Justin Gainey’s opening press conference transcript.
Thank you guys. You didn’t have to stop clapping, it was awesome. That’s awesome. Thanks so much, thanks so much.
This is surreal. This is a surreal moment for me. It’s like a dream come true that still hasn’t fully set in.
I’m just so excited to be here, to be in front of you, this home. I’m excited to be back home.
Yeah, first and foremost, I wanna thank God. I wanna thank God for this incredible opportunity. I’m humble, I’m grateful, and I’m ready, and I know without Him, none of this would be possible. Without Him, I probably would have given up a long time ago, but I kept my eye on Him. He kept guiding me through, and I didn’t change my values, I didn’t change who I was to a sin quicker. I just kept grinding, kept going and tried to do things the right way. And it’s awesome to see that payoff.
I wanna start by thanking the leadership here at NC State. Chancellor Kevin Howell and Boo Corrigan, thank you so much for believing in me and giving me this amazing opportunity to live out my dream.
This is a special place with a proud tradition. And I don’t take any of this lightly. I know what comes with it. I was born here in North Carolina, played here at NC State. I understand what being on Tobacco Road is all about. I understand it.
And Boo said it great in his introduction, you gotta have a certain type of toughness to be here. And if you look at my career, my path, I was never the tallest guy. I was never the fastest. I wouldn’t say I always shot the ball the best, but the one thing that I pride myself on was toughness. I tried to bring that every day. And as long as I’m your head coach, you can count on that every single day that I’m gonna bring that toughness. And all of my teams and my staff and everybody associated with us, we will have that toughness.
I wouldn’t be standing here today without the people who have supported me all throughout my career.
I wanna start with my family, my beautiful wife Courtney. She’s been married to me over 20 years. I don’t know how she did all of those moves. We started here in North Carolina, went all the way out to San Jose, California, to Tennessee. Now we’re back home. Baby, you always been the rock of the family, keeping everybody together, organizing things when I’m away, when I’m out recruiting. You always have been a solid force to get the boys where they needed to get to, and to run our family. Thank you, it means a lot. I couldn’t have got here without you.
To my boys, Jordan, Jason, Jackson, you guys are my why. Everything I do, I try to make you proud, and I would never compromise myself, compromise our name just for a quick fix or a quick one. I do that with you guys in mind, and I try to be the best role model for you guys that I possibly can.
My parents, Mom, Dad, thank you for everything. Whether you know it or not, you instilled in me an unbelievable work ethic. Just to watch you guys go about your business and do what you do and provide for the family. I don’t take that for granted. It taught me a lot as far as hard work, as far as never complaining, and always having a positive view on whatever situation it is. It’s helped prepare me for everything that came my way, always trying to find the positive in it. And you guys would never let me find the negative. And so for that, I’m thankful.
To my mentors and former coaches, I would like to thank you guys as well. My dad, I throw you in that category as the best coach I’ve ever had. Remember the AAU trips, trying to figure it out. Coach Johnson, you don’t know how important you’ve been to me in my whole career, from a development standpoint. I remember when I got to Greensboro Day and when I talk development now to my players, I speak of when I started with you, and that’s the vision that I have for all my players. Because man, you made me a coach in 1990, probably ’92, and the relationship we have now is stronger than it probably was when I was playing for you. You’re always my sounding board. You’re always somebody I can reach out to. You’re someone who’s gonna keep it real with me. And I want that relationship with my players. I want my guys to be able to call me 30 years from now and be able to lean on me and go watch their kids play and we just have that lifelong relationship. So Coach J, thank you.
Also Coach Barnes, I’d like to thank Coach Barnes as well. He’s been an unbelievable mentor for me, guiding me through so many different processes, helping me grow, helping me develop. I wouldn’t be the man, the coach that I am right now if he hadn’t shown me a different way. He showed me a way that I envisioned running my program as well. So thank you to you guys.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank the former players. I see my guys here, Jeremy Hyatt, Ishua Benjamin, Damon Thornton. Damn and I came in the same class, but all three of you guys were on that team that we went to the ACC Tournament championship, and we share so many memories, and we still talk often to this day.
