HOMEWOOD, AL — Lennie Acuff jokes that he could write a book these days. That’s the type of wisdom 40 years of teaching, working with young people and trying to find success as a college basketball underdog can provide, although Acuff would tell you that wisdom doesn’t come from a man who says he has it.
If it ever came to fruition, Acuff’s book would have its fair share of his famous mottos—better known as Lennie Acuff-isms— included and explained. There’s enough of them for each one to merely write each chapter on a singular motto. If it didn’t include them, it wouldn’t truly be Acuff’s work.
“Strong chin, short memory,”—a term encouraging resilience—would have to be included. Don’t forget about “The longest distance between two points is a shortcut,” or “if you only go to work because you feel like it, you’ll never have a job.”
Acuff’s veteran players all smile and laugh at the prospect of naming their favorite Acuff-ism, but immediately have answers come to mind. In their two-hour practice they just heard Acuff intro every period with a classic “here we go,” remind them to throw each pass “on time and on target” and emphatically tell them that they can choose to be the “hammer or the nail,” that they have to choose to be the hammer at some point. The ones that resonate with them aren’t ones that merely get them through practice, though.
They’re the ones that teach them about life, even if they’re initially meant in a basketball context.
“The secret is, there is no secret,” Samford point guard Keaton Norris recites.
“Sailboats don’t sail behind yesterday’s winds,” Samford center Dylan Faulkner adds, “Don’t do second things first is always a staple.”
“There’s a million ways to skin a cat,” Samford guard Jadin Booth remembers vividly.
“There’s too many to count,” Faulkner admits after playing for Acuff at Lipscomb for two seasons and eventually following him to Samford for his junior season.
At a point, Acuff’s seemingly endless rolodex of mottos could get old for a team that’s heard them over and over again. His former Lipscomb players–who Acuff repeatedly expressed his affinity for after Samford’s Friday practice–still recall Acuff’s signature phrases fondly, though. Norris says that his current team is used to his form of communication, but that it’s “good stuff” that he and his teammates should internalize.
Along with the Princeton offense, practices intentionally scheduled around church hours as well as Alabama football games and 20-win seasons, the Acuff-isms are part of the experience of playing for the scrappy underdog turned southern gentleman. Former Lipscomb point guard Joe Anderson—who took Acuff to the NCAA Tournament for the first time—doesn’t need much time to recite a few of Acuff’s most impactful lines via text message.
“Life is about perspective, boys,” Anderson says Acuff would say. “The person cleaning up after you in the cafe or that person giving you food in the cafe is someone’s mom, or daughter, or son, or father, or brother or sister. Think about that and how you would want someone to treat your mom if she just made them lunch.”
Anderson says that Acuff had “about 100 great basketball quotes,” but that his most impactful lessons came in regard to how to “enter people’s lives and grow off the floor. “It’s a great day to have a great day,” Acuff would tell Anderson and his teammates. “We have more yesterdays than tomorrows. Let’s take advantage and win every day.”
Acuff jokes that the predictability of his language is more of an indicator of “getting old and entrenched in his ways” rather than his wisdom. Even if the 60-year old head coach is stuck in his ways, he isn’t ashamed of it. The Samford head coach spent 29 years coaching at Non-Division I programs before going 110-82 in six seasons at Lipscomb and winning the ASUN before ultimately leaving to become Samford’s head coach.
The style that got the Bulldogs’ head coach to his most prominent job yet isn’t going anywhere.
“Not a whole lot is different,” Acuff told Basket Under Review. “We’re really approaching it the same way. I don’t think you need to out think the room. We tell our guys we want them to be connected, confident and convicted. If I’m not convicted on how we play then they’re not going to be convicted. There’s a lot of different ways to skin a cat, but this is what we believe in.”
When Acuff went to sleep in his San Antonio hotel room after a day of shaking hands and figuratively kissing babies in the days prior to the Final Four, he truly believed that he would retire as Lipscomb’s head coach one day. It wasn’t going to be all that soon–and Acuff was clear about that as he made sure one of his comments wasn’t misconstrued after a Lipscomb ASUN Tournament win–but it was going to be at Lipscomb.
Acuff was aware of the Samford opening after Bucky McMillan’s departure to Texas A&M, but he already held commitments from Norris, now-Samford wing Judson Bjornstad as well as pledges to return from a few key members of his NCAA Tournament team. Acuff and his Lipscomb staff were higher than others on their chances to compete at the top of the ASUN after the departure of a few key players, particularly if they were able to seal the deal in Booth’s recruitment.
Then Samford athletic director Martin Newton called.
Newton needed someone to pick up where McMillan left off after his fourth-consecutive 20-win season. It’s a spot that Acuff has become familiar with after taking over Lipscomb in the fallout of Casey Alexander’s 29-8 season and subsequent controversial exit to Belmont.
Acuff says that it “probably helped” him to take over for Alexander and jokes that he’s fortunate that McMillan went to “the other side of the country” rather than going two miles down the road like Alexander did. He learned something in that process that he’s sticking to again.
“I’m not going to try to be Bucky McMillan,” Acuff said. “I’m just going to be me and I’m at peace with that. I think you have to be comfortable in your own skin and in no way does that diminish the respect I have for him. He did an incredible job here.”
