OXFORD — Miami University’s basketball staff is taking a new-look, new-era approach to the upcoming season.

Sean Mock is still smiling. And he’s still here.

“What happened to me is very, very rare,” said Mock, the RedHawks’ new director of basketball operations and a lifelong Oxford resident. “I prayed and got lucky. Now I’m getting paid to do what I love.”

Mock played for Miami, earned a history degree and was a volunteer assistant coach under Charlie Coles last season.

Coles retired after a 9-21 campaign, John Cooper was hired, and the staff changed. All except for Mock.

New coaches usually clean house. Yet Cooper saw something he liked in the 24-year-old Mock.

“One of the things that struck me was that from the time I came in, he just worked,” Cooper said. “I hadn’t had the discussion with him about what direction I was going to go in initially, but he made himself available and just continued to work and work and work.

“Sean had something,” he continued. “He had the work ethic. He was able to give us the community perspective, the former player perspective. My hope for him is that this serves as a springboard for him as he decides to pursue this crazy profession that we’ve chosen.

“As I like to say, he did it the old-fashioned way,” Cooper added. “He earned it. And here he is.”

A three-point career

Three points. That’s what Sean Mock had during his Miami career. Four letters, a layup and a free throw.

Mock played prep ball at Badin and Talawanda, graduating from THS in 2006. He broke his foot and redshirted his freshman year at Miami.

Once healthy, he rarely strayed far from the bench.

“I will always remember sitting down with (assistant coach) Jermaine Henderson my sophomore year,” Mock said. “He told me, ‘At some point, you’re going to have to figure out what your niche is going to be.’ I wanted to play Division I, and I wanted to make sure I had an impact.

“I remember Jermaine saying, ‘It’s got to be bigger than you. If you get so absorbed in yourself that you make it all about you, you’ll never get by in life. You’ll always be frustrated.’ For me, it came down to this: What can I do to make Miami better? I realized it wasn’t all about hitting that 3-point shot, hitting that layup.

“You don’t see many guys that don’t play very much that will be able to get in somebody’s face. I could do that. My senior year, I have no problems saying that was my team. Those guys would’ve done anything for me.”

He was a tri-captain with Nick Winbush and Antonio Ballard his last season. Mock hardly played, but it didn’t matter. He was having an impact. He collected a Spirit of Miami Award.

And then one day Coles asked him about possibly getting into coaching.

“He said, ‘I could see you coaching. Do you want to get your foot in the door?’ ” Mock recalled.

At that point, he wasn’t ready. He wanted to take his degree and teach inner-city kids. He declined the offer.

A couple weeks went by, and Mock discovered something. He missed basketball. Terribly.

“So I went back to him and said, ‘Coach, I want to do this,’ ” Mock said. “I still wanted to go to school and get my master’s. I was going to do the (graduate assistant) type thing.

“The school year came around, and I went to class for about a week. I enjoyed it, but I realized that if I was going to be doing this 100 percent, I wanted to make sure I was here every day. I didn’t want to leave in the middle of the day and have to go to class.

“I told Coach Coles, ‘I understand that you won’t be able to pay me a stipend because I won’t be the GA anymore, but I’ll figure out a way to get by.’ And then I just worked my tail off.”

He became the volunteer assistant. It’s a thankless, moneyless job with mostly behind-the-scenes duties. Mock didn’t mind. He was learning.

The RedHawks went on to have one of the worst seasons in school history. Coles resigned moments after the final game at Toledo, and the search for a new head coach began.

Working every day

The time period was about two weeks. John Cooper had been hired, but he was trying to figure out who would be on his staff.

Life had to go on in the Miami basketball office. So Sean Mock kept working.

“Nothing magic was going to happen for me in two weeks,” Mock said. “But if I came in every day and showed him I was willing to do whatever it took and showed that I loved Miami, maybe he would see that I could be an asset.”

Cooper noticed. He made his decision. The program didn’t have an operations man last season. Mock was essentially that guy without the title, so his new job is familiar territory. And it pays.

Last season’s assistant coaches have scattered. Henderson is an assistant at Missouri State. Todd Lickliter is the head coach at Marian (Ind.).

Jason Grunkemeyer was recently named athletic director at Talawanda.

Mock won’t be doing on-court coaching in 2012-13, and he won’t be on the road recruiting. He’ll have an impact everywhere else.

“In many ways, that person has to be the glue,” Cooper said. “His prints will be on a lot of things in the program.”

Mock is grateful for the opportunities he’s received from Coles and Cooper.

“I will never forget the things Coach Coles did for me,” Mock said. “And for Coach Cooper to have that type of loyalty to somebody after two weeks, that just shows what type of human being he is.”

Mock grew up in the shadow of Miami. It wasn’t always his dream school. The older he got, the more attractive it became.

He admitted it felt a bit strange at first to be the only Miami Man on this staff. It also made him feel special.

“It’s a badge of honor because it’s in my blood,” Mock said. “I know Miami. I love Miami. This is where I want to be.”