“It’s not going to always be like this” was the message Kennesaw State Owls Head Coach Amir Abdur-Rahim gave to his young team in 2019 as they were suffering through a tough season that saw the Owls finish 1-28 overall.
At the time, the first year head coach knew if he could find a way to convince the young talent that he had recruited into the Owls program to dig deep and trust the system and culture he was trying to establish, that better days would be on the horizon.
Fast forward to 2023, those young recruits are now the senior leaders on an Owls team that is currently 17-6 overall and 9-1 in the Atlantic Sun Conference, tied for 1st place with Liberty University.
“We were building culture, we were building standards, we were building expectations” explained Coach Abdur-Rahim to Sam & Greg on the Weekends when describing the process, it took to build the Owls into a team that is now contending for conference championships.
Coach Abdur-Rahim continued to tell Sam & Greg that some of his proudest accomplishments other than the wins on the hardwood have come in the weight room and classroom.
“When we got here we had APR issues (Academic Progress Rate)”, emphasized Coach Abdur-Rahim to Sam & Greg about the status of the Owls program when he arrived.
However, Coach Abdur-Rahim proudly told Sam & Greg that, “Our team GPA was a 2.2 or 2.3 when we got here, but we have averaged a 3.0 over our four years here.”
Hard work, academic focus and success on the court has turned the Owls into the team and program that Coach Abdur-Rahim knew he could develop when he accepted the Kennesaw State job, and as a result he was recently rewarded with a four-year contract extension.
To listen to the entire conversations between Coach Abdur-Rahim, Sam & Greg download the link above