Mike Neighbors: From Blockbuster To The Final Four
April 01, 2016 | Women's Basketball
By Mason Kelley
GoHuskies.com
Mike Neighbors planned to take a different path. Washington's coach, born into a family of educators – principals, superintendents, librarians and teachers – wanted to branch out, find a path that would lead him away from the family business.
He loved school growing up, but family gatherings “felt like a school board meeting.”
He excelled in basketball and baseball in high school, and enjoyed the essence of “being on teams.” Coaching, though, that wasn't originally a preferred path.
The coach who has led the Huskies to the Final Four this weekend in Indianapolis, Ind., went to junior college and then attended Arkansas. A year before he graduated, he met a guy who was opening Blockbuster stores.
Remember those?
The opportunity for a career with the video rental chain was enough to convince Neighbors to drop out of school.
“I was going to run Blockbusters videos with him,” Neighbors said.
After a year and a half, Neighbors read a story that would cause the career change that put him on the path toward Washington.
“I still remember the day it came across one of our trade magazines,” Neighbors said. “There was this Netflix thing.”
Comparing Neighbors' path to that of Blockbuster, well, a shift to coaching was a good decision.
“I realized I wanted to coach,” he said. “I went back to school and finished my degree.”
All of a sudden, Neighbors was an educator, who did his student teaching in Bentonville, Ark. – the home of Walmart's corporate headquarters. He volunteered to help coach seventh grade boy's basketball.
“I loved it,” he said.
That student teaching job became a full-time position. He was an assistant coach for the JV boy's basketball team. He also spent time coaching swimming – “I can't swim,” he said with a laugh – and tennis.
When the head girl's basketball coaching position came open at the school, “Nobody wanted it,” he said. “They basically made me take it.”
Through that job, Neighbors' future materialized.
“I fell in love with coaching girls basketball,” he said.
The longer he coached, he realized, after being “raised by a lot of women,” he had the ability to connect with his players on an emotional level.
“I learned that if you show kids – especially girls – how much you care, they don't care how much you know,” he said. “I didn't know anything. I didn't know anything about coaching.”
Bentonville finished 1-24 for that first year.
“I loved every second of it,” Neighbors said.
The second year was better and, by the time his sophomores were seniors, they were playing for a state championship.
For the young teacher, “coaching got in my blood real fast.”
Then he suffered a heart attack.
At 29 years old, Neighbors found out he had a genetic defect that hindered his body's ability to break down lipids, which allowed plaque to build up faster than it would in other people.
Enduring a heart attack at such a young age pushed Neighbors to chase a dream to coach in college.
“When you have a heart attack at 29, you don't know how much longer you'll be around,” he said.
Texas A&M coach Gary Blair, then the coach at Arkansas, gave Neighbors a job as the director of operations.
“I took a $58,000 pay cut and jumped in with two feet,” he said.
He started to move around, so he could climb the coaching ladder. He ended up at Xavier with Kevin McGuff, but at the time he didn't think he would become a head coach.
“For a long time, I really thought I just wanted to be an assistant coach,” he said. “I really like being the other guy and helping the guy help the guy.”
McGuff, however, knew Neighbors had a future leading a program.
“He was the one who said, 'You're going to be a good head coach, the way you think, the way you develop relationships, the kids really try hard for you,'” said Neighbors, recounting a conversation with McGuff.
When McGuff left Xavier for Washington, Neighbors wanted to be the coach's replacement.
“I tried to stay and get the Xavier job,” Neighbors said. “I really wanted it. I had recruited all those kids. I cared about them. I loved that school.”
It was fortuitous for Washington that Neighbors didn't get that job. He headed west with McGuff. He made the move to Seattle.
A few years later, McGuff was on his way to Ohio State and Neighbors stepped into the Huskies' head coaching position.
“Right place, right time, is what it was, yet again, which is how it's been all my life,” Neighbors said. “I'm a right place, right time guy.”
Being at the right place at the right time has helped Neighbors put together this team. Take Chantel Osahor. The coach found the standout after walking into the wrong gym, creating one of the best mistakes he's ever made.
He has assembled a group that deftly handles adversity both on and off the floor.
After two seasons and a trip to the NCAA tournament, Neighbors knew he had something special with this group when season started. When he addressed his team on Aug. 14, he told the Huskies he had a strong feeling about the direction of the season.
“I don't know what it is about you guys,” he said. “There's just a cool vibe. Let's not try and define it yet. Let's just let it play out.
“For the first time in my life as a coach at any level with any team, I'm standing in front of you without an acceptable number of losses in my head.”
Neighbors believes in this group that is preparing to play Syracuse on Sunday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, and this group believes in their coach.
“We talked about a puzzle the other day,” Neighbors said. “We've got all the right pieces, now it's a puzzle. Sometimes you can have all the pretty pieces and they don't end up making the puzzle. This group has found a way to connect and make a puzzle out of what we're doing.”
Washington is a team full of strong stories. From Talia Walton overcoming knee injuries to Katie Collier beating back leukemia. It's McDonald's All-American Kelsey Plum believing she could win a national championship in Seattle and Alexus Atchley going from walk-on to starter.
“It's all the right stories being on the right team at the right time,” Neighbors said.
Those stories include Neighbors', who left a job at Blockbuster to pursue a coaching dream that has led him all the way to the Final Four.
