Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery ‘not retiring anytime soon’

Iowa meets Michigan State in men’s basketball Tuesday night in East Lansing, and you can’t think of the Spartans without including their head coach, Tom Izzo.

“Tom loves it,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said Monday. “He’s really good at it. He has nothing more to prove. He's already in the Hall of Fame. But he's not slowing down and he's not retiring anytime soon. And neither am I.”

Michigan State is closing in on its 26th-straight NCAA tournament appearance with Izzo, who turned 69 last month. Five Division I men’s basketball coaches are 70 or over.

McCaffery, Iowa’s coach of 14 seasons, was asked how longtime coaches like himself and Izzo stay on top of everything in their jobs.

“We don’t know anything else,” said McCaffery, 64. “We got into coaching right out of college and grinded our way up in the coaching profession.

“Being around young people on a daily basis keeps you young. And I don't look at my job any differently today than I did in 1983. I know that sounds weird, but it's the truth.

“We come in and we try to figure out how to get better, how are we going to get each individual better, how are we going to try to get the team better? How are we going to prepare for our next opponent? What are we doing in recruiting? How are our guys doing academically? Is there anybody that's struggling, is there anybody that needs help? Is there anything going on in their lives that might need to be addressed? And then you just continue to go to work.”

That’s in-season. The job, of course, is year-round.

“You go right into offseason recruiting or offseason workouts,” said McCaffery. “Now we have portal recruiting and then we have summer recruiting for high school kids. And we enjoy it.”

McCaffery has been in coaching since 1983. This is his 28th season as a head coach.

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