ELON -- It isn't much of an office, barely big enough for one desk, let alone the two crammed in there, and the banging from the construction in the gym drowns out all attempts at contemplative thought.
For Monty Sanders, it's his first office, the first desk of many he hopes to occupy in a life in basketball, and that's all that matters.
A year after he graduated from Elon, he's back on campus, this time not as a player but as the team's new Director of Basketball Operations, a catch-all title that leaves out what it actually is: coach-in-training, the first and lowest rung on the basketball coaching ladder.
"I pretty much decided after my freshman year of college that this was what I wanted to do for a living," said Sanders, who grew up in Raleigh and went to Cardinal Gibbons. "I was completely obsessed with the college game and everything that goes into it. I've known for a while."
This is where careers begin. Miami coach Frank Haith started out as a student assistant at Elon in 1985. From there he went to Wake Forest, UNC Wilmington, Texas A&M, Penn State, back to Texas A&M, back to Wake Forest and then Texas before becoming an ACC head coach in 2004 at the relatively young age of 39.
No one said the coaching ladder was short. Haith's resume underlines how many rungs there really are.
Sanders, 24, is aware of this. He chose this basketball life without any illusions. His father Twiggy spent 17 years playing for the Harlem Globetrotters before coaching at the high school, college and pro levels.
Sanders went to Richmond before transferring to Elon, where he averaged 5.4 points over two seasons. He spent last season waiting tables at McCormick & Schmick's in Raleigh while helping out with the Cardinal Gibbons varsity and coaching the Garner Road AAU under-15s.
He was getting ready to try out for the Globetrotters, and his second-generation credentials would have made him a likely selection, when he accepted Elon coach Matt Matheny's offer to come back to school and work for him.
"I can't live vicariously through him," Twiggy Sanders said. "I had my shot, and I took full advantage of it. As long as he's happy, it's his life. We've talked about it. It kind of stung a little bit, but in the end, the bottom line is he just has to be happy. Being on the coaching staff and being around the process, this was a situation where he felt he wouldn't get this kind of opportunity again."
Sanders didn't play for Matheny, who took over last spring, but they built a relationship as Sanders hung around the gym, and his local knowledge and enthusiasm won him the job. Now, he's sharing the tiny office with former North Carolina player Jack Wooten, an Elon assistant coach, as he comes to grips with the day-to-day requirements of his job, which include everything from travel to recruiting to equipment to overseeing the student managers.
It isn't glamorous, but it's a start. It's a long ladder. It takes a long time to climb, and not everyone gets to the top.
Sanders is starting at the bottom, with the rest of his life to work his way higher - even if that meant passing up a chance to play for the Globetrotters to share an office and do all the dirty work.
"I know that what I want to do the rest of my life is coach," Sanders said. "This is an opportunity that's really hard to turn down, at this level with a great staff, a staff. It was a no-brainer for me. People on the outside might think it's a pretty dumb decision."
Not Sanders, not from the first moment an incoming freshman called him "coach," and he was on his way.
