The Floyd Street Tribune: How Louisville interim coach Mike Pegues reaches players

Inside: Anecdotes that illustrate the motivational tactics and background of Louisville's interim head coach. Plus, a coaching search thought, transfer tidbits and more.

Thanks for reading The Floyd Street Tribune. In the previous edition, I offered a detailed, thoroughly-reported story of why Chris Mack didn’t work at Louisville. And in a bonus newsletter on Monday, I updated Louisville’s still-young coaching search.

Stories that illustrate Mike Pegues’s motivational ways

The light bulb went off for Ryan McMahon in the weeks before his final season at Louisville, the 2019-20 campaign. For more than a year, assistant coach Mike Pegues simply refused to call fouls when McMahon took hits in drills and scrimmages, no matter how hard the knocks were. Defenders would clatter into McMahon, and he’d look at Pegues for whistle relief.

Nothing. Zilch.

That 2019 preseason, McMahon finally gave in and spoke up. He called out Pegues. What the hell, man? Pegues, the former University of Delaware star forward and longtime assistant coach, just laughed.

“‘Yeah, I’m never giving you anything,’” Pegues told McMahon.

But this wasn’t bullying. This wasn’t the case of a coach singling out a guy he didn’t like. Far from it. This, McMahon said, was Pegues’s way of reaching him, of coaching toughness.

“The harder I was fouled in practice, the more inclined he was to swallow his whistles,” McMahon said. “I didn’t notice until right before my senior year that I was just playing through so much more contact. I wasn’t worried about calls. I can thank Coach Pegues for that. I thought he was picking on me; I wasn’t even aware he was coaching me.”

If you, like me, find yourself wondering how Pegues has reached a team that, for long stretches this season, simply seemed unreachable, McMahon’s story gives us an idea. The players say they’re drawn to him, that he speaks with conviction and empathizes with them. That’s all great. But when a coach demands a team to be tough, a big part of the team executing that coach’s desire is learning how to do it, how to tap into that emotional energy and passion needed to compete a high level. Pegues, a keen observer of personalities and interpersonal interactions, knows the right buttons to push, and when. The proof is in Louisville’s eight-game sample with Pegues as the head coach: The energy, the effort and the edge with which the Cards have played with him leading the charge — everyone sees it, even in losses.

“Teaching players how to do it and how to instill basketball lessons and life lessons in them — that’s a skill not every coach has,” McMahon said. “He has it, and he does a great job of doing it whether you notice it or not.”

Pegues will tell you he learned from one of the best.