There’s an error in the CAA record book. It says that Jim Larranaga’s 149 regular season CAA wins are the most in CAA history. Technically that’s accurate, and technically it isn’t. If we factor in assistant coaches—those guys that make suggestions and serve as the player conduits to the head coaches—Larranaga is a distant second.

Jim Corrigan has seen it all for 23 CAA seasons.

Old Dominion associate head coach Jim Corrigan owns the honor with 201 regular season conference victories in his 23 years in the conference. Put in a different perspective: Corrigan’s experience is only two fewer years than the existence of the league.

Most CAA fans see Corrigan as the guy sitting next to Blaine Taylor with the flip cards, chewing in Taylor’s ear during timeouts. However long-time CAA fans recognize him with or without a goatee and others can recall his pre-Taylor career.

Corrigan’s CAA tenure began as an assistant at William & Mary under Chuck Swenson in 1987, and he spent seven years in Williamsburg. When Swenson left, Corrigan packed his bags and headed down I-64 east to Norfolk to join Jeff Capel’s staff. His first ODU team was the one that eventually beat Villanova in the NCAA tournament.

Seven years later Corrigan found himself breaking in a new coach, a man by the name of Blaine Taylor.

“We just finished our 16^th year together and obviously it’s a pretty dramatic change at first,” Corrigan says of his ODU career. Corrigan and Taylor are beginning their 10th year together. “Every coach has his own way of doing things, whether it’s organizing the office or how you play and the whole new vocabulary. So while it’s learning experience you have to be quick on the pickup.”

Other than odd references to western movies and analogies that still at times require head-scratching, the pickup was seamless for Corrigan and Taylor. This is mainly due to a similar belief in the philosophy of developing players.

Old Dominion’s model is one of freshmen and the annual “who’s going to redshirt” question, as opposed to jucos and transfers in an attempt to stabilize a roster or strike quick gold.

“We emphasize and develop each player so that they’re ready when we hand them something,” Corrigan says. “You look at this year’s team. Ben Finney had one division one scholarship offer; Darius James and Kent Bazemore had none. We’ve done a pretty good job, and we’re getting better, at developing each player.”

Corrigan says the staff never earmarks anyone for a redshirt. They may bring a kid in and talk to him about developing and playing time, but the staff gives everybody those first four weeks of practice and an exhibition game before making any concrete decisions.

“We believe in the kids we bring in and we want them to develop,” he says. “The redshirt year gives them a chance to make strides and it’s and advantage to have a year in a program and still be a freshman.”

It all comes together this month. Coaches are on the road recruiting, the life blood of their programs. Corrigan is busy organizing the details of how and where all three ODU coaches will travel and who they want to see.

Considering the Monarchs have recently brought in players from the Ivory Coast, Australia, Finland, Denmark, and Lithuania, Corrigan’s job is far more difficult than the rental car counter at Hartsfield Airport.

Factor in, too, there’s lingering scheduling issues to address, as well as organizing summer workouts and academic plans for current players. It’s a less-glamorous life that most believe and ODU assistant coach Robert Wilkes is a vital cog in that machine performing smoothly.

If anybody can handle the constant juggling, it’s Corrigan. He’s a Dookie, but not the Dookie you immediately think about. He was Bill Foster’s Blue Devils, old school all the way, back when there was still JV basketball and no three point line.

In fact, Corrigan played three years on Duke’s JV team before earning a scholarship and playing on the varsity his senior year. He was a part of Duke’s 1980 ACC championship team led by Mike Gminski and Eugene Banks, and Mike Krzyzewski came to Duke the year after Corrigan graduated.

Corrigan earned the Ted Mann Jr. Award as the team’s most energetic reserve and can boast he finished his collegiate career without ever missing a shot as a varsity player. (He was 1-1 from the field and 2-2 from the line.)

“During that time I had a different coach every year,” he says. “A different assistant was our coach all three years and for three years in high school I had different coaches. So I had seven coaches in eight years. I saw different styles and techniques and I was able to take something from everybody, good and bad, and different ways of communicating.”

You’d think coaching was always Corrigan’s path but you’d be wrong. He graduated from Duke and took two part time jobs—working for a real estate agent during the day and bartending at a Darryl’s restaurant at night. He was still figuring out what he wanted to do when a friend asked him to help coach his high school team. Since Corrigan had the time, he accepted.

Says Corrigan: “It didn’t take long to figure out this was something I wanted to do.”

After two years as an assistant Corrigan moved on to coach his alma mater, Bishop McGuinness in Winston-Salem. After one season as a junior varsity and varsity assistant, he was elevated to head coach. In four seasons he went 90-42 and won a North Carolina state championship in 1987.

“It’s funny because the first year I was a head coach I got a call for an assistant position in college,” Corrigan recalls. “I wasn’t sure. I was kind of wondering if this was for me. Then we went to the state championship for three years and I realized this was something I can do.”

It’s nearly incomprehensible to think in 2010, with Corrigan and Taylor entering their 10^th season together, that it nearly never began.

“One of the best decisions I’ve ever made was one I was advised not to make,” says Blaine Taylor. “When you take a (new) job you always want to bring in (your people), but one of the best things I did was to keep Jim here.”

Taylor is appreciative of the efforts of his second-in-command.

“He’s a great friend, loyal, and talented,” Taylor says. “His local knowledge of the campus, of the league, of the region and of college basketball is tremendous. (Our relationship) was natural once I got to know him and became comfortable with giving him responsibility. He’s so good with (all of it).”

Corrigan, who is married with three children, is currently president of the assistant coaches committee of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and writes a column for Collegechalktalk.com. All of this begs the question: how come you haven’t been a head coach?

“I haven’t (had an opportunity),” he flatly says. “Last year I interviewed at Elon and was one of the finalists there. It hasn’t happened yet but it’s something I want. If the opportunity is there, I would jump at it.”

That program would be lucky. For all the blather, Corrigan is one of those people that simply gets it:

“The bottom lines are the same,” he says. “Recruit, coach, and take care of academics. The important things have the same details.”