Texas Southern's Interim Coach Shyrone Chatman Speaks

HOUSTON, TX -- Texas Southern University became a headliner with the news in early April when former head coach Johnny Jones departed the men’s basketball team to return to Louisiana State University as an assistant under Will Wade, leaving Shyrone Chatman to ponder his career and future.

Although the move did not come as a complete shock among players and coaches, having the Tigers’ third-winningest head coach of all time walk out the door places the program in reset mode. In response, the university announced shortly after Jones’ resignation that its search for a new head coach would “begin immediately,” and longtime assistant Shyrone Chatman will serve as interim head coach.

For Chatman, the news was not a major surprise because he had prepared for this moment. Even though this is his first head coaching title, the role’s responsibilities are not unfamiliar territory.

“When you’ve touched every part of the program the way I’ve done especially here, you’re already doing the things a head coach does. Last part about it is just getting the opportunity to do it.”

His life and career journey prepared him for this opportunity, and in a sit-down interview with HBCU Legends, we reflected on that journey.

Growing Up in Baton Rouge

Chatman quickly developed a connection to basketball at a young age while growing up in Baton Rouge. But while the city introduced him to the game he loved, it also exposed him to corruption that could have steered him away from it, making basketball feel like a path forward.

His perspective on life changed in early adolescence when local hero Keith Smart gave him and his peers meaningful advice.

Smart, a former basketball player at Indiana University, is best known for his game-winning shot in the 1987 national championship against Syracuse University. Chatman used to see a poster of Smart on the walls of his local community center, and when he was granted the opportunity to meet him in person, it was Smart’s guidance off the court that resonated most.

“He came to the community center and just talked about making the right choices, I think he spoke about drugs leading to a dead-end street and that resonated with me,” Chatman said.

“Hearing that kind of made me lock into what I wanted to do and be serious about it. That was a turning point for me where I made {basketball} my vehicle out of there, and it turned up my desire to work. It was more than just playing; it was trying to get out of the environment I grew up in.”

His Memphis Days

During his high school recruitment, Chatman committed to the University of Memphis over Kansas State University, the University of Missouri, and the University of New Mexico.

The decision came easily after Tic Price, then the head coach at the University of New Orleans, and Johnny Jones, an assistant at LSU, reunited at Memphis. That move solidified Chatman’s path after both had recruited him to their previous programs.

In his four seasons with the Tigers, Chatman broke out during his senior year, posting career numbers across nearly every statistical category under new head coach John Calipari, who at the time was returning to college basketball after a brief NBA head coaching stint.

Coach Chatman credits his upbringing in Baton Rouge as one reason he connected so well with the Hall of Fame coach during his senior year.

“ I think the way I grew up allied with his coaching philosophy, a part of coach Cal is you got to be mentally tough, and I think I was one of them kids that were wired that way.”

“Things lined up to where I had a great summer, got in the gym with him, got in the gym with managers and improved my shooting and then everything just fell in place.”

A few years later, Chatman returned to Memphis in 2006 as an operations staff member and played a role in the magical 2007 season that followed. Behind an unforgettable freshman campaign by Derrick Rose, Memphis reached the national championship game but fell to the University of Kansas in overtime.

The game became famous for Mario Chalmers hitting a game-tying 3-pointer in the final seconds to force overtime.

Now observing from a coach’s perspective, Chatman witnessed Calipari’s ability to unify a roster without egos.

“That’s the thing I would say from a coach’s standpoint that impressed me about him the most, how he can get a team to gel.”

“He got guys to shrink their egos, not many can do that. You got a lot of people who can assemble talent, but the bottom falls out or they’re not productive.”

The time spent in Memphis — first as a player and later as a coach — gave Chatman the desire to remain there for the rest of his coaching career. However, one conversation with Calipari ultimately shifted the trajectory of that career.

“ I was in Memphis, and I thought I would always be there, and I remember having a conversation with [John Calipari] in my office and him saying this is a great profession but unfortunately it won’t keep you in one place. That’s one of the biggest things I’ll always remember.”

Far From Home

Those words would soon ring true when the profession took him to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a place that was unfamiliar to Chatman, a Southern native up to that point.

The lessons he learned there were not rooted solely in basketball. It was there that Shyrone said he first understood what it truly meant to be a minority.

“UMass was the first time I experienced what people call being a minority. In the south it’s so segregated, if I went to work or a school that maybe was predominantly white or with people that didn’t look like me, when I went home, my neighborhood and my surroundings looked like me, so I didn’t get a true feel of what a minority was. But when I went there [to UMass] I had to adapt with people that didn’t look like me.”

That willingness to adapt helped Shyrone improve as a recruiter, allowing him to connect with players from different racial backgrounds while also marketing UMass as a desirable destination to athletes more naturally drawn to larger cities.

“How can you convince a kid from to go from New Orleans, Memphis, Dallas, or Houston to come to Amherst Massachusetts. I learned how to communicate, how to sell, those skills got stronger.”

In five of his nine seasons there as a full-time assistant coach, UMass produced strong results, including three consecutive 20-win seasons and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2014 for the first time since the 1997-98 season under a young John Calipari.

Chatman rose to associate head coach during the 2016-17 season, which ultimately became his final year there. From an operations role to associate head coach, he built a reputation as a tireless worker throughout his nine years at UMass. Even so, he remained patient as he waited for a head coaching opportunity.

Landing at Texas Southern

Chatman returned to the South in 2017, joining Texas Southern’s staff under Mike Davis before reuniting the following year with his former collegiate coach, Johnny Jones, when Jones took over the program.

He has enjoyed significant success during his nine seasons as an assistant, winning four SWAC championships, upsetting the then-No. 20-ranked University of Florida in a regular-season matchup in 2021, and making multiple NCAA Tournament appearances.

Now, more than two decades after his first coaching job in Memphis, Chatman has his first head-coaching opportunity in an interim role, earned through gradual growth and consistency at every stop along his journey.

“Anytime it’s been a promotion or advancement for me it’s been when I am productive in my role and then those chips just kind of fell.”

“I interviewed there [UMass] as a head coach, it just wasn’t God’s timing, now here it is 10 years later same situations, maybe it’s God’s timing.”

Texas Southern continues to navigate a unique situation with interim athletic director Paula L. Jackson and now an interim head coach, a combination that may create uncertainty for a program trying to sustain its success next season.

While he remains a legitimate candidate for the permanent role, Chatman does not view the opportunity as unfamiliar territory. The experience that elevated him into this position is the same experience he believes will resonate with players, administrators, and fans.

“I’m not coming to a new job it’s just anew opportunity, and I’ve done the job for nine years.”

“I’ve touched every part of this program to the recruiting, admission process, to coaching, to development, I mean there’s nothing that I haven’t touched. As far as proving I would be trying to prove something I’ve already done. People may not know that the only thing I haven’t done is stoop up while everybody else sits down on the sidelines.”

*Article written by HBCU Legends intern, David Hill, who is a journalism student at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas.

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