Bennett had so many others in mind, though; more worthy than himself. Recognition was always shared — just like the basketball — and the rewards. "Every hall of fame is a celebration of the players,''
said the 69-year-old Bennett. "There isn't a coach alive who has the ability to pull off a successful season, or a series of seasons, without tremendous people. That's what it's truly about. "Coaches are tremendously overrated in most
ways. The only time they are underrated is when they lose. I learned that a long time ago. I had more people tell me way back when that you will prob- ably do some of your best coaching in losing years.'' When Bennett was asked about the Final Four appearance in the context of it being his crowning
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achievement, he politely declined to describe it as such. Instead he felt there was something else that would be more suitably defining. "It was the pro- cess, the painful process,'' he said.
That started when he took the UW job in 1995. "I was brought in to turn the program around,''
he said. "I told (athletic director) Pat Richter that it would take five years to do it, and if I did it, every- one would know that I had done it. And if we had failed, everyone would have known that, too. "Our goal, and when I say our goal, it was a real
team effort, but our goal was to turn the program around and I believed that happened … what I re- member and cherish is the process it took to get there. We didn't deviate. We took our licks, and there were a few of them.
