This time, there was a pause.
Sure, the phone calls had come in across the years. As the seasons would conclude and coaching staffs would change, inquires would make their way to Dave Dickerson. Would he consider a new job? How happy was he at USC Upstate, battling his way through the Big South on an annual basis?
The answers were always not really and very, respectively. At least, that was the case until last March, when a longtime friend, former mentee and rising member of the profession placed a call from Columbus to Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Hey Dave, it's Jake Diebler at Ohio State. Would you be interested in joining my coaching staff?
Those assuredly weren't the exact words spoken from Diebler, now entering his first year as Ohio State's head coach , to Dickerson, a coaching lifer who spent the past six years in the same position but at USC Upstate. Yet the request, with all that it promised to entail, rang differently in Dickerson's ears than overtures of the past.
"Upstate was a hell of a job for me and a great opportunity for me and I enjoyed it," Dickerson said. "Throughout the years I've had different situations come up, but when Jake made the call it was a pause. I need to think about this."
He did, and Dickerson quickly became the first member of Diebler's coaching staff. The decision to leave a head coaching job for an assistant role at the university where he spent seven years – and what he has termed a special year of his marriage, the last one before his wife's cancer started to take hold – came quickly.
It was time to go back.
The office Dickerson now calls home didn't exist the last time he was part of the Buckeyes program.
Dickerson first arrived at Ohio State in 2010, fresh off a six-year run as Tulane's head coach. With a background that included winning a national championship as an assistant with coach Gary Williams at his alma mater of Maryland in 2002, Dickerson inherited a Green Wave program that was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina four months later. The men's basketball program played only 10 games in New Orleans and spent much of the fall at its temporary home – Texas A&M.
After one year with the Buckeyes, Dickerson was promoted to associate head coach and remained on coach Thad Matta's staff until Matta was fired during the 2017 offseason. When nobody on the coaching staff was retained, Dickerson enjoy a gap year of sorts before being named head coach at USC Upstate in 2018 .
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Since then, Ohio State has renovated the basketball offices at the arena, building an addition to the north side of the Schottenstein Center. Here, in an office that overlooks Bill Davis Stadium and the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, Dickerson reclines in a chair with his back to the window. Although he's been on the job since mid-March, there's not a whole lot in the way of decoration just yet.
There is an empty picture frame bearing 2012 Final Four logo, a reminder of when the Buckeyes last made it to the sport's final weekend and of where Dickerson aims to help them return.
"Coming from where I was, and having a chance to come back here has been a blessing," Dickerson said. "It's been surreal in the sense that I'm coming back to a program that I'm familiar with, but the program's actually better. I've been a part of some good teams, good coaches and players and coworkers and people, but as I come back for the second time this has a chance to be better than my first outing."
On this Friday in early September, Dickerson is stopped on his way into the office by former players William Buford and Jared Sullinger , both of whom had just finished their daily workouts. There aren't many familiar faces from his first stint with Ohio State, but the most notable one is also his new boss.
Dickerson was three years into his time with the Buckeyes when Matta hired Diebler, who had spent the previous four years at Valparaiso, as video coordinator. In addition to fulfilling that role and establishing himself as the go-to workout guy when former players would return to campus, Diebler spent plenty of time shadowing the members of the full-time coaching staff.
Now 57 years old, Dickerson described himself as "in the back nine of my coaching career," one that began as an assistant at Gardner-Webb in 1990-91. Along the way, he's spent 11 years as a head coach, giving him the biggest attribute missing from Diebler's resume: experience.
"He was on the last staff that went to a Final Four here and won a Big Ten championship," Diebler said. "I love that about him, but for me his experience being a sitting head coach and for him to leave that and come back says a lot about who he is and how he feels about this place.
"Dave was someone that I knew right away that I'd be fortunate to have him as a part of our staff. He and I had a preexisting relationship, and it's one where he can coach me a little bit too at times."
