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After an 11-year tenure at UW-Milwaukee abruptly ended in March, Rob Jeter took a little time to figure his next step. Turned out a few weeks of full-time duty checking off the honey-do list at home was all he needed to get the coaching juices flowing again, so when he started figuring out job opportunities the process went rather quickly.
On Monday, May 2, Jeter reached out to UNLV coach Marvin Menzies. On May 3, Jeter flew out to Las Vegas for an interview.
“By Wednesday it was pretty much a done deal,” Jeter said. “It was one of those where timing is everything.”
Jeter and the entire staff, including fellow assistants Andre LaFleur and Eric Brown, met with fans on Tuesday evening at Born and Raised in Las Vegas. It was a chance for Menzies to make some introductions and explain that even though Jeter’s hiring process was quick, Menzies reached out for background to 10-20 coaches about Jeter.
“I couldn’t find one negative word about Rob Jeter, and I think that’s worth a round of applause,” Menzies told the crowd.
Jeter learned a lot over 11 seasons as head coach of the Panthers. The former Bo Ryan assistant started with a bang, winning the Horizon League and winning an NCAA Tournament game his first season, and then he had to figure out how to manage the ebbs and flows of leading a mid-major program with no real history to lean on.
Some years went better than others. He won at least 20 games five times and fewer than 10 twice. Jeter’s second trip to the NCAA Tournament, in 2014, was dampened by the fact that poor Academic Progress Rate scores brought a postseason ban for the following season.
At the end of his tenure, though, Jeter learned something new, and it was this revelation that eventually led to the opportunity to join UNLV.
“I’ve always felt that if you do things the right way and work really hard at it and do good things, good things are going to happen,” Jeter said. “That’s not always true.”
That’s how Jeter felt after getting fired in March with one year remaining on his contract. He wasn’t alone, either, as current players and members of the community stood up to rather loudly voice their displeasure at the decision made by third-year UWM Athletics Director Amanda Braun.
Eighty percent of the more than 3,300 responses to a poll on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel website said that Jeter didn’t deserve to be fired. A state senator showed up to Braun’s impromptu news conference to basically accuse the AD of sabotaging the athletic department, and several players spoke out against the decision.
The loudest was senior guard Akeem Springs, who transferred to Minnesota, but right there next to him was former high school teammate Jordan Johnson, who on Wednesday officially followed Jeter and became one of the newest Rebels.
“From what I can tell, the team doesn’t really trust her, and it’s like, I don’t really think she cares about us, basically,” Johnson said in March.
The outpouring of support from then to now has helped Jeter get over the disappointment of leaving the state of Wisconsin, where he played and spent the first 22 years of his coaching career, on someone else’s terms.
“The satisfaction of my players, the community and our fans really respecting and really caring about us, that meant a lot,” Jeter said. “Obviously this is a business, you get that. People are going to make their decisions and you move on, but I think just to see our guys really stick up for us and rally behind us, and the community that we spent 11 years in rally behind us, it was cool so it kind of softened the blow.”
Jeter said his primary role at UNLV is going to be to bring in players, which has already started, and to support Menzies with expertise as a former head coach. What Jeter really enjoys doing, though, is mentoring the players once they’re in the program and creating an environment that strengthens from within while endearing itself to the city.
That’s what Jeter felt he created in Milwaukee, and that’s what he wants to help create at the university he rooted for while he was a player at UW-Platteville from 1987-91.
“It’s one of our core values of what we’re really trying to do: Develop strong relationships with not just our players but with the community,” Jeter said. “I think because of that value, when this all unfolded you could really see how we accomplished our goals, and that’s pretty cool.
“I love my guys and I love all the relationships that we developed there. It’s just time for a new chapter now.”
Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.
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