Northwestern Coaching Post New Challenge for Foster

Bill Foster has faced his share of personal and professional challenges in more than a quarter of a century in college basketball.

He has rebuilt programs at South Carolina and Duke, overcome a heart attack and survived in a sport where coaches come and go very quickly.

Now, he faces probably his biggest test. He takes over at Northwestern, where mediocrity has often been the main goal and where victories are hard to find. Foster, with a career mark of 413-268 entering this season, must overcome a losing attitude at the Big Ten school.

“I think it starts right now by stressing attitude,” Foster said. “You also have to work on things like off-season conditioning and all, but attitude is extremely important.”

Foster said he wants a more upbeat game and adds he can exploit the strong academic reputation the school enjoys.

“I do prefer to move the ball up the court,” said Foster. “Last year at South Carolina, we played with the best like Louisville and we’re going to compete and we know it’s a challenge. We know that we have the great prestige at Northwestern and we’re going to try capitalize on it.”

The tough academic requirements made recruiting difficult for his predecessor, Rich Falk, but Foster insists the high standards can work toward helping his program.

“I really like the combination here of the student-athlete. It can work to our advantage,” Foster said. “When I first came to this school and saw the campus, I know I was hooked. I expect the same thing can be done for potential recruits.”

Foster, who began his career in 1961 at Bloomsburg State with trips to Rutgers, Utah, Duke and South Carolina, rebuilt in places like Duke and South Carolina by landing the occasional Mike Gminski. Northwestern hasn’t succeeded at that in the past.

“I was very fortunate in places before Northwestern. I had five former NBA players playing a couple of years ago,” he said. “It’s important to the players right now that are here that we spend a lot of time working with them to go out and (have the) self-dedication to improve right now.”

He would like to recruit in the Midwest but said Northwestern’s national academic reputation could lure top players from all over the nation.

“The university has a great reputation,” Foster said. “I think that we can find people all over the U. S. It’s our job to find out which ones can do the job from an academic and attitude standpoint.”

Foster also emphasized that he isn’t about to turn Northwestern into a basketball factory, noting his priorities have always been to stress academics and put athletics in perspective.

“That was how we did it at Duke. A great deal of priorities, with academics first, then basketball. You put social life on that ladder as well,” he said. “Basketball is important but it isn’t everything.”