First-year head coach Dave Dickerson is building the Tulane basketball program, but from his first day on the job, Dickerson has been focused on turning a group of individuals into more than a team; his goal is to make Tulane Basketball into a family. After all, a strong, tight-knit family has been the key to his own success.

"I believe in family and I believe in our team trying to be a family," Dickerson said. "In order to have a successful basketball program, we all must work together - players, coaches and support staff. We must believe in each other and support each other like a family to reach the levels I plan to reach."

Growing up in the small town of Olar, S.C., Dickerson did not have to look far for positive role models. When his mother passed when he was eight years old, his father and his older sisters provided the drive for his success.

"I have six older sisters and they are all very, very successful in different ways, so I had instant role models because they were the people I wanted to be like and they demanded that I be successful," Dickerson said. "There was pressure from them just to go to college, not to play basketball, but just to go to college.

"My father was also a role model for me. He worked every day for 35 years, never complained and the most he ever made was $15,000. I never knew I was poor, because we had stability and discipline within the family, and everyone in my family knew they had to do something with their lives."

With that support, Dickerson grew into a standout high school basketball player before making his first big move - to the University of Maryland, where he was a standout basketball player. In 1988-89, he was selected a team captain for the Terrapins, a tribue to his leadership skills.

From there, coaching was the obvious next step.

"I knew in the back of my mind that playing basketball was not going to be a career for me, so I started looking at different things," Dickerson said. "I was the type of student-athlete that always wanted to give back; I was always a leader. Even though I had a tough career at Maryland with a lot adversity, my coaches were always the people that kept me going in the right direction. I wanted to be like them. So coaching was my destiny."

After six straight winning seasons as an assistant coach at three schools, Dickerson was tabbed by Gary Williams to return to his alma mater as an assistant. Williams had built a foundation for success with the Terrapins in his first seven years as the head coach, but with Dickerson at his side, Maryland enjoyed an unprecedented run. In their nine years together, the Terrapins made nine postseason appearances, posted eight 20-win seasons, advanced to two Final Fours and won the first National Championship in program history in 2002.

"Winning the national championship at Maryland was a dream come true," Dickerson said. "It validated the reason I went to Maryland as a student-athlete. I thought we were the type of school that could get into a position to win a national championship. One of my goals after winning the championship as an assistant coach was to try and be a head coach and chase that dream again."

With his impressive run as an assistant coach, his strong family background and his reputation as one of the hardest-working coaches in the business, Dickerson was an easy choice for Tulane Athletic Director Rick Dickson as the man to take charge of the Green Wave basketball program.

Soon, Dickerson recognized that Tulane matched his personality and requirements as well.

"The first thing that attracted me to Tulane was the opportunity to be a head coach at one of the best schools in the country with a national reputation for its academics and the potential to be a nationally-recognized basketball program," Dickerson said. "As I did more research, I could see that it was also an opportunity to come into a program and make a difference by winning basketball games, which has always been the type of situation I saw myself going into."

Once again, family played a major part in Dickerson's decision. While he was excited with the opportunity presented by Tulane, he needed assurance that his wife Laurette and four-year old son, Dave III, would be comfortable with a move to the Big Easy.

"It is very important for my wife and son to be comfortable with anything I do," Dickerson said. "My family will always come first for me and they are a major part of my career. They needed to feel comfortable with the city of New Orleans and Tulane University; and they did."

Upon settling into New Orleans and Tulane, Dickerson quickly embraced his new family - the Tulane basketball players. As a collegiate player, he had experienced a coaching change and knew the stress and confusion it could cause. He set up individual meetings with all of the returning players and his first road trips were to McEwen, Tenn., and Jonesboro, Ark., to the homes of the two players who had signed letters of intent to play for the Green Wave.

From there, Dickerson's goal was to change the atmosphere and attitude surrounding the program.

"One of the biggest keys is to change our mindset to not think like a 10-win team," Dickerson said. "We have to have lofty goals and be able to work to achieve those goals. I have always thought that teams decide how good they are. It is up to us to decide who we can be."

While there was little question that Dickerson was the right man to lead the Tulane basketball program, any doubts were completely erased by Hurricane Katrina. The worst natural disaster in United States history devastated the Gulf Coast and the city of New Orleans. Tulane was forced to cancel its fall semester and while the athletic teams would "carry the torch" for the University, the teams would be based at four different campuses, none closer than 300 miles to New Orleans. Dickerson and the men's basketball team were relocated to College Station, Texas, and the campus of Texas A&M.

Dickerson, facing what was likely to be among the most trying first years for a head coach in history, responded with strength and determination, drawing on his own experiences as a player at Maryland to guide the Green Wave players through the challenges. Following Dickerson's freshman year at Maryland, that program experienced a tragedy when All-American Len Bias suffered a drug-related death shortly after being selected No. 2 in the 1986 NBA Draft. Dickerson, who had served as Bias' backup, saw the Maryland program thrown into disarray.

"I learned so much from everything that happened to our program when I was a player at Maryland," Dickerson said. "You can approach adversity in two ways, you can shrink from it and hide, or you can meet it head-on and learn from it. As much as I wish that none of that happened, I learned from it, I grew up much quicker than I would have otherwise. Seeing how things were handled at the time, both positively and negatively, made me realize that I wanted to be a basketball coach."

Despite the difficulties presented by Katrina, Dickerson has not made any excuses.

"The thing we've talked about since the hurricane is we do not want to use the situation as an excuse," he said. "Being displaced is something that will bring us together as a team. Being out of our comfort zone is something that will help us bond. No one from outside our program will decide how we are as a team. We will control our own destiny. I believe when we look back on this in a couple of years, Tulane University and the city of New Orleans will be a huge success story. For now, we will make the best of an unfortunate situation and continue to represent Tulane University and New Orleans to the best of our ability."

While the city of New Orleans and Tulane University battle adversity caused by Hurricane Katrina, Dickerson continues to believe in his long-term goals for his men's basketball program.

"My long-range goal for the program is for us to be as good as the school," Dickerson said. "If we are a top 30 school in the country, then my goal is for us to be a top 30 basketball program. If we can be at that level, then we will be competing for postseason play every year. My top priority is to make sure that our players have a great experience, both on and off the court, in and out of the classroom, and that they are better people from being at Tulane. I want the Tulane experience to be one of the best experiences of their lives."

As his team comes together as a family, Dickerson is clearly the mentor and role model for his "kids." Winning basketball games is a goal for every coach, but Dickerson also focuses on developing his players into responsible young men with the tools necessary to succeed in life, whether on or off the basketball court.

"The guys that come through a college basketball program are not all going to be professional basketball players," Dickerson said. "Our guys can look at me and see that going to college and getting a degree can do something for you. You don't have to be a pro basketball player; you don't have to be a great basketball player in college to be successful. I hope I can rub off on them. I am a true student-athlete. I used basketball to get a scholarship and I used basketball to be successful in life. That is what 90 percent of our basketball players at Tulane have to do, use basketball to earn a Tulane education which will allow them to be successful in life."

Dickerson wants each and every Tulane basketball player to know that they will always have the support of their Green Wave family to help them achieve success, just as Dickerson has relied upon his original family of his parents and sisters, his number one family of his wife and son, and his basketball families at Maryland and now Tulane.