For the players, like we talked about it yesterday, I want this to be a place you can come back to and call home. I want you guys to develop relationships that you will have forever. And I wanna be an example for you of that, because those guys, we went through a lot together, we went through hard together, and it did nothing but make us closer. And that’s what we’re about to embark on. We’re getting ready to go through hard, and you gotta be prepared for it. You gotta want it, you gotta enjoy it, and that hard will bring you together. That hard will harden you for those tough moments on the court and in life.
For the former players, I’m excited to be here. This is for us, man. This is for us. And it’s time for us to have that feel, that home feel that we deserve. That mentoring of the young guys, teaching them the way, showing them what it’s about to be from NC State, to be a Wolfpack. Because we had an unbelievable tradition. I remember when I was a freshman, sophomore, courts would come back. I’d watch him work. And just how he worked, talking to him about his experience when he was with the Celtics. Kenny Brown was always around in the summer, and I could bounce stuff off of him. That’s the feel we got to have. That’s the feel we got to be together. And I’m excited to take that next chapter with you guys.
Now to the Wolfpack Nation. I can already feel your passion, your pride, your determination to win at the highest level, and I share that with you. I really do. And I’m excited, more than you can believe, to be here. And I promise you we’re gonna build this program that reflects your energy, your toughness, and your commitment.
We will compete every single day, represent this university in the best way possible every single day. And you have my word on that.
To the current players. This program is gonna be built on a couple things, and it’s simple. We’re gonna develop you guys. I don’t want you to walk in with any limitations on yourself, on who you can become and what you’re capable of. We’re gonna help you reach whatever limits you’re trying to reach on the court as well as off the court. It’s our job to develop you here.
We’re gonna connect. We’re gonna connect with the community. You guys are gonna have an unbelievable connection within your group that can never be torn apart. You’re gonna connect with the university. This is an amazing place with a lot of people that care about you. Believe it or not, they care about you and they wanna see you succeed not only as players but also after. And these are people that are going to be in your life forever.
Like for me, receiving that call from Vinny Murphy the other day, just kind of out of the blue. I look on my phone, it’s a random phone number, and I answered. It was him. And I can remember coming back from games, he would fly with us on the charter flights. He would sit beside me and we would talk. His presence was always around, but that’s 35 years ago, and we still have those relationships.
Look at the people that came out. The NC State faithful. You got a family here, and you always will. Remember that.
And then we’re gonna compete. We’re gonna compete every day with toughness, and we’re gonna compete together, because at the end of the day, we want to win big. We want to win championships. And the only way that happens is competing at the highest level in everything you do. We’re gonna compete in the classroom, we’re gonna compete in study hall, we’re gonna compete in practice, we’re gonna compete in the games. Everything is gonna be competitive, and so I hope you guys are ready for that.
From a recruiting standpoint, I wanna recruit high character student athletes who embrace the standard and take pride in wearing that jersey. And I understand the era we’re in right now, where transfer portal rosters are fluid. Maybe you have a guy for one year, maybe two years. I get it. But I will not, and I promise you, and I’ll do my best through the vetting system, low character will not exist in my program. We will have high character young men that you’ll be proud of. High character young men are gonna compete. They’ll fight, they’ll do whatever they got to do on the court, but you know that they have that character that we’re looking for here at NC State.
I’m a North Carolina guy. Everywhere I’ve been, I recruited North Carolina and I feel like I did it at a high, high level and I’m ready to take that to another level. Always thought if I was in state, man, I could really make some noise. And I’m gonna recruit the state hard. There’s a lot of talent in this state, a lot. And we’re gonna scratch every corner of this state to find the best that fit us. We wanna be dominant in the state of North Carolina in recruiting, and then we’ll build out from there.
As far as the transfer portal, we’re gonna be activated, we’ll be aggressive in it. I know it’s very fluid. We’re still gonna find our guys within it. We’re gonna ask all the questions that need to be asked. We’re gonna have all the uncomfortable meetings to find the right guys. But we’re gonna be active, we’re gonna be aggressive, and we’re gonna be very competitive in the transfer portal.
So as I close, the respect of the tradition here at NC State is unbelievable. And the thing I wanna promise you is that you’re gonna get my best effort every single day in everything that we do. We’re gonna be relentless, and my teams will reflect that relentless mindset.
I’m excited to get to work. I’m excited to connect with the community. I’m excited to lead this program.
Thank you. Thank you to everybody for coming out. I really appreciate it. I look forward to spending more time with everybody. And again I can’t express to you just how excited I am and ready to get to work.
