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Gregory ready to lead the Bay women

Will become the third coach in program history

Matt Gregory

ESCANABA — Matt Johnson has been coaching alongside Matt Gregory for the last three seasons. Bay College’s men’s basketball coach and athletic director has had an opportunity to see first-hand the coach and person Gregory is, so when the women’s basketball coach job opened up, Johnson already knew he had his guy.

The Norse made it official Friday, as Gregory became the third women’s coach in program history.

“I was basically full of excitement and gratitude that Matt and (President) Dr. (Laura) Coleman, as well as Travis Blume — the Vice President of Student Services — decided to go this route,” Gregory said in a phone interview Tuesday. “I’m very fortunate and lucky to step into a role like this.”

Gregory spent the past three seasons as an assistant for the men and just started in that same role for the women last season. When previous head coach Rob Robinson was let go in early February, Gregory finished the season as the interim coach with a 3-2 record.

“Being part of the men’s program was obviously a blessing, to see how coaching at the JUCO level is,” said Gregory, who played college ball at UW-Marinette. “Seeing the ins and outs of how the recruiting goes, how you handle certain situations, how you’re dealing with student-athletes and making sure that everything is running smoothly on and off the floor, inside the classroom and in their personal lives, was very helpful. Being able to have that relationship with the guys and then the girls this season was definitely a blessing to be able to learn that type of situation.”

Gregory also noted he learned a lot in his five games as the head coach, which ended in a heartbreaking 60-57 home loss to Gogebic Community College in a Region 13 opener.

“I learned a lot on the fly when it comes to being that main person on the floor and the adjustments to make and how it can affect everybody on the team,” he said. “Now, I have a lot of time to kind of plan and figure out what our identity is going to be. I was really pushing the hard culture and the ‘we’ before the ‘me’, and that’s something I want to continue to keep growing with our team chemistry, and the people that we have coming back are buying into it already.”

For Johnson, the decision was a no-brainer. It was just a matter of whether Gregory wanted the job.

“For us, it was a no-brainer because we had been able to see Matt in action the past three years. I worked with him on a day-to-day basis with the men’s basketball program, but I also watched him throughout this past year as an assistant with the women, and then obviously watching him take over at the end of the year with the women’s side,” Johnson said. “His dedication and commitment to our student-athletes on both teams, and his commitment and dedication to Bay College and our athletic department as a whole, made it a no-brainer. He’s been incredibly loyal to us and he’s done a tremendous job, and I think it was just a great opportunity for Matt to be able to walk into.”

The situation he’s walking into isn’t exactly ideal, however, due to the recent coronavirus pandemic. There are many challenges in recruiting, along with not knowing when things will return to normal.

However, this hasn’t stopped Gregory on the recruiting trail, as he’s been forced to use new tactics.

“Players are interested in Bay… They’d love to come and see campus,” he said.

“I’ve had a lot of people that were very excited to set up campus visits before all of this went down. We’re lucky enough that we’re actually having a virtual campus Bay College tour for the people who can log-in and look at the link and check out our campus and kind of do a walkthrough with our admissions director, to kind of go through each area and see what they do and the personnel that’s around, and to really highlight some of the stuff that we have.

“We’re obviously doing a lot of texting and phone calls. I’ve had enough Facetime and Skype conversations as well, just to make sure that we’re making our presence known even though we can’t sit down and actually have a conversation face-to-face in an office.”

When things return to normal and play resumes, expectations will be high. The Norse went 35-17 in Robinson’s two-year tenure after going 14-11 under first-year coach Rae Drake, Jr. back in 2017-18.

“Coming in, I want to set the bar high,” Gregory said. “I want expectations to be understood by everybody coming in… We’re going to work hard, we’re going to respect each other, we’re going to listen and learn, and we’re going to have no excuses. We want to make sure that we’re bettering ourselves, but more importantly, we want to make sure that we’re bettering the program as a whole. If we do those things the right way, then we’re going to be pretty successful.”

Johnson stated he had zero doubt about the job Gregory will do, while also noting his character is his biggest strength.

“I have no doubt whatsoever that Matt’s going to do everything’s that required to run a successful program. We all look at it in terms of wins and losses — obviously as a sports person myself I do that as well — but as an athletic director, I know there’s more to being successful as a program. Obviously, recruiting is a big piece of it. We want to have solid numbers in our women’s basketball program — that’s probably priority No. 1,” Johnson said. “No. 2 is that the girls have a great experience. I don’t doubt for a second that Matt will be able to make that happen. He’s somebody that absolutely cares about the student-athletes. He’s going to do whatever he can to make sure that they’re taken care of, he’s going to put in the work and the time to make sure that the girls are prepared, and he’s doing everything he can to put them in a position to be successful… I think if you have a coach where the players know that he cares about them, and the coach and the players put in the right amount of time, and you have the right nucleus of players on the roster, then good things are going to happen and success is going to occur. I fully expect that that’s going to continue to be the case.

“Matt’s a great guy. He’s a very good basketball coach, he’s done a heck of a job for us since he’s been here, but as good of a coach as he is, he’s a better guy. I fully expect the ladies will love to play for him and the success will continue.”

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