A month after the whirlwind series of events that led to Dusty May becoming the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, new Michigan head coach Mike Boynton Jr. is speaking on how things went down.
In an interview with the Field of 68 on Thursday, Boynton said that he knew that May was considering leaving following the Wolverines’ victory in the NCAA championship, but that the two of them didn’t have a conversation about next steps until the day before May took the job. May’s hire was officially announced by Dallas on Tuesday, June 23.
Boynton said that they’d had an inkling that there would be a leadership change at Michigan, as May’s “name came up for pretty much every job, all spring, at every level,” Boynton said. That included then-open positions at North Carolina, the Chicago Bulls and the Orlando Magic, which were all subsequently filled.
Boynton, who spent seven seasons as the head coach at Oklahoma State, added that he was “sensitive” about trying to pry into what was going on with May.
“I really didn’t know, and I really wasn’t all that interested in finding out, because I didn’t want him to feel like I was just another guy trying to seek information,” Boynton said.
He added that he and May had talked after the coach had returned from a visit with the Mavericks.
“Dusty and I had a conversation I think Sunday, after he returned from visiting with them, that he was really contemplating whether he would take it or not,” he continued. “And part of the conversation was what would that mean for me and whether I wanted to try to take this thing over and continue it, or maybe even perhaps join him in Dallas. It was a conversation that was brief, but because of the briefness of the conversation I didn’t have a whole lot of time to process, if it happened, what would be next.”
The next morning, May and Boynton were running Michigan’s camp when Boynton heard the official news — not from May, but from a tweet from ESPN insider Shams Charania. That led to a meeting with Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel.
“Literally as I’m walking out of opening camp, I get a notification from Shams that Dusty’s taken the Mavericks job,” Boynton said, “and Dusty had asked if I would go to Warde’s office and meet with him to figure out, you know, at least for that day, what it needed to look like.”
Since all of the players were there when the news dropped, Boynton said, they needed to do something akin to damage control.
“We needed to at least coalesce those guys around a message about staying together and continuing this,” Boynton said. “And from there on, man, it’s been like drinking out of a fire hydrant.”
Boynton said that his early duties as the then-interim head coach included talking to all of the players, as well as the players’ families and players’ agents.
“It’s been like 24 hours in a day hasn’t been enough. I need like five more hours in this day,” Boynton joked.
But Boynton, whose career at OSU ended on a strained note, said that he didn’t necessarily know if he would be at the helm of a major program again, and that he was “grateful” for the chance.
“My history’s well-documented. Two years ago, it was even less likely that I would be in this position now. But I’m very thankful,” Boynton said.
Boynton officially became the Wolverines’ full-fledged head coach earlier this month, losing the “interim” tag after just two weeks.
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