By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Josh Sash recently had some free time away from his duties as an assistant coach for the Iowa men’s basketball team, so he decided to put his body through a rigorous workout by running the stairs at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

And that’s when it hit the Oskaloosa native that he truly was an Iowa Hawkeye.

“It’s kind of different because I feel like I’ve moved from a job to another job and now to another job that it’s still the job, and sometimes you just immerse yourself in the job,” Josh Sash said Tuesday after practice. “I haven’t really completely reflected on that. You know there’s some days when it kind of hits me a little bit.

“A couple weeks ago, I was working out and went down into Carver and I was running the stairs in Carver and it really hit me; you’re running stairs in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. As a kid this is where I wanted to play. I wasn’t good enough to play here. But just those types of moments makes me really appreciate the opportunity to be here and to work here.”

Josh Sash’s path to Iowa City has been long and winding with multiple coaching stops along the way. He epitomizes what it means to climb the coaching ladder with the Iowa job being his 12th different job along the way.

He started as a graduate assistant coach for Williams Penn in 2003 and then had the same position at Drake in 2007 and 2008.

He also has been an assistant coach at Temple College (2009-2010), State Fair Community College (2010-2015), Indian Hills Community College (2015-2017), Missouri-Kansas City (2019-2019), Drake (2024-2025) and now Iowa.

He served as video coordinator for Providence College in 2008 and 2009 and was the head coach for Des Moines Area Community College in 2018 and 2019.

Sash helped guide Drake to a school-record 31 victories this past season, a Missouri Valley Conference regular season and tournament title and to the second round of the NCAA Tournament by way of the 67-57 upset win over sixth-seeded Missouri.

Sash helped rebuild the Drake roster, as the Bulldogs brought in a combined 10 transfers and first-year players.  One of the signees – Bennett Stirtz – was named the MVC Larry Bird Player and Newcomer of the Year, while being a finalist for the Riley Wallace Award and Lou Henson Awards.

“I think it’s giving me a lot of different experiences to see how a program operates from everything that goes on behind the scenes,” Sash said of his multiple coaching jobs. “I started out as a student assistant coach at William Penn. Then I was a grad assistant and video coordinator, assistant coach. I’ve been a head coach.

“So wearing all those types of different hats you kind of see everything goes on within a program. So I think that kind of eliminates maybe blind spots. Some people that maybe have only worked in one position maybe wouldn’t see.”

Josh Sash obviously had no way of knowing that his decision to join Ben McCollum’s Drake coaching staff before the start of last season would also be a significant step in becoming a Hawkeye.

Iowa hired Ben McCollum as head coach barely a week after Fran McCaffery had been relieved of his duties as head coach in mid-March, a position he had held for 15 seasons.

Sash is among four former Drake assistant coaches and five former Drake players that have since followed McCollum to Iowa City. Incoming freshman guard Tate Sage was also previously committed to Drake but switched to Iowa shortly after McCollum was hired.

Josh Sash is now proudly part of what he grew up cheering for as a kid.

He was asked Tuesday if he had an early Hawkeye memory that still stands out to him.

He paused briefly to think about it before saying:

“Just a lot of watching games with my parents, honestly. Basketball, football, any time the Hawkeyes were playing we were tuned in. So no specific memory, just that overall memory.

Hawkeye football took on a whole new meaning for Josh Sash during the three seasons his younger brother, former All-Big Ten safety Tyler Sash, played for Iowa from 2008 to 2010.

Tyler Sash, who also played three seasons in the NFL for the New York Giants, tragically passed away in 2015 from an accidental overdose of painkillers at the age of 27. It was later revealed that Tyler Sash also suffered from stage 2 chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as his family released the results of testing performed on his brain.

Josh Sash will forever carry the emotional pain from losing his younger brother. But Josh also can take solace in knowing that he and his younger brother both realized a childhood dream by becoming Hawkeyes, albeit in different sports and in different roles.

Josh had a career goal of coaching college basketball at the highest level, and now he has achieved that goal.

The fact that he coaches at Iowa just makes it that much sweeter.

“As you kind of move through those different spots, those different jobs, I hoped that at some point I was going to get the opportunity to coach basketball at the highest level of division one,” Josh Sash said. “And I never would have dreamed that it would work out to be at Iowa.

“I’m just really fortunate for the opportunity here and I’m excited about it.”

As for running the stairs at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, the 45-year-old Josh Sash apparently has learned his lesson.

“That was a one-and-done deal,” Josh Sash said. “I went back to the treadmill. It wasn’t easy. It was pretty tough.”

Josh Sash had intended to run up and down the stairs throughout the arena, but he soon realized that he was no match for the Carver stairs.

“I thought, you know what, I’m going to go a full circuit all the way down, all the way around, up-down, up-down, u-down. And I got a bout halfway around and it literally took me about thirty minutes and there’s no (air conditioning) in there.

“So I was like you know what, I’m going to fight this another day.”