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Cameron Dollar brings an edge to the Washington coaching staff, his passion expressed with intensity. At times, it's tough for the players to handle. In the end, they realize Dollar was on their side all along.
He's laughing heartily now, the way people do when they just heard a good one.
Cameron Dollar has a genuine laugh, seems to laugh a lot in fact. This is not part of his sideline demeanor, the yelling, eyes aflame. Were he a cartoon character, he'd be drawn with steam coming out of his ears while a train whistle sounded in the background.
But not now. Dollar is laughing because he was just told senior Justin Dentmon warned Isaiah Thomas over the summer. The Dollar the freshman sees on Washington's outside courts? That's not the same guy Thomas will see when the season starts.
"They never believe me when I tell them that, too," Dollar said.
But that's the reality. Dollar said he is quite laid back off the court, playing video games in the hotel with the players, leaving oncourt transgressions as just that. But when it's time to practice or play?
"It's an intense game played by men, it's not played by boys," Dollar said. "This isn't the YMCA where it's, 'Hey, Johnny take your time, figure it out out, we'll just wait. If we lose some games or are not playing up to our standards because you take your time, hey, that's OK.' That's not how this game is played."
Dollar is the most intense coach on the Washington staff, stationed in final seat on Washington's bench, where players are often summoned to for in-game discussions.
"He's going to get in people more than anyone else," Jon Brockman said. "He'll ride you and he'll expect perfection out of you. At the end of the day, he loves you more than anyone."
PHOTO BY DREW SELLERS / SEATTLESPORTSONLINE.COM
Cameron Dollar says the mental challenge of meshing a team is something he relishes.
HE KNEW IT ALL ALONG
Dollar says he knew when he was six-years-old he wanted to coach. He grew up watching his father, Donald, coach in high school. Plays were drawn in chalk back in those days, young Cameron hanging around to clean them up, analyze them, and offer an opinion.
"You know that girl in Remember the Titans?" Dollar said. "That's how I would be."
Dollar would think about how he would run practice, coach his own team. He was always interested in the mental wrangling involved with coaching, another way for him to feed his personal competitive fire.
Lorenzo Romar recruited Dollar while an assistant at UCLA. Dollar played for the Bruins from 1994-97, Romar departing in after the 1996 season. Then a congenial battle began.
Romar said he and the other UCLA assistants, Steve Lavin and Mark Gottfried, would joke about who would get Dollar on their staff first. Romar turned out to be the winner, hiring Dollar after taking over at St. Louis University in 2000. Dollar then made the move to Washington with Romar in 2002.
Since, he and Romar have played a derivation of good cop, bad cop. While Romar takes a more laid-back approach, Dollar is ferocious. Ask players or even Romar about Dollar, and they all react the same way. First a smile, then a comparison.
"He's a bulldog," Justin Dentmon said.
"He's the enforcer. Maybe kind of like a pit bull," Brockman said.
"He's a pit bull," Romar said.
That's one of the odd juxtapositions about Dollar. Often when someone recounts a story of Dollar yelling at them, they smile beforehand. When you see someone being yelled at by Dollar, they are not smiling.
It's not a mixed message, just sometimes trickier to decipher for the younger players. Dollar will play around and hang out in the summer. But when practice starts, you're a freshman who doesn't know anything yet is supposed to be perfect. These are facts Dollar will remind you of.
"He's the mean one, from day one," Isaiah Thomas said, smirking at the memory. "He's yelling, always yelling. Romar, he don't say nothing. He lets you mess up then lets coach Dollar chew you out.
"You know you're in trouble when he's yelling at you."
Dentmon didn't know what to make of Dollar. As a freshman guard, he was on the receiving end like any other player. And it continued, making Dentmon unsure for a bit what was going on.
"When I first met him my freshman year, it was just crazy how hard he was on us," Dentmon said. "I've never had a coach be so hard on me.
"I talked to coach Romar about it. I talked to seniors about it and they were like, 'He's yelling at you for a reason.' "
It took three years for Dentmon to understand Dollar's pursuit.
"My junior year," Dentmon said of when he was finally comfortable with Dollar. "I was like, 'Man, he does not like me.' But it wasn't like he didn't like me. I told him one practice, just keep getting on me. I understand what you're trying to do. Just keep trying, I promise you I'm going to be a better player one of these days."
As Dentmon wondered his freshman season, the new guys on the Huskies this year wondered, too. Some turned to Brockman for an explanation.
"The reason he is on you is because he cares about you," Brockman said he would advise the younger players. "You have to keep that in perspective. You have to be able to take the message and take it away from the emotion."
PHOTO BY DREW McKENZIE / SEATTLESPORTSONLINE.COM
Lorenzo Romar, left, coached then hired Cameron Dollar. The two have been working together since 1999.
THE NEXT STEP
The recent departure of Tony Bennett from Washington State has set the offseason coaching carousel in motion. Portland State head coach Ken Bone, a former Washington assistant and the head man at Seattle Pacific University for 12 seasons, is a rumored prime candidate for the job.
Should Bone leave Portland State, it appears as an opening that would suit a seasoned assistant such as Dollar. Not to mention more dominos will fall if Tim Floyd leaves USC for Arizona.
Dollar has been in the mix for a head coaching position before. He was a finalist at Long Beach State two years ago, and at Sacramento State last year. Romar, not surprisingly, feels Dollar is ready. "I think he could run any program in America right now."
But Dollar is in no rush, his comfort with Romar and the rest of the staff something that would need to be overwhelmed by another prospective job.
"I wouldn't say hopefully, as far as wanting to leave," Dollar said. "I really like being here and what we have. A lot of times what happens is people inquire about you and you listen. But the road from inquiry to accepting, is a long, long road."
For now, Dollar will remain a freshman's challenger and understood by seniors. He'll still have the fake cardboard handkerchief in his blazer, while Romar sports the real deal. Dollar won't be changing his coaching approach, saying it's most important he stays true to who he is. He knows his method isn't the only one, saying his fire and Romar's ice both work.
"(Players) will hear the hammer banging its loudest, but the screwdriver works as well," Dollar said. "The screwdriver will be very quiet, but it will slowly be turning up in you. That's how I've always coached. As long as they know that you care and that you bring passion to it, I think not only are they receptive, but they're excited about that."
Todd Dybas is the editor of Seattle Sports Online. Contact him at tdybas@seattlesportsonline.com