Tireless Marvin Menzies makes recruiting his mantra as he rebuilds UNLV basketball

Marvin Menzies sat in Lon Kruger’s old chair with papers neatly stacked on his desk and a nearly empty bookcase behind him.

Two family photos sat in one of the nine cubby holes, and a box of tissues was in another.

The rest were bare.

After taking over a UNLV basketball team late in the recruiting process and with a roster in need of a nearly complete overhaul, Menzies doesn’t have time to sleep, forget decorating his new office.

If the national election mantra in 2000 was “Florida, Florida, Florida,” and in 2008 it was “Ohio, Ohio, Ohio,” for Menzies, he wakes up each morning after 3½ to four hours of sleep thinking, “Recruiting, Recruiting, Recruiting.”

“There’s no head coach in the United States that’s going to outwork me,” Menzies said. “That’s not going to happen. I’m going to do that no matter where I am. I could be at New Mexico State or Santa Monica (California) Community College. I’m a competitor, so expectations don’t bother me. My expectations are higher than anybody else could have.”

Menzies, 54, comes to UNLV at one of the lowest points in the storied program’s history. The Rebels have gone 18-15 each of the past two seasons, and even that was overshadowed by a drawn-out coaching search that ended with Menzies taking the job after Chris Beard bolted for Texas Tech after only a week on the job.

There were questions about Beard’s commitment even before he was hired, but that is not the case for Menzies. UNLV is a job he has eyed for a long time.

But coaching wasn’t a job Menzies envisioned as a career after obtaining his economics degree at UCLA in 1987. He thought he might create his own business or go into banking or politics or choose something else to do for a living.

Basketball was more of a hobby, and Menzies — a three-sport athlete at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles — coached because it was something he enjoyed and saw it was a way to contribute to society.

But he kept coaching, eventually moving up junior college in 1991 at Santa Monica College. Except for spending the 1996-97 season as an assistant at Cal State Sacramento, Menzies was at Santa Monica as an assistant or head coach until 1999.

Then his big break came when Steve Fisher arrived at San Diego State in 1999 to take over an Aztecs program that barely had a pulse.

Menzies had acquired the reputation as someone with a knack for recognizing and attracting talent, and Aztecs assistant coach Brian Dutcher thought he might be a key addition to the staff.

“One thing about Marvin is he’s got an infectious personality,” Dutcher said. “I don’t think there’s anybody he’s ever met that doesn’t like Marvin Menzies. He’s got a way about him that disarms people, that puts them at comfort.

“That’s the way I felt instantly when I met Marvin. I thought he was just a great person, and then we slowly became aware of what a dynamic recruiter he was and a developing young coach.”

Menzies coached there four years before moving on to a season each at Southern California under Henry Bibby and UNLV in 2004 under Kruger, his reputation as a top recruiter getting the attention of those coaches.

Menzies had a hand in helping Kruger build a team that would advance to the Sweet 16 in 2007, landing recruits such as Joe Darger and Gaston Essengue, who played key roles in that NCAA Tournament run.

“He was definitely very entertaining,” Darger said. “There never seems to be a dull moment with Coach Menzies. I felt like he had a way that he’s fun and outgoing, but he’s also demands a lot of respect.

“I didn’t feel like was blowing smoke. He was personable, but I felt like he was truthful. I remember recruiters say a lot of things to try to get you to commit, and some of the guys that recruited me said a lot of the right things, but I didn’t feel like it was genuine. I felt like they were trying to sell you more on the school than the actual facts of it, but I got a better feeling with those (UNLV) guys.”

Kruger believed in hiring assistants who he thought had the ability to be future head coaches, and it’s a philosophy shared by Louisville’s Rick Pitino, who hired Menzies in 2005.

And Pitino didn’t just hold that philosophy as a theory. He put it to work, using his assistants to handle every facet of the job from dealing with boosters and the media to working with the budget.

“He wouldn’t just put us in a box,” Menzies said. “He prepared us by preparing all of the person.”

That helped prepare Menzies for when he became New Mexico State’s head coach in 2007.

In winning at a program — going 198-111 over nine seasons and making five NCAA Tournaments — that isn’t the easiest place at which to attract talent, Menzies validated his reputation as a top recruiter.

But being known as a recruiter can be a backhanded compliment. It suggests Menzies doesn’t know how to coach on the floor, but he won with two drastically different systems in Las Cruces. His first teams played full-court basketball, and his latter ones slowed the pace down to take advantage of a tall front court.

Menzies’ said not being credited with being a better game coach bothered him “when I was younger, but then you learn that people are not in your inner circle are going to have opinions, and you have to respect their opinions. But at the same time, they can’t be your motivation, and they can’t be your driving factor on why you do what you do.”

But there is good a reason Menzies is known for his ability to sign talented players.

“Recruiting is about relationships, and Marvin has a unique ability to meet a stranger, put him at ease and start building that relationship,” Dutcher said. “I think people see through phonies, and they know when you’re sincere.”

But for Menzies, it isn’t simply about signing top players. It’s about signing the right ones and getting the chemistry right.

That philosophy comes from his parents, who believed deeply in giving back. His mother, Eula, doesn’t trash mail from charities, but puts $5 bills in return envelopes, and she created her own nonprofit to benefit her native country.

Guyana Medical Relief donates equipment and supplies, and Eula Menzies still oversees that operation to some extent. But she turns 90 on Dec. 10, and wants to turn over the charity to younger people.

“I believe that the young people hold the future of the world in their hands, and they should grasp it when they’re young,” Eula Menzies said. “They should have a vision of what they want to do not only for their families, but for the society as a whole.”

Marvin Menzies mentioned his mother’s organization at his introductory news conference, and it’s clear the giving gene has been passed down when he decides which players will best suit his roster.

“There are a lot of kids that I have coached throughout the years that haven’t been angels, but have figured out how to right the ship because people are there to support them,” Menzies said. “But when you want to win at a high level, I think it’s important that you have the kids who are at least starting to figure it out in terms of who they want to be as people going forward and how they want to treat other people.

“I felt like it was something that was ingrained in me that character counts, and it counts usually when the chips are down.”

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter: @markanderson65