Inspired by late friend, Mount Saint Vincent coach Mark Forward looks back on 300 career wins

Inside Mark Forward's cramped office, located next to the gym at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, hangs a banner with the words, "One Way Together."

For Forward, the head coach of the women's basketball team, it's a nod to Dyrick McDermott, a dear friend who died in 2009. The phrase was a cheer started by McDermott that he used during his eight-year run as the women's basketball coach until his death.

"That's the only way we want to approach things," said Forward. "We wanna all be Mystics and we want to all be together and we want to support each other."

In his 15th season coaching the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association team, Forward reached 300 career wins last month.

Coaching the team is a way of honouring his late friend and continuing McDermott's legacy, who had 160 wins and only 17 losses as coach.

"I never wanted to take the program over and fail," said Forward. "It was big shoes to fill."

Forward, a point guard during his playing days at the Mount, played alongside McDermott. Their coach was Rick Plato, who coached the Mystics for 25 years before moving on to coach the Dalhousie Tigers of Atlantic University Sport in 2013.

"It's kind of a standing joke with Mark and I that … he picked out the good things that I did, whatever they happened to be, and he eliminated the bad things, which there were probably quite a few of," said Plato.

Forward said some of the things he learned from Plato — a notoriously demanding but successful coach — were an intense work ethic and to always be prepared.

"And I try to tell our players all the time, you have to be obsessed with winning," said Forward. "Accept outcomes, but be obsessed with it."

Another Plato rule was that players be on time for team events. Actually, they need to be early.

As soon as his playing career wrapped up, Forward started coaching as an assistant with Plato.

One time at a national tournament in Western Canada, Forward said a couple of players arrived one morning at the team bus to head to a game, but realized they had forgotten their shoes in their hotel rooms. To put their minds at ease, Forward collected their room keys and said he'd go get them.

Forward thought the bus wouldn't leave without one of its coaches. He was wrong.