Don’t doubt Jerry Stackhouse’s commitment to Vanderbilt basketball | Estes

Much of Jerry Stackhouse’s pandemic so far has been spent on the future. He’s staying busy by watching teenagers play basketball on tape, scouting possible recruits for the 2021 and 2022 classes.

To anyone who might wonder, Stackhouse is still here for this.

All of it. The teaching. Especially the teaching.

But also the recruiting, the rebuilding, the still-formidable challenge of returning Vanderbilt basketball to prominence, coaching at a college where the athletics department is no longer headed by Malcolm Turner, the man responsible for bringing him to Nashville last year to take on all of the above.

And yet when Turner exited the AD’s job, “nothing changed,” insisted the coach.

"I got in this relationship with Vanderbilt University — for six years," Stackhouse said. "We’re committed to each other, and I’m as firm in that commitment as ever, as I was on Day 1.”

The brightest aspect of Turner’s legacy at Vanderbilt, given that he spent only one year in charge, was his move to lure Stackhouse away from pro ball. Such a decision, outside-the-box as it may have been, continued to look better over the course of this past season in spite of any concerns.

With a former NBA star player like Stackhouse, there’s always been an underlying skepticism about motivations. He didn’t have to do this. He doesn’t need the money or the acclaim. He doesn’t have to prove anything in basketball. He was paving a promising coaching career in the pros before taking this detour into college, not wholly understanding exactly what he’d be getting into when doing it.

You want to understand why he's eager to want to stay. 

And so he tells you.

He likes this. To understand Stackhouse's approach is to remember that despite the prestige he once held as a player, he was always the blue-collar type and still is that. He likes getting his hands dirty, which has made him a better fit for this task at Vanderbilt than some might realize.

He’s a smart guy. He wasn’t blindsided. He knew enough to know what he did not, and he shrewdly planned for it, negotiating in his six-year contract the ability to hire a large staff, and he “found people that were great at what I didn’t know.”

“People always have a lot of things to stay about this and that, talking about the size of the staff,” Stackhouse said. “It’s just noise to me, because it’s in the contract. We have a salary pool. I have the discretion to hire as I want as long as I’m inside my salary pool.

“So I can have three people on staff or I can have 20 people, as long as I fall inside the salary pool. I wanted to make sure that I had people to service our players and do what we needed to get the program back to where it should be.”

Vanderbilt is not there yet, of course, and Stackhouse wouldn't try to argue otherwise. Last season’s record — 11-21 overall and 3-15 in the SEC — wasn’t anything to brag about.

“Some people maybe thought it was a win,” he said, “but for us, it was still a disappointing season.”

But hopeful hints were produced by a young team that didn't quit in a discouraging situation — unlike the previous season before Stackhouse arrived — and improved after losing its best player and NBA hopeful Aaron Nesmith to midseason injury.

The Commodores were often overmatched, sure, but they did beat LSU before closing the regular season with wins over Alabama and South Carolina, gaining actual victories, not moral ones.

It was enough to offer hope in his vision for Vanderbilt and grow confidence in what he’ll be able to do on West End, for those inside and outside the program.

“They see it now. They smell it now,” Stackhouse said of his players.

Meanwhile, coaches around the SEC complemented Stackhouse’s first-year efforts. “He’s doing a heck of a job,” said Kentucky’s John Calipari after a win in Memorial Gym in February.

“I appreciate the nods, but at the same time, I want to beat them,” Stackhouse said. “It’s great to talk great about somebody once you beat them. But I mean, let’s see if they have those same comments next year when we’re on the other side.”

Stackhouse's question is this: If Vanderbilt was good enough to beat those SEC teams, why was it not able to beat more opponents?

Along those lines, when asked, he didn’t want to talk about a lack of talent. He understands, sure, that Vanderbilt’s recruiting strategy shouldn’t be to chase one-and-done players. He's planning to instead bring in those who are good fits for the school and players who want to learn, players with whom he can build.

Because it’s the building that he said he loves.

“The piece that I enjoy the most, the therapy for me is to get in between those lines and with those kids for two-and-a-half hours a day,” Stackhouse said.

Like everyone else in college hoops, Stackhouse is having to be patient with campuses closed and his players at home in the COVID-19 crisis. That has been tough, he said. He has plans.

To hear him talk, it’s all about the future, where Vanderbilt is headed with him in charge.

And there aren’t suggestions to the contrary.

“I really am enjoying it,” Stackhouse said. “I’m enjoying being able to have an impact on these young guys’ lives. … Do I feel good about being a college coach? Yeah, but I don’t put it in one box or the other. I just think I’m a coach and I feel like I could do this for a long time because I really enjoy the teaching aspect of it.”

Reach Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Gentry_Estes.