Native New Yorker Norm Roberts has attained his dream job — head basketball coach at St. John’s University.

“I’ve only dreamed of coaching at one place. When you’re growing up in New York City, there’s no other place to dream about, and that’s St. John’s,” Roberts, a former Kansas University associate head coach, said Tuesday afternoon after being named the Red Storm’s 18th head coach and the fourth in the last 10 years.

“It didn’t matter if it was Carolina or Duke. It doesn’t come close to St. John’s,” added Roberts, who grew up in Queens and played and coached at neighborhood Queens College.

“I have a lot of history at St. John’s,” Roberts, 38, added during an introductory news conference in Jamaica, N.Y. “My high school career, I came over and played some games and won a city championship on the (St. John’s) Alumni Hall floor. To me, it was just special to play on that floor. To come back and be a coach here is just unbelievable.”

The financial terms of the five-year contract were not disclosed.

Roberts said he was grateful to KU coach Bill Self, Roberts’ boss at KU, Illinois, Tulsa and Oral Roberts.

“Nine years ago I tried to get assistant coaching jobs at different places within the (N.Y.) area and guys didn’t want to take a chance on me,” Roberts said. “I can understand. They hired some great guys.

“But then one guy helped me out a lot, hired me to go to Oklahoma (ORU) of all places. All my boys said, ‘Are you nuts? You’re going to go to Oklahoma? You know they ride horses and all that stuff?’ Which is totally not true, but that’s what they said.

“I went down there, and I met Bill Self and he did not tell me during our meeting that they were 6-21 the year before. But he told me this would be a great job, you need to come here. It’ll be awesome. I’m thinking, they had a great lunch, and this is nice, so I think I’m going to come here.

Former Kansas University assistant Norm Roberts holds up a jersey after being introduced as St. John's men's basketball coach. Roberts' news conference was Tuesday in New York.

“My first year we go 18-9; next year we go 21-7, beat Oklahoma State, beat Tulsa, beat Arkansas, and we were on the way.”

It was on to Tulsa, then Illinois and eventually Kansas, where the Jayhawks reached the Elite Eight this season.

“We get over to Kansas, and when we get there, everyone is saying, ‘Now, you’re replacing a legend, what’s going to happen?’ We had a rocky road a little bit, I know you saw that, but in the end, the kids came together and understood what we needed to do to be successful and we were successful again,” Roberts said.

“I think all those places we’ve been have prepared me for this position. I’ve been prepared well by coach Self, but the one thing I’ve always done, no matter where I’ve been, I’ve kept my identity of who I am and where I came from.”

Roberts hardly will walk into a rose garden at St. John’s. The Red Storm is coming off one of the worst seasons in school history. St. John’s went 6-19 — including 1-13 in the Big East Conference — and ended the season with just eight players, including four walk-ons, after a string of suspensions and expulsions. In December, Mike Jarvis became the first coach in Big East history to be fired during a season.

One player was kicked out of school, one withdrew and four others were suspended from the team after breaking curfew to go to a strip club after a loss at Pittsburgh in January. They met a woman at the club who told police the players raped her.

No criminal charges were filed against the players, and the woman said she made up the story after the players refused to pay her $1,000 for sex, according to court documents. She was charged with prostitution, attempted extortion and filing fictitious reports.

Senior captain Andre Stanley, a graduate student, later was suspended for academic reasons. In December, senior guard Willie Shaw was dismissed from the team after he was arrested for possession of marijuana with former Red Storm star Marcus Hatten.

Former Kansas University associate head coach Norm Roberts smiles as he is named head coach of the St. John's basketball team. Roberts was offered the job Tuesday morning and was introduced as the Red Storm's new coach Tuesday afternoon in New York.

“It’s not going to be easy at all. It’s going to be a tough situation, but it’s so much fun. That’s what makes it fun — the battle, the competition,” said Roberts, who went 24-84 in 1992-95 at Queens College before joining Self’s ORU staff.

“The main thing is to change the mind-set within our program. Then we’ll have to change the mind-set in the community. People have to start feeling good again about St. John’s. We are going to get people excited. St. John’s is New York City.”

Roberts — the third coach in 25 years of the Big East to take over a program without Division One head coaching experience or by being promoted from an assistant’s job — was one of three candidates interviewed by St. John’s president, Rev. Donald J. Harrington.

The others were former Kansas aide and Notre Dame and North Carolina head coach Matt Doherty and DePaul coach Dave Leitao.

“We were very comfortable with the three we interviewed and the challenge became who would fit in the best,” Harrington said. “I worked the phone over the weekend, trying to get to people I didn’t even know and ask them their opinions of the candidates. At the end of all that, I felt confident Norm had what we needed, and he had the best potential at unifying.”

Roberts is ready for the challenge.

“I’ve never smiled that long in my life,” he said of his reaction when he was told he emerged the top candidate for the post.

— Journal-World sports editor Chuck Woodling contributed to this story.