Longwood University won the Big South Conference tournament title on Sunday afternoon to clinch the school's first NCAA tournament berth.
“I was an ambitious, driven person,” Aldrich said. “Achievement was in many ways my guide. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to climb in the coaching profession. I did have the debt, but I think I was also driven out of coaching at that time by a lot of fear of just not really rising in the coaching ranks.”
He added: “Those values are certainly transferrable to building an organization in college athletics and a college basketball program.” “For these kids, it was great because they had something to do that was constructive,” Aldrich said. “You could just see them transform right before your eyes. It was a lot of fun.”
Instead, Aldrich never had that conversation. In April 2016, Aldrich took a job as the director of basketball operations at UMBC under new coach Ryan Odom, Aldrich’s best friend and college teammate. The next year, Aldrich was promoted to director of recruiting and program development, where he served as Odom’s de-facto chief of staff.
“They called me and said, ‘Look, we’re looking to build a program,’” Aldrich said. “The pitch to me was much more of, ‘We think the X’s and O’s you’ll be able to figure out, but it’s the organizational building and culture building that we believe you’ll be really good at.’” “We had fans from Florida, Nebraska, New York, Texas,” Aldrich said. “People came from all over. It was really fun.”