Welcome to the Yahoo Sports College Podcast. This is Pete Thamel, Senior Reporter for College Sports for Yahoo with a very special

podcast guest today. I'm with Texas basketball coach Shaka Smart here at

the University of Texas in Austin.

Shaka, thanks for joining us on the podcast today.

Thanks for having me, Pete.

So Shaka, you and I first met probably about 10 or 12 years ago at a subway in Akron, Ohio.

We were there for the LeBron James Skills Academy back when it was all the rage the first week of recruiting.

You were with Dave Teller, our friend, who is now one of the

head scouts for the San Antonio Spurs, he was recruiting analyst at the time. And I always

sort of associate you with Akron in that and part of our

podcast say we want to walk through a little bit of your coaching career and

what got you here to Austin and we'll talk about the Longhorns as well but I

know that that time in Akron and especially Keith

Ambrose now the coach at Duquesne was a particularly strong mentor and

figure in your life. I wonder if you walk me through that avenue of your coaching career.

Actually when I met you, Pete, I had moved to Clemson,

but I did work at Akron for three years

as an assistant coach, actually first

under a guy named Dan Hipsher who was a very good

head coach and then Keith Dan Brock got the head coaching job and I loved it

there in retrospect it was probably my most important stop just because I met my wife in Akron.

She's from there and got a chance to work with some really, really good players

...