Acuff’s motivations for taking Newton up on his offer were largely motivated by his desire to go back home to Alabama–which was difficult for him to leave for the Lipscomb job six years ago–and to move physically closer to his family, including his two adult kids that lived in the Birmingham area while he was in Nashville. The former Lipscomb coach thinks back to his time at Lipscomb fondly, but says the geography and being closer to his loved ones makes for a more "comfortable" situation.
The job was far more appealing to him than it may have otherwise been because of the way McMillan “galvanized” the Samford fanbase and set it up to improve its facilities, including a state of the art practice facility that was completed a year ago. Acuff wouldn’t take a job if he didn’t feel as if his administration could support his cause. He believes Samford is invested in winning like it was in McMillan’s tenure.
McMillan’s successor would happily take the results that he earned throughout his Samford tenure, but the former Lipscomb coach is doing it with a soft-spoken tone and his Princeton Offense rather than a raucous personality, pro-style organization and style of play.
As Acuff says “there’s a million ways to skin a cat.” He doesn’t have to operate the McMillan way in order to produce results. Expect Samford to use its big man as a secondary distributor each time down the floor and to bet on character in every situation. It’s worked before, why can’t it again?
“Coach is a legend,” Booth–who Acuff says is one of the best shooters he's ever coached--said. “He has a track record of winning a lot of games and that’s what I ultimately came here for. I had a few connections to some of my guys that played for him in past years and they had nothing but good things to say.”
If Acuff’s past is any indication, his former players’ answers to Booth’s inquiries likely didn’t have all that much to do with the moving and cutting of his rendition of the Princeton Offense or his detailed practice sheet. It likely had more to do with the things that made him into a no-brainer invitee for former Lipscomb guard Will Pruitt’s–who says his favorite Acuff-ism is “a penny saved is a penny earned–wedding.
The now-Samford head coach prints a daily thought about life and how to become better at it on the top of his practice plan each day and shares it with the team in a huddle after practice. Friday’s thought was “Being coachable…most of us don’t want advice/correction, we want sympathy for staying the same.”
“They truly care,” Faulkner said of the Samford staff. “They want you to be a better person than a basketball player.”
“A big thing he told me is that he wants to grow me, he wanted to help me grow from a teenager to a young man, to a future husband and father,” Anderson said in the spring. “He puts himself last, almost to the point where it bothers some of us.”
Anderson says that when Acuff and his Lipscomb team secured its 20th win for the third-consecutive season, the veteran head coach deflected all the success to his coaching staff and players as he addressed the team in the locker room. Lipscomb’s players reminded Acuff of his role in the accomplishment, but to no avail.
That Lipscomb team still holds a special place in Acuff’s memory, enough of one to prompt him to say that it “makes his day” whenever he receives a text or call from one of those players. Acuff said throughout his team’s ASUN title run that his team was “easy to root for” and that if the world knew his team, they’d be Lipscomb basketball fans.
He hopes that’s the case with all of his teams.
“I’m really excited to see if we can establish the consistency we had at Lipscomb and our culture by recruiting the right kinds of kids and just being an extension of the student body,” Acuff said. “I’m not sure how good we’ll be, but I do know we have a lot of high-character guys. I think you bet on character. We’ll double down on that.”
It appears as if the early returns on Acuff’s bet are positive. Samford was ranked third in the SoCon Preseason Poll and has two projected all-league players in Faulkner and Booth, which make the Bulldogs tied for the second-most all-conference guys.
Seeing a team ranked that highly in a coach’s first year isn’t all that common, particularly at the midmajor level. This one is, though. Norris says “it shows the amount of respect for coach Acuff that people have,” perhaps that combined with the seven upperclassmen on his roster are enough to propel Samford to the top of the league. Even if it doesn’t reach that level, something should still be expected from it.
“It’s a coach Acuff team and people know what they’re going to get,” Faulkner said. “They’re going to get a bunch of high-level guys that care about ball and care about each other and just want to win for him.”
Faulkner and Booth–a 20 point per game scorer at Florida Southern last season–are among the older guys that Acuff will lean on to represent his style of play now that he’s in the most prominent league he’s been in. They won’t have to do it alone, though. Perhaps that’s the biggest appeal of this team as experts look to project its potential ceiling and floor.
As Samford’s coaching staff looks up and down this roster, it doesn’t see a weakness. It thought it may have had one in terms of its front court depth down the stretch of the summer, but it added former North Carolina and UAB big man Will Shaver to sure things up behind Faulkner. It’s never had that issue in the backcourt.
It’s options aplenty there for Acuff and company. If Norris and Booth need a breather, Samford’s staff can turn to Bowling Green graduate transfer Daijon Humphrey, Long Beach State transfer Kam Martin as well as standout freshman guards Isaiah Campbell-Finch and JD Gossett–both of which have a chance to see the floor.
“[Acuff] always talks about ‘you can’t have a good team without good guards,’” Norris said. “It’s a guards’ game.”
If Acuff is going to win big at Samford, it’s going to be on the back of a few old guards that know how to play and run the show. It’s also got to be true to character.
The moment Acuff doesn’t open an interview speaking about the character of his team and dropping life lessons, his group will be in trouble. Luckily for this Samford team, it doesn’t appear as if that will happen anytime soon.