When Dickerson was first at Ohio State, he and his wife, Laurette, began to mentor Diebler and his then-girlfriend, Jordyn. Now married, the Dieblers welcomed their fourth child this summer. In between, they remained in constant contact, with Diebler periodically asking if Dickerson would considering joining him whenever he might get that first head coaching job.
It's a relationship that grew from mentor and mentee to true friends, a growth that came at a pivotal time for the Dickersons.
"When my wife (Laurette) and I would go down to Nashville to get second-opinion appointments every year, we would go and spend time and have dinner with he and Jordyn and his first baby at the time, James," Dickerson said. "We had a relationship and we stayed in touch with each other."
As Matta was fired and Holtmann hired, Dickerson and his wife were beginning to grapple with a stage four breast cancer diagnosis. When he was let go, Matta privately urged Ohio State to take care of the Dickersons as they dealt with her diagnosis, which arrived in March 2017. Once he was hired, Holtmann followed suit.
In each case, Dickerson was appreciative but also adamant: he would be the one to care for his wife. During the COVID-19 pandemic, USC Upstate allowed Dickerson to coach virtually while assistant coach Stacey Palmore served as acting head coach in practices and games for the 2020-21 season.
Laurette Dickerson fought the disease for five years before passing on March 2, 2022 in the home they shared in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Although they met while he was playing for Maryland, she was a native Ohioan. Laurette Dickerson graduated from Cleveland John Marshall and was thrilled when he first was hired at Ohio State, he said.
The last game they watched together was Ohio State at Maryland in late February that year.
"When we were here (in Columbus) was really the best years of our marriage, the best year of us being parents and the best years of being mates," he said. "Being down in South Carolina and being in the home where she passed and being in that area for the last three years, that was tough."
There's been a lot about returning to Ohio State that has been comforting for Dickerson. Despite being gone for seven years, Dickerson said he never switched banks or changed his cell phone number.
The memories, though, outweigh all the other stuff.
"It's been joy, because when we were here, she was healthy and we were happy," he said. "Our stay in Columbus before her diagnosis and our year afterward was good. It's been refreshing to come back and be at a place where we spent some great years together. Not only some great years, but we met some unbelievable people and to be around those folks again has reinvigorated me again."
Nearly 20 years Diebler's senior, Dickerson said he was given the nickname "old school" by the players on this year's roster as they first got to know him. Now, as the Buckeyes have gone through summer workouts together and fall practices are underway, that has changed.
Now they, and junior guard Bruce Thornton in particular, call him "young man."
"Once we've gotten through getting the team together to now, they realize that my energy level is as high as anybody on the staff," he said. "The 34 years that I've coached has been good to me. I don't mind my age. I don't mind the references. I just want to be in a situation where we can have success and win at a high level."
There weren't many jobs that would have convinced Dickerson to leave his job as a head coach for one as an assistant. Although this move actually marks a pay increase from what he was making as head coach of the Spartans, Dickerson said the university's support throughout his tenure meant he was not constantly on the hunt for another job elsewhere.
The difference is that Ohio State, under Diebler, is not just any old job for Dickerson. That, and the changing landscape of college basketball, helped seal the deal.
"You want to be at a place where you can be relevant and you want to be at a place where you have a chance to win at a high level," Dickerson said. "Ultimately for me, I missed that. To me, once you're working with the right person, you're at the right university and you have the right staff and people in the locker room, that's important."
The Buckeyes have not advanced to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since they reached the Elite Eight in 2013. That marked the last time Ohio State won a trophy, winning the Big Ten Tournament one year after Buford's shot sealed a 2012 regular season title.
Dickerson was on staff for all of those milestones. Now he gets a second chance at helping get the program back to heights the likes of which it hasn't seen in more than a decade.
"From what I know and what I've seen, we're going to be in that competitive stratosphere," he said. "We've got to embrace who we are and we've got to make the Buckeye experience a big-time experience: you belong here and you're supposed to win.
"This place is built to win."
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Dave Dickerson takes step backward to help Ohio State step forward
