When he’s pacing the Boston University men’s basketball team sideline, coach Dennis Wolff is a palette of emotions. One minute he’s feverishly clapping his hands and nodding in approval, the next he’s holding his head and gritting his teeth in frustration. Wolff can be anywhere on the feelings spectrum during the course of a game, usually working himself into a frenzy regardless of how his team is playing.
Off the court, free from competition’s torments, Wolff is relaxed and tall in both stature and character. Throughout his more than 20 years of basketball experience before he came to BU, Wolff fostered relationships that ultimately brought him to ‘The Roof.’ Whether it was taking his disciplinarian-style approach from his high school coach, moving up the ranks and meeting new friends or working with people he met along the way to shape BU’s program, Wolff’s friendships and integrity have yielded much of his success.
Earlier this year, after Wolff led BU to its second straight national tournament appearance the NCAA Tournament in 2002 and the National Invitational Tournament in 2003 rumors circulated about Wolff expressing interest in the coaching vacancy at Fordham University. The move would have been logical for Wolff. Fordham plays in the Atlantic 10, a step-up in conference notoriety from the America East, and is located in the Bronx. Wolff was born and grew up in Queens.
But BU recognized what Wolff had done for the men’s squad. In nine seasons under Wolff, the Terriers have appeared in five conference championship games and twice advanced to the NCAA Tournament. Putting to rest suspicions that he was on his way out, BU offered Wolff a new 10-year contract, which he signed last May.
‘There was one instance where a school had an interest in me,’ Wolff said, sitting in his office the day after his team’s 67-64 double overtime victory at Ohio University. ‘This was a situation where I didn’t think that was right for me and my family, and at the same time, I think BU wanted me to stay, which made us feel good and made us feel wanted. The offshoot of it all was it just further cemented my relationship with BU.’
Gary Strickler, BU’s athletic director, said Wolff has improved the basketball program’s image.
‘I’m very impressed with the discipline and organization he has,’ Strickler said. ‘I’d like to see him stay here for the rest of his career.’
Wolff has plenty of job security now, but the road to BU was long and well-traveled.
More than six feet tall, balding and of slender build, the 48-year-old Wolff has the look of a basketball player. When standing on the sideline, his head tilted, his lips tight and his eyes popping out, Wolff has the look of a drill sergeant.
Wolff said he picked up that game-day, drill-sergeant persona from Bill O’Meara, his coach at Holy Cross High School in New York City.
‘I was strongly influenced by [O’Meara], who was kind of an old-school, disciplinarian-type guy,’ Wolff said. ‘I don’t keep my emotions in during a game. That was one of the things I got from my high school coach.’
Wolff said he was considered a scorer at Holy Cross but was more of a ‘hard-nosed, defensive-type player’ in college. He played two seasons at Louisiana State University, before he transferred to the University of Connecticut because he said his playing time decreased and he began to miss home.
At UConn, Wolff played for Donald ‘Dee’ Rowe. In his senior season in 1978, he received the team’s Most Inspirational Player award.
‘At UConn, I had a very good experience all three years I was there,’ said Wolff, who averaged more than eight points and three rebounds a game as a senior. ‘My college coach, Dee Rowe, and I are very close. I made long-time friends, I played on good teams, had good teammates.’
Wolff and his wife, JoAnn, were married during Wolff’s senior year and have been together for almost 26 years. Wolff said the two knew each other long before marriage, however. They both grew up in Queens and went to grammar school together.
After graduating with a degree in business, Wolff said interviews ‘in the business world,’ did not excite him. Rowe then suggested that Wolff get into coaching and helped his former player get a job as an assistant at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
After two years at Trinity, Wolff got his first head coaching experience in two years at Connecticut College, where he led the Camels to a 16-8 record in his first season.
The movement did not stop for Wolff, who was offered an assistant’s job by Jim O’Brien the current head coach at Ohio State University in 1982 at Saint Bonaventure University in New York. Wolff said he and O’Brien are best friends and always talk hoops.
Following three years at St. Bonaventure and the births of two of his three children, Nicole and Matt, Wolff got a chance to coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference, getting another assistant’s job at Wake Forest University. A one-year stop at Southern Methodist University came after four years in Winston-Salem, N.C. before Wolff was back in the ACC in 1990 as an assistant to Jeff Jones at the University of Virginia.
