Q&A w/ Justin Fetcho - All Smiles

In his second season as head coach of the Southern Illinois University men's golf team, it's been a year of firsts for Justin Fetcho.

Starting at the end of the 2015 calendar, Fetcho and his wife Amanda, learned that they were going to be first-time parents.

Fast forward to 2016 and Fetcho, who is a graduate of Eldorado High School, helped lead the Salukis to the school's first ever Missouri Valley Conference Tournament golf championship and a spot in next week's NCAA Regional at the Ol' Colony Golf Complex in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

In a Q&A, Fetcho talked about winning an MVC title, how it could be considered over night success and how he keeps from being a one-hit wonder.

Question: When you were hired, realistically, what was your timeframe on winning a Missouri Valley Conference title and qualifying for the regionals?

Justin Fetcho: It's a great question and one that I have had asked to me numerous times by staff and some other people and I'm not sure if I had a timeline. I know that I can think back to a year and a half ago or two years when I was hired and I said the first thing I wanted to do was win a conference championship. I didn't know if that was going to be year one, year five, year 10, but to be able to do it in year two has been phenomenal and just goes to show that the guys have really bought in and worked hard and started believing in themselves.

I told them that they couldn't have written a better scrip. Wichita State is the seven or eight-time defending champions and you go out to their place, they are the host and have all the fans and to be able to do that out there in those conditions, I couldn't be more proud of the group. Now, I hope we can continue and start our own streak and be able to win multiple conference championships and advance to regionals and we're not done yet. Hopefully we can advance past nationals and if not this year, but maybe some time in the near future.

Q: In year two, could it be considered over night success?

JF: I think it's really just a product of getting the right people in here. We have eight guys on the roster this year and I think each of them played a huge role in what we are doing. Everyone has to be pushed and we had a good dynamic of players here that really wanted to work hard. They set that goal out for them at the beginning of the year to win a conference championship and to be honest with you, I'm not sure they believed that at the start of the season, but the more work they put in and the tournaments we went to, the more they started to believe they could do it and really turned a corner in the spring. I think the confidence came and when you're confident, you can do some dangerous things.

Q: Have you figured out how they were able to do it?

JF: (Laughs) You know, I think, sitting in our hotel room the night before (the final day of the MVC tournament) our main objective the final day of the tournament was to just be tough. You don't hear that a lot in golf, but I think mentally, we just tried to be as mentally tough as we could. No matter what the weather presented, the golf could presented, our playing competitors were doing around us, we just tried to stay mentally tough and stay focused. As a coach, I think we did that and that's what makes me the most proud is that we ended up finishing the tournament was because we were the tougher team.

Q: Was it one of those Ryder Cup hotel room meetings you hear about so often?

JF: I don't know if it was quite like that. The only thing I did was asked our guys the night leading up to the first 36-hole day, I asked our guys to dedicate the entire golf tournament to anyone they wanted to. Your responsibility was to stay strong, not get frustrated and just go play your heart out and once the tournament was over, you had to call that person and let them know you were thankful for the opportunity and tell them you played that tournament for them.

They didn't have to tell me who they were playing the tournament for, but I told them I was going to dedicate mine to my parents. I think for me, there was no crying, but I could sense my voice cracking a little bit and it was a little emotional for me.

I think giving yourself something bigger to play for, making it more than just about you … I don't know if that was the answer, but I think some guys appreciated being able to go out there and make it more than just them, it was about someone else.

Q: How do you keep from being a one-hit wonder?

JF: Yeah, that's a good question, and that's something that we'll have to talk about as a group. I know that we've signed three young men coming in for next year and they have already reached out to the guys and me and want to come here, make their own history and keep this thing moving. I know we're going to have three very dedicated people to come in and like you said, think this is going to be a one-time thing and it's going to be easy, we have to continue to stay focused and continue to do the things we did that helped us advance to the postseason. I think now that some of the guys have a taste of that, I think they can see all the hard work they put in can be worth it.

Q: On regionals, what's the mindset going in? You're the No. 13 seed, so it would be easy to fly under the radar, maybe like you did at the MVC Tournament. Is that they way you're going to play this thing?

JF: We had no idea where we were going, we were going to be excited wherever we went, but we also know that we have play well. You have to go and take care of business as whatever site you're at. For us to go down to Tuscaloosa, I feel like we're going there to win it. You have to be in the top five to advance, but that's not where our mindset is at. If you set yourself up to be in the top five and you set yourself up for fifth place and you don't quite reach it, then your season is over.

We're going to set ourselves up to go win a golf tournament. It's going to be difficult, but again, that's what's going to make it fun for us. We can go down there, be tough and be the underdog.

We're a 13th seed at this regional and you see a 13, 14, 15th seed win in March Madness all the time. It can be done, but you have to believe. If you go in with the mindset that you've already lost, we'll go down there and not stand a chance.

Q: You don't have the target on your back that some of the other school's might have.

JF: All of the talk at the conference tournament was about Wichita, even when they sent out a press release, there were a couple of teams mentioned as being a potential to knock them off and we weren't listed as one of those teams. I think our guys took that to heart and we played with a little bit of a chip on our shoulder. Yeah, we flew under the radar there and no one really gave us much of chance, even though we knew in our own locker room per se that we were going to be a good team and tough to beat if we put it all together.

We knew Golf Channel wasn't going to talk about us, we're the 13th seed and that's a good thing for us. We're the underdog and we've got that chip on our shoulder and I think it's a good thing. If you look at our roster, we have four new guys that are playing in the top five and I think one of the reasons why they are here is they all have that chip on their shoulder. They were under recruited or some other schools passed on them and they want to show that they are better than them. We're continuing our season and some of these other school's that didn't recruit these guys, their season is done.

Q: How far away or how close are you from being the program that you envisioned when you first took this job?

JF: This is a good start. Now that we are already there, I want to win multiple conference titles. I want to keep that thing moving, win three, win four, win five whatever it may be and keep tacking them on. From Day 1, the objective was to win a conference championship and now that we have done that - it's only one and we have to continue that trend - but we can now start looking nationally. What can we do? Now that we have won that, it helps us from a recruiting standpoint in trying to get players from this region, but also some other places. Set our sights on winning a regional and advancing to the National Championship and having that opportunity. Our first shot at that is next week and that's going to be our goal.

Winning the MVC was step one. Step two is now make it out to Eugene, Oregon and that would be very special for me. I was out there. I'm very familiar with Eugene Country Club and I hope we're out there. That would be awesome and would help recruiting even more if we could make that happen. We want to be the best team in the Missouri Valley Conference, but we want to be the best team outside of our conference as well. That's where I want to see us continue to rise to.

Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.

Tuscaloosa Regional at Ol' Colony Golf Complex hosted by Alabama

<p>Seed Teams<br />1. University of Georgia <br />2. Auburn University<br />3. University of South Carolina, Columbia<br />4. University of Alabama<br />5. University of Nevada, Las Vegas<br />6. University of Kentucky<br />7. University of Kansas<br />8. College of Charleston (South Carolina)<br />9. Lipscomb University<br />10. Charleston Southern University<br />11. University of Colorado, Boulder<br />12. Harvard University <br /><strong>13. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale</strong></p>