Defending the Dragon

As a college basketball player, Zach Spiker hoped he might one day earn a living…coaching.

An undersized point guard whose game, according to his own scouting report, lacked “highlights,” Spiker’s infatuation with hoops nonetheless flourished.

“I knew I wasn’t going to have a long career playing,” the Ithaca graduate says. “I spent the last year of my collegiate career studying the game. I wanted to be around athletics one way or another, so the opportunity to go into coaching was something I felt strongly about.”

He’s recounting this in October, just a few weeks before his debut as leader of Drexel’s men’s team. So while a portion of his brain is agreeably dribbling down memory lane, most of it is occupied by the same thought that has consumed him since he was a budding young coach.
How can I help my team improve?

With just three seniors on a team that won six games a year ago, the Dragons have plenty of potential for improvement. To tap into it, Director of Athletics Eric Zillmer chose the 40-year-old Spiker, a basketball junkie who is the only head coach in the history of the U.S. Military Academy (Army) to win 15 or more games for four straight seasons. Spiker’s 102 victories at storied West Point tied him with the legendary Bob Knight on the school’s all-time list — and caught Zillmer’s attention.

“Zach Spiker is an exceptional coach and a person of integrity,” Zillmer says. “He has unbelievable energy and will bring an excitement to the Drexel fan base. His personality and playing style fit the aspirations of our University as creative, fast-paced and innovative.”

Just how he’ll do that is perpetually on the new coach’s mind.

“Big picture, we have a really good idea of what we want to do here,” Spiker says. “We want to get up and down the court and appeal to the young men in the city of Philadelphia, playing with tempo and great pace, moving the basketball. Defensively, getting after people full court, I think that’s something the DAC Pack would love to watch. But the roster is in transition. You’ve got to coach every team and every season differently.”

Spiker grew up in the football hotbed of Morgantown, West Virginia, where his father, John, was WVU’s longtime athletic trainer. As a kid he loved all team sports, but despite being 5-foot-10, it was basketball that stuck. Since his dream team, Syracuse, was unrealistic, he wound up at Division III Ithaca, where he played ball and earned a bachelor’s in communications. He thought his future was in sports broadcasting, but toward the end of his playing days he was bitten by the coaching bug.

After graduating, he joined coach Gregg Marshall’s staff at Winthrop. It was hardly glamorous.

“We made a position for him, and I don’t know what he got other than a little stipend,” says Marshall, now head coach at Wichita State. “He came in expecting nothing and added value. He went out and worked odd jobs in the mornings and helped us in the afternoons. What he does as a coach is the same thing he does in his personal life — he develops relationships. He is very positive, has a ton of energy and obviously he is a tremendous young coach. He can translate the game to his players, and I am sure they love playing for him.”

Spiker later worked as an assistant at West Virginia (where he earned a master’s in sport management and met his wife, Jenn) and Cornell before being hired to lead Army’s program.

“The academy stands for so many great things about our country. I thought it would be an honor just to interview for the position,” Spiker says. “Coaching at West Point makes you a better, more efficient coach because the access can be limited. You don’t have time to do drill after drill and have a long practice.”

That’s exactly what he’s doing at Drexel, where his goal is daily progress. He doesn’t get caught up in what other teams are doing, and doesn’t want his players to, either. The focus, he believes, should be inward.