During what he said were ‘four fabulous years’ at Virginia, Wolff was part of three NCAA Tournament teams and one NIT Championship team. The Cavaliers won the NIT in 1992 and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in 1993.
Finally, with six stops in between, Wolff made it from UConn to BU, where he has been for the past nine years.
Wolff said at first, he did not know what he was going to do after college. But it would have been tough to leave basketball behind.
‘The thing that I was always reluctant and would always be reluctant to give up was the idea that you’re part of a team,’ Wolff said. ‘I’ve done the same thing every afternoon since I’ve been a freshman in high school. You know, 3 to 6 [p.m.], I’m at practice.’
From Holy Cross to Virginia, Wolff said he took something from each person he worked with and blended those teachings to create his own basketball philosophy. From O’Meara, he took his hard-nosed attitude. From Rowe, his organization and discipline. From O’Brien and Jones, their knowledge of the game.
‘I think if you asked anybody that’s been coaching a long time,’ Wolff started, ‘they’re kind of a conglomeration of everybody they’ve worked with.’
Orlando Vandross, in his seventh year of assisting Wolff at BU after a common friend recommended him to Wolff, said he has head coaching aspirations and has learned a lot from Wolff.
‘Coach Wolff does so many things that you don’t see, behind the scenes, like having an interaction with our kids on a one-on-one basis,’ Vandross said. ‘He also involves all the coaches … so you feel like you have a vested interest. That’s one way he’s inspired me in terms of how he handles this whole thing.’
Senior point guard Kevin Fitzgerald, who said he has known Wolff since he came to Wolff’s basketball camp in seventh grade, said his coach preaches hard work and determination. Fitzgerald added that Wolff’s presence was a big factor in the senior’s decision to come to BU.
‘He’s always there for you, no matter what,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘If you’re doing bad in school or you’re having problems with your family, he’s just always there for you.’
After the Terriers lost to then-No. 13 Saint Joseph’s University on Nov. 25, St. Joe’s coach, Phil Martelli, said his relationship with Wolff is what brought his nationally-ranked Hawks to Boston.
‘[Wolff]’s one of those guys – when I first started, he was an assistant, he was well-established at Virginia,’ Martelli said. ‘He was one of the guys that treated you with respect.’
Wolff, you could say, has basketball in his blood. His daughter, Nicole, despite recently being sidelined with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, plays for UConn’s storied women’s basketball team. And just this week, BU announced that Wolff’s son, Matt, would play for the Terriers next season.
‘I’ve had friends of mine in Queens tell me that [coaching Matt will] either be great or the worst thing we’ve ever done,’ Wolff said. ‘I think he’ll be treated like everybody else, and I’ll make sure I treat him like everybody else.’
Wolff, however, added that his other son, 15-year-old Michael, does not play basketball and is more into ice hockey. The coach said he likes to spend his time with his family, take trips to the beach, and follow his favorite baseball team – the Yankees.
But, of course, when Wolff is not also secretly rooting for the Red Sox, which he admitted to doing, it’s all about BU basketball. Wolff said he plans to be around to see whatever the future holds for the program.
‘The one thing I’ve had people say to me, now that I’ve been here as long as I have, is that people feel a connection to the program,’ he said. ‘I feel we have a program we can be proud of. We try to do it the right way.
‘The thing I’m always going to appreciate about being the coach at BU is the security they’ve afforded me to make decisions based on right and wrong, not winning and losing.’
Strickler added that Wolff understands the balance a college coach needs to teach to student-athletes.
‘The big thing is his deep sense of personal integrity,’ Strickler said. ‘He knows that it’s not only about basketball, but it’s basketball in the context of education.’
Vandross said, ‘He’s one of the coaches in the athletic department that really supports everybody around here.’
In the end, that’s what Wolff said made him stick with a coaching for so long.
‘I think it’s because of the relationships with the kids,’ Wolff said. ‘I enjoy everything that goes into it. I enjoy the camaraderie with the guys and the assistant coaches.’
Fitzgerald said his relationship with Wolff and BU will last much longer than his senior season.
‘For next year and for years after that,’ he said.