• Coach Kaine duties focus on opponent scouting, coaching the
FAU post players and tracking in-game trends. He also helps
coordinate the Owls' various summer camps.
• Previously, Kaine served director of basketball operations
at his alma mater in 2007-08, helping Winthrop win its then fourth
straight Big South Championship.
• No stranger to every level of coaching from the high school ranks on up, Kaine has also coached at Austin Peay State University, Newberry College, Guilford College, and Northwestern High School.
Diary Series: Tim Kaine, Asst. Coach - Florida Atlantic
We are less than a month into the season and have traveled all over
this great country. We have traveled over 13,000 miles so far in
this young season. We have learned a lot about our team in
this brief, albeit busy, month. As I spoke about in my last entry,
we are building this program on character with great kids. Well,
our character has been tested with a 3-5 record so far. That might
not look great on paper, but we are improving and preparing for
conference play that starts December 31st.
Our philosophy is to play one of the most grueling and difficult non-conference schedules in the entire country. In eight games, we have played teams from the Patriot League, CAA, WCC, Big 12, Big East and PAC-12 all on the road. With that said before Christmas we have Mississippi State, Harvard on the road and Miami at a neutral site in the Orange Bowl Classic. Some people (including some on our staff) might say we are crazy to play this kind of non-conference schedule. We know in the long run this is all about being prepared for Sun Belt play and March.
In our only home game so far this season we took on a very
experienced and good George Mason team. We were fortunate to come
away with a win in overtime. It was great for our kids and
our program to get a win against such a great program in George
Mason. The biggest thing was that we had a sell-out crowd and
won in front of our fans. I would also like to thank our students
for being so loud and creating a great atmosphere for our
players.
When we first arrived at Florida Atlantic University there
wasn’t much of a basketball tradition. FAU is still a
very young school and athletic department, but both are growing
daily. From day one, Coach Jarvis spoke to our players, staff
and administration about having sell-out crowds. I’m not sure
everyone believed what he was saying during our first year but we
knew we had a diamond in the rough with this program.
I knew we were starting to make strides in the past three years, but the biggest moment came two days before the Mason game. After practice, Ray Taylor a junior point guard says to me, “Coach, it’s crazy that we are finally starting to sell-out home games. I remember Coach Jarvis telling me that we would win championships and play in front of sell-out crowds. Now all those things are coming true”.
We have taken a few days off after our last game (November 30 vs. Kansas) because of finals that started December 4th. Our guys are true student-athletes and we know they are prepared for their finals. We have a great academic support staff that has been on our last two road trips to help our guys. We will get back to work this week on the court and prepare for the rest of our non-conference schedule. I have been on the road recruiting for future Owls since Dec.1 and I love that when I call and text our players, they are all talking about how they were in the gym putting in work. It’s great to coach young men that want to get better every day.
I want to wish everyone Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
