Life on the Road - Guest Marty McGillan

This week on Life on the Road, Coach **Alphonza Kee** and **Scott Bollwage** sit down with **Marty McGillan**, the Associate Head Coach at Eastern Michigan University and one of the most respected assistant coaches in college basketball. With more than three decades on the sidelines, Coach McGillan has built a career on loyalty, relationships, and a commitment to doing the work that most people never see. His story starts right here in North Carolina. A Winston-Salem native and Bishop McGuinness High School product, McGillan earned his degree in Therapeutic Recreation from UNC Wilmington in 1990, and he has been coaching ever since. He cut his teeth in the Southeast during the 1990s with stops at East Carolina, Coastal Carolina, The Citadel, and the College of Charleston. Those years were the classic young assistant grind: long nights on the recruiting trail, learning from different head coaches, and earning trust one job at a time. Then came the partnership that would shape his career. McGillan returned to his alma mater, UNC Wilmington, where he and fellow Seahawk Billy Donlon spent four seasons helping lead the program to two conference championships and two NCAA Tournament appearances. The pair then moved together to Wright State in 2006, where they helped the Raiders capture their first Horizon League regular season and tournament championships and punch a ticket to the Big Dance. From there, McGillan spent ten years at Winthrop, with a season at Kennesaw State in between, becoming a fixture in the Big South. In 2017, he took on a new challenge at the University of Minnesota, coaching on the women's side with the Gophers. In 2018, he landed at Longwood University, where he spent eight seasons and helped the Lancers reach two NCAA Tournaments in a five season span, historic runs for that program. Now, the story comes full circle. This season, McGillan reunites with Billy Donlon, now the head coach at Eastern Michigan, as Associate Head Coach of the Eagles. In this episode, we talk about what it takes to last more than 30 years in this business, and what it's like having a son in the business now. Whether you're a coach, a player, or a parent trying to understand what it really takes to build a career in this game, this one is for you. New episodes of Life on the Road: A Coach's Journey drop every Tuesday on Spotify. Subscribe, rate, and share the show, and tag a coach who needs to hear this one.