Riley staked with bringing passion to Colonels

From his first days on the bench, Richie Riley has had one goal.

“I’ve always wanted to be a college head coach,” he said. “That’s my dream job.”

His first crack at living that dream will come at a place that he’d never previously been – the campus of Nicholls State University.

Colonels President Dr. Bruce Murphy and Athletic Director Rob Bernardi introduced Riley last week at an on-campus press conference, which was heavily attended by students and fans from around the Houma-Thibodaux area.

The coach lands as Nicholls men’s basketball coach after a couple seasons as an assistant coach at Clemson.

Riley, 33, outlasted fellow finalists LSU-Alexandria head coach Larry Cordaro and UL-Lafayette assistant coach Kevin Johnson to secure the job, which became open on March 29 when the school announced it would not renew the contract of longtime coach J.P. Piper.

Murphy called Riley a rising star in the profession – the type of coach that will bring passion to the program, which has struggled to rise to the upper tier of the Southland Conference in recent years.

Riley said he’s just ready to start working in hopes of building the Colonels into a big-time power.

“Today’s a dream for me. It really is. It’s an absolute dream to be here,” Riley said. “I’ve worked my whole career to have an opportunity like this. … I’m so anxious for us to start. This is the job for me. We’re ready to get to work and begin preparing our basketball team.”

For Riley, it was his passion for the game and his recruiting ability that secured the position.

Bernardi said the search process was difficult – mostly because of the depth of candidates who sought out the job while it was on the market.

The athletic director said the school received 75 applications total, and virtually every major conference was represented in the process.

“There was no shortage of interest in the job,” Bernardi said. “The amount of people who genuinely had interest in being here was quite impressive.”

But as Bernardi and his staff started digging and doing its research, Riley stood out as a candidate who could possibly fit the program’s future.

Bernardi said he spoke to several coaches who’ve been connected to Riley in the past, and they all praised his work ethic, recruiting skills and ability to relate to players as things that would make him a good head coach for the Colonels.

Prior to his time at Clemson, Riley coached two seasons at UAB, helping the program sign a Top 25 recruiting class, which featured several of the top players in the state of Alabama – players who later pushed the team to the NCAA Tournament after he departed for Clemson.

Before that, Riley also coached at Eastern Kentucky, his alma-mater. He broke his teeth in college coaching early with stints at Coastal Carolina, Georgetown College, Hawaii-Pacific and Pikeville College.

While at Pikeville, he was named the Top NAIA Assistant Coach in the country from www.recruitingrumors.com – an authoritiy in NAIA basketball.

“He fit all of the traits that we were looking for in the process of finding our new coach,” Bernardi said.

But for Riley, the feelings were mutual, because of the passion he developed during the process for the people at Nicholls.

The coach said that he was very observant during the process, which allowed him to see the strong passion that Bernardi and others had for Nicholls and its athletic programs.

Riley said he knew right away that if he were offered the job, he’d accept it, because he wanted to be a part of what he believes is something special in Thibodaux.

The new Colonels head-man said he received private phone calls during the process from Nicholls football coach Tim Rebowe, baseball coach Seth Thibodeaux and women’s basketball coach DoBee Plaisance – conversations that assured him that Nicholls was the place he needed to be.

“The people here – every person I’ve spoken to, whether it was on the phone or when I was on-campus interviewing, they’d all been extremely genuine,” Riley said. “Their vision and passion for Nicholls blew me away. … Once I’d spoken to enough people, I knew that this job was a great fit, and that’s important for me.”

Now, the challenge is to turn the Colonels into a consistent winner – a program that mirrors the way that the team looked in the mid-1990s when it twice won the Southland and reached the NCAA Tournament.

Bernardi mentioned the coach of those teams – former Nicholls coach Rickey Broussard several times in his opening remarks, touting that Broussard will mentor Riley throughout his time in Thibodaux.

Riley said he looks forward to that, speaking directly to the former coach during his press conference, while proclaiming that the goal was to run a competitive program.

“We want to win championships here,” Riley said. “We want to bring trophies back home to Nicholls. We want this to be a program and a team of student-athletes that everyone in this room and everyone in our community can be proud of and can look forward to supporting and watching each and every year.”

No. 3 Nicholls undergoes transition

It was a busy year for Nicholls State University athletics – especially in the personnel department.

The Colonels replaced several long-time athletic figures in 2016, leaving the department looking totally different to start 2017 as it did a year ago.

In July, longtime Athletic Director Rob Bernardi left the university to pursue an opportunity in the athletic office at Tulane.

Just months before Bernardi’s departure, the school parted ways with longtime men’s basketball coach J.P. Piper, who had spent more than a decade with the team.

Piper wasn’t fired, but the school opted against offering him a contract after his deal expired after the 2015-16 season.

Over the summer, the Colonels also had to replace a successful soccer coach, as Dylan Harrison resigned to take the head coaching position at Trinity, his alma mater.

The Colonels replaced Bernardi with Eastern Kentucky athletic official Matt Roan. They replaced Piper with Clemson assistant coach Richie Riley – the youngest Division-I head coach in college basketball.

They replaced Harrison with veteran coach Mac McBride, who had a successful year.