Florida Atlantic University Athletics
Rex Walters Press Conference Transcript
4/28/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
April 28, 2006
I just want to thank President Brogan and Craig Angelos. I appreciate your praise and your confidence in me, and I want to make you proud. Coach Doherty, I'm going to miss you, you're my best friend and a great friend. We laid the foundation for a great program and I'm going to miss you. I want to thank my wife and my family, you have made a lot of sacrifices for me. I appreciate it. You mean an awful lot to me. I love you guys and you've given me all a father and a husband could ever ask for.
My mom and dad, dad you taught me how to play and I appreciate it. You're a great man. Ann Louise and Joe, I see you back there. My brother in-law, you guys have always been there. All the times we've moved in the last 9 years, my daughter has a count of all the times we've moved in the last nine years. I think its 17.
I'm excited about making this my home. I want to thank my family for being here. My players, coach Doherty's players. He wanted me to take care of you guys. And I want to thank you for your support through this whole process. You guys have been great. Saying all that, I want you to finish up strong in school. To support me, you have to make that commitment.
If we're running the 400m, we're on the last strait away. Let's finish strong. I say this, because when you leave to go home, you better work your tail off this summer. There's a big challenge ahead of us. I want you to know that I'm going to thank you now, but I'm going to kick you in your rear if you don't work hard. I want your best effort. I want your best effort in school, in the community, and on the court. If you do that, we're going to have a great journey and the destination will take care of itself.
I want to recognize Mike Balado, He is a bright star in coaching. He stayed here with me. I appreciate you. He is a great coach and a great recruiter. He had a big hand in every single one of the guys that came here. I appreciate you and what you bring and what you're going to do for me. I'm going to lean on you. The same way Coach Doherty delegated a lot to us, I'm going to delegate a lot to you. I just appreciate you being here.
The athletic department that is here, I look forward to working with you. This is a great place to be and I am really excited to sink my roots into Boca Raton. The community has been unbelievable. The support that you have given me when Coach Doherty decided to go to SMU. I really do appreciate that and know that I am going to be out there to get everyone to understand the special things we have in Boca Raton at FAU and the leadership that we have here. I want you to watch our team and be proud because they will give their best effort every night. How will we do it? All lot of the same ways we did it this last year. We will be the best conditioned team. What I learned from Miami and Kansas and from here last year, we will be the best prepared team. We are going to be unselfish and we were that last year. A great unselfish team with great team leadership. I really enjoyed coaching last year's team and we will take care of the ball and care about getting the best shot for our team and not the best shot for an individual player.
The foundation has been set. Coach Doherty did it and I would like to think we helped. The players buying in to our philosophy helped. Coach Doherty is an unbelievable man and I appreciate him so much. He is putting up a fence around the state of Texas and I am going to put up a fence around the state of Florida. We are going to keep our best players at home. I want FAU men's basketball to be a perennial power. We have all the things it takes to do that. There is no question in my mind. We have great players coming, returning and that are leaving. One shot at the NCAA Tournament is not what I want. I want to be there every year. I want to be one of the top programs in the nation. I want to build a program. I have been around great men that have built things and we are going to build here.
