Why NC State’s Justin Gainey is ready to be a first-time head coach

On a bus ride late in his NC State playing career, then-assistant John Groce approached starting point guard Justin Gainey as the team worked its way down the road through ACC country. “Have you ever thought about going into coaching?” Groce asked Gainey. The response? “I don’t want to.” Gainey didn’t know what coaching entailed during his playing career. From his point of view, he thought most of the job was drawing up Xs and Os on a whiteboard, while also using the whistle draped around a coach’s neck to demand more from his players. At the time, Gainey couldn’t see himself coaching. He believed he’d play for as long as his body would allow, navigating European pro basketball for as long as possible until it would be time to find a new career once his career ended.  Would that be in 10 years after he graduated college? Maybe even 20? Gainey wasn’t sure, but what he did know was that coaching seemed to be a profession that wasn’t for him. Well, that was until he actually gave it a chance himself.  Gainey, who spent two years playing professionally in Austria and France after his four-year career in Raleigh, returned back to the Triangle after his career ended. But with a desire to stay connected to the sport that had given him so much, Gainey allowed coaching a shot.  Even though his introduction to the profession was volunteering to coach Cary Academy’s eighth-grade squad in the mid-2000s, tutoring the youngsters on the intricacies of the game in small North Carolina gyms, Gainey quickly fell in love with it.  It wasn’t glamorous, riding an activity school bus with a team full of 13- and 14-year-olds, but the position sold him on what to do with his playing career over.  “I was drawn to it. I wanted to do it,” Gainey recently recalled. “I wanted to mentor. I wanted to share my experiences with guys like me that have come from places like me; that had shared experiences and needed some direction, needed some guidance.” Fast forward a little more than two decades after guiding the middle school team to an undefeated record, Gainey is once again back in the head coaching chair. Just this time, instead of dealing with children that were just looking to have a competitive outlet, Gainey is tasked with leading his alma mater and its rich tradition of excellence on the hardwood. The first-time collegiate head coach, who spent the last 19 years working his way through the ranks as a longtime assistant, Gainey is the 22nd man to take over at the top of NC State’s program filled with tradition. He has immense pride in the very team he etched his name into the record books as a player, and is looking to use that same determination in his dream job. But even though Gainey has never led a college program of his own, his journey to this moment has more than prepared him for what’s to come. There are high expectations around the Wolfpack, and the former court general is more than eager to help pace the team through the ACC.  “As I’ve developed and grown within the profession, you always think you’re ready,” Gainey said. You really do.” And now he is.