MEET DANA ALTMAN, MR. CREIGHTON BASKETBALL
By Steven Pivovar – Omaha World Herald
Lyle Altman questioned the career move his son was about to make 11 years ago.
After spending four seasons as Kansas State's head coach, Dana Altman decided in the spring of 1994 to accept Creighton's offer to take over a program that had won just 24 games the previous three seasons. The Bluejays played in the Missouri Valley Conference, a once-prestigious basketball league that was in danger of falling off the national radar in the mid-1990s.
"At the time, the Valley wasn't very good," Lyle Altman said. "I thought coming here was a step down for him."
It turned out to be anything but that for all parties involved. Dana Altman has taken Creighton to unprecedented heights in his 11 seasons at the school. Tonight, the Bluejays will make their sixth appearance in seven years in the NCAA tournament when they play West Virginia in a first-round game in Cleveland.
Creighton had made nine NCAA tournament appearances in its first 76 seasons of intercollegiate basketball competition. The Bluejays have won at least 20 games in each of the past seven seasons. The school reached the 20-win level 10 times prior to Altman's arrival. The Bluejays have become the hottest ticket in town, ranking among the national leaders in attendance the past two seasons.
"When we were trying to come up with the ideal candidate 11 years ago, we had 20 people from all segments of the university in the room," Creighton Athletic Director Bruce Rasmussen said. "The composite of the perfect candidate had Dana's picture all over it.
"But I don't think any of us could have envisioned what Dana has been able to accomplish here."
The impact Altman has had at Creighton spreads far beyond the campus, the city and the state.
"I would say Dana has probably had as big a role in elevating our league to where we're back in the top 10 in terms of RPI, in the number of (NCAA) bids, in the amount of revenue we produce," Valley Commissioner Doug Elgin said. "He has clearly established a dynasty at Creighton.
"He has built a program that is one of the best mid-major programs in the country. Creighton might not be quite the scheduling attraction on a national level that Gonzaga is but they're very close. He has given Creighton sustained excellence that is hard to match."
In the process, Altman has become the face not just of Creighton basketball but of the university itself. His program gives the school a chance to stay connected to its alumni base. He provides the university with a hook to attract future students.
"Dana has created a real strong presence and national image for the university," said Don Bishop, CU's director of admissions and financial aid. "Creighton's image was strong before Dana, but a lot of our marketing research indicates that he is the kind of person that creates a favorable impression for our school.
"It's a reflection of how he conducts himself on and off the court. It's a reflection of the way his players conduct themselves and the success they've had on the basketball court and academically."
Such exposure carries a high degree of responsibility, especially at a time when the on- and off-the-court actions of coaches are highly scrutinized.
"Dana is the type of person that would rather be in the background but he also realizes that a lot of people associate him with our university," Rasmussen said. "That's the way it is, and I would be worried it if he wasn't cognizant of that issue.
"Dana is very careful of how he represents himself. The fact that he is of such high character makes me worry less that people associate him with our university. He is a great ambassador for Creighton."
Not to mention a pretty darn good coach. Charlie Spoonhour, now working as a television analyst after Division I head coaching stops at Southwest Missouri, Saint Louis University and Nevada-Las Vegas, has been watching Altman since he broke into the business at Southeast Community College in Fairbury, Neb.
Spoonhour said he's always admired how hard Altman's teams have played, how fundamentally sound they were and how he handles the ups and downs of the profession.
"He's all the things you want in a coach," Spoonhour said. "He's so even-keeled. He's both firm enough and nice enough that it makes for a nice mix that allows his players to flourish within his system."
Spoonhour watched Altman take a Creighton team that had struggled for much of the season to a three-game sweep at the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, locking up this year's trip to the NCAA tournament.
"I didn't get to see every game Creighton played this year," Spoonhour said, "but I do know one thing and that is he did a special job with this group."
Indiana State Coach Royce Waltman agrees. Waltman has been coaching against Altman in the Valley for the past eight seasons, and he marvels at the evolution in Creighton's program.
"The first couple of years, they ran their base offense and we had some success in defending it," Waltman said. "Then he started putting in some wrinkles and counters, and now it's evolved into an offense that is really something to defend against."
The success Creighton has attained under Altman has been achieved without the superior talent some programs have on hand. Kyle Korver did achieve All-America status in 2003, but he came into Creighton's program as a lightly recruited player out of Pella, Iowa.
"At the mid-major level, we can't stockpile athletes and bring in McDonald's All-Americans to replace other McDonald's All-Americans," Waltman said. "It's about teaching and the ability to adjust.
"To attain and maintain the consistency of success at this level that Dana has is very difficult. Very few people can do it, but he has."
For that, Altman is very well-compensated. Creighton does not release salary information, but Sports Illustrated had a report on its Web site in January detailing the salaries of basketball coaches from 15 of the top private universities in the country.
SI.com reviewed IRS 990 forms that require private universities to list their five highest paid employees. According to Creighton's 990 form for the 2003 fiscal year, Altman was the school's highest paid employee in receiving $672,067 in compensation.
School President the Rev. John P. Schlegel, S.J., donates his annual compensation to the school's religious community. According to the IRS document, M. Roy Wilson, the school's former dean and vice president of health services, was listed as the highest-paid academic administrator at $561,332.
Altman presides over a program that produced $2,180,567 in basketball revenue in 2003-04. Basketball is Creighton's lone revenue-producing sport, and it helps fund the school's other intercollegiate sports.
But if Altman was solely driven by dollars and cents, he could have taken the money and run years ago. He has turned down offers from other schools. Two years ago, Georgia, Illinois and Iowa State made strong runs at him but he opted to stay at Creighton.
"I've been like many people in that I've entered the spring the last couple of years anxious about which schools might be pursuing Dana," said Elgin, the Valley commissioner. "You know he's the kind of coach who's going to be targeted whenever there's an opening.
"We've been fortunate to have him in this league for as long as we have. He's raised the bar for the entire Missouri Valley. And this might have been his best coaching job ever. He somehow and some way got his kids to play their best when it counted the most."
That's allowed the Bluejays to win their way back to the NCAA tournament. These are the best of times for Creighton basketball and its fans.
The season's end will bring uneasy times as long as schools have openings for basketball coaches. Altman has always maintained he's very happy at Creighton, but with two of his four children in college, some of the ties that kept him at the school might be loosening.
"I would like to keep Dana here the rest of his career," Rasmussen said. "The fact that he is in demand speaks great things for what he's accomplished here. And typically someone who has had that success would have already moved up the food chain.
"One thing you are always asking is whether you have a team or a program. Dana has given us a program. If he would leave today, the program would be in good shape. But that's definitely not something we want to think about."