You tell Buzz Williams you want to find out what makes him tick, and he answers with a chuckle and a smirk.
“Good luck with that.”
But hey, he’ll give it the old college try, so he does his best to explain anyway. And you’d better pay attention, because the Marquette University men’s basketball coach can explain at the speed of light and spin stories like Will Rogers.
I got to hear plenty of those tales when I was working on the Milwaukee Magazine feature that you’ll read in the March issue. It was mailed to subscribers today and will be on newsstands Feb. 20. And you can already check out our online gallery of photos that weren’t included in the magazine.
I wish I could tell you we captured every story told by Buzz or his family or his friends or his players. But this was just a 4,000-word magazine feature, not a book. And frankly, Buzz could fill a library. My initial interview at his office was scheduled for 30 minutes. He kept going for 90, no small matter for a man whose days are scheduled like a CEO’s.
Sometimes, I needed flowcharts to keep up with his MTV quick-cuts from topic to topic. He gave me a glimpse into his fastidiously organized, often color-coded world. He brought out tables and tables of statistics, explaining how he translates them into gameplans. He showed me a cabinet full of binders containing his practice notes and plans, explaining how he had notes stretching back some two decades. Which reminded him of something else he wanted to show me, so he had me follow him down a hallway.
One side of the corridor is lined with photos of Marquette’s current players, and the opposite side is dedicated to legends of Marquette’s past. It’s like a continuation of the hundreds upon hundreds of photos inside his office. “You ought to see my house,” he’ll say. “Yeah, I love pictures. I’m a picture freak. FREAK. It just captures memories.”
We ended up in a conference room, a theater-style classroom where Williams and his staff download mountains of information into their Marquette players. If only these walls could talk…
Well, if they could talk, they might be as overwhelmed as I was. Because Williams gave me a crash course in how Marquette scored against man-to-man defenses and zone defenses, on whiteboard stats and paint touches and box touches. It was enough to bring back painful flashbacks of that high-school “D-plus” in calculus.
He also showed me practice notes from the 2010-11 season. Then he asked an assistant to bring him the notes from the 11-12 season. And he explained how he leaves important reminders to himself in these notes.
Like, “My mind goes faster than I realize, and I have to be better at communicating in a way they can understand.” He’ll go back and re-read these notes on a regular basis.
As I tried absorbing the latest terabytes of Williams’ downloads, Darius Johnson-Odom walked by in the hallway.
“What’s up DJ?” Buzz called out. “What are you doing?”
“I was planning on getting a haircut,” came the reply.
“Have you gotten any grades since we spoke last week?”
DJO explained that he had, and Williams told him to go enter the information into an academic folder that was on his desk.
“Should I use a certain color?” DJO asked.
“No, just whatever color you want.”
DJO went off to choose a Buzz-pleasing color. “See,” Buzz said, “that’s his way of saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want to mess you up because I know you’re really weird.’ That right there tells you.”
Weird? I don’t know. Certainly different, unlike any coach I’ve ever encountered. His ability to compartmentalize information is mind-boggling, and his ability to balance it all with his family life and other duties is extraordinary. As for his energy level, well, plug him into the power grid and the guy could light up Milwaukee. You need track shoes to keep up.
“Yeah, I don’t sit still too long,” he mused. “I get anxious.”
But does he shut it off when he gets home?
“No,” he said. “But when I’m with Sissy (his oldest daughter) this morning from 8:02 to 8:51, I’m right there with her. When I am present with my children, I’m present with them.”
As for us mere strangers, when you’re done being present with Buzz, even after 90 minutes that were supposed to be 30, you’re left with more questions than you started with. You understand why this quest for understanding started with his chuckle and his wishing you good luck. And maybe you never quite get to the bottom of exactly what makes Buzz tick.
But getting to tell a few good stories about the man is a fine enough consolation prize.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I tweet as howiemag. And listen to me chat sports with Mitch Teich once a month on WUWM’s “Lake Effect.”
