morning.He replaces Pitino, the four-year Lobos coach who left one week ago to accept the head coaching position at Xavier University in the Big East.Olen and his family — wife Lauren, 9-year-old daughter Avery and 7-year-old daughter Madeline — said it was difficult leaving the friends they had made in southern California.
Olen is a Mobile, Alabama native who lived there until he was 24. He took a job as an assistant coach at UC San Diego in 2004 and has been there ever since — nine years as an assistant, the past 12 as head coach of the Tritons, a program that transitioned from Division II to Division I.This past season, the program went 30-5, won the Big West's regular season and tournament titles and played in the NCAA Tournament in the first season it was eligible to do so as a DI team.
He also led the Tritons to four-consecutive D-II NCAA Tournaments, and it would have been a fifth in 2020 with a 30-1 team considered a favorite to win the national title, but that tournament was cancelled due to COVID."I'd like to thank all the guys who played at UC San Diego and help build that program," Olen said. "You guys are why we do this.
It's funny how you get back so much more than you put in when you invest in others."The backbone"Family is the most important thing to me, and I want to begin by thanking mine," Olen said early on in his introduction."I could never be in this position without my wife, Lauren, daughters, Avery and Madeline, who are here with us today.
They make a lot of sacrifices and their support means the world to me."Lauren, then a freshman at Spring Hill College, tagged along with a friend to a party where she met Eric Olen, a sophomore basketball player at the school.Was it love at first sight?"Umm, sure," she said after a long pause.
Whatever the case, the two talked. And then some more. Eventually they began dating.
"We've been together over half our lives," she said. "It's like we've grown up together."When he moved to San Diego in 2004, she moved back to Birmingham.
"Eric was saying, 'Coaches get fired all the time. Don't move, yes until we know where I'll be. I might get fired in a year,'" Lauren explained.
"Finally, a few years in, we were like, OK, this feels like it's sticking."By 2009, they knew the UCSD experiment wasn't short term. She moved West, and they've been there ever since.
And they've had each other's backs from the start.While Eric Olen's new contract with UNM now makes him the highest paid public employee in the state, the life and salary of a Division II assistant basketball coach — and the slightly better paid role of a D-II head coach — isn't exactly the stuff that makes a man rich, especially factoring in a San Diego cost of living.It was Lauren Olen and her degree in accounting, that took care of the young couple's bills and allowed Eric to pursue the job that has now landed them all in Albuquerque.
And it was her unwavering confidence in him that also helped him fight through moments of doubt."He had a few faltering moments along the way where he was like, 'I just don't know if this is going to work. I want to be good at this,'" she said.
"I was like, 'You were built for this. You are smart. I have an office job.
You do not belong in an office job. You would hate it.'"I always believed in him.
I always felt like he was going to make it. He's so smart and I promise, no one will outwork him. No one cares about it more than him.
"True colors"I gotta be honest. It might take me a minute to get used to this jacket," Olen said as he fidgeted with UNM's customary cherry blazer, which still had a small white tag on the inside of the left sleeve that someone helped him cut off well after the press conference concluded."I haven't worn red in over 20 years.
"While she was not beholden to the same sort of unwritten team colors rules as a coach, Lauren Olen did seem to be happy that she can now more freely add much more red to her wardrobe."My grandmother always told me that red was my color, so there you go," she said.What's next?Speaking of red, red tape seemed to be about all that was holding Olen back from being able to put his first assistant, or two, in place on Tuesday afternoon.
UNM's HR department, the Journal was told, was still going through the approval of some hires that should be completed and announced in the next day or two and then recruiting through the NCAA transfer portal can begin.It's needed, too. The Lobo roster as of Tuesday consisted of two scholarship players.
That's it."I'm excited about the staff that we're going to put together," Olen said. "Yeah, recruiting is non-stop.
We're working through the (NCAA transfer) portal, but we have to make good decisions. We have to be smart about how we approach and build the roster. .
.. We are going to work with urgency, but we're going to be thoughtful in our decision making and recruit the right people that fit what we're trying to do.
"Need to knowThe Journal asked Lauren Olen what she could tell Lobo fans about her husband that has nothing to do with basketball.She came up with two: He's a girl dad to the extreme and a bit of a nerd."He is a major softie to them," she said of Eric and their two daughters.
"I don't know if he's ever told them no for anything. They adore him. Adore him.
And he would drop anything for them. He's the best dad I know, even as busy as he is and as much as he has going on, if I ever was like, 'I need you here now for this,' if it were anything to do with them, he would be there."He's also a pretty big nerd, and I don't think people know that.
"Aside from loving basketball statistics and analytics, Eric Olen can also solve a Rubik's cube and isn't exactly into music."He's more of a podcast guy," Lauren Olen said. "I bet if you looked at the music app on his phone, there wouldn't be much on it except for Taylor Swift because our 7-year-old could not be more of a Taylor Swift fan.
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