If the office is any indication, the transition is still incomplete.

The walls of Mike Montgomery’s new office in the Arrillaga Family Sports Center are still mostly bare, adorned only with a photo of Pebble Beach and a blown-up shot of former Stanford star Mark Madsen celebrating after the Cardinal clinched a berth to the 1998 Final Four. The Madsen shot, however, has not been mounted yet; it rests against the wall. Montgomery, the former Stanford coach who reached his only Final Four that year, said his new position as assistant to Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby was “a work in progress.”

The Daily sat down with Montgomery for an hour-long interview earlier this month to talk about his new role at Stanford, his stint coaching in the NBA and his fondest memories from The Farm. Montgomery also discussed his relationship with current Stanford men’s basketball coach Trent Johnson, and whether he will ever return to the sidelines — a possibility, he said, because “there’s still a lot of basketball in my blood.”

Montgomery began his part-time position in September, a role that has included fundraising, public relations and serving as a resource for coaches. The coach, who will turn 61 later this month, said he had always considered a move to the front office after he was done coaching.

The thing is, he’s not so sure he’s done.

“I’m not as old as I thought,” Montgomery said. “I think things have changed. I enjoy being around here; I just have a lot of respect for Stanford and the athletes that perform here because I know how hard they all work.

“But you know there’s still a lot of basketball in my blood, just because you do something for that long,” he added. “We’ll have to wait and see if anything develops there . . . You’ve done something for 37 years, and it’s just what you do.”

Montgomery, who amassed a 393-167 record in his 18 years at the helm of Stanford basketball, gets his basketball fix these days doing part-time broadcast work for FOX Sports Net, Comcast and CBS Radio. “It keeps me in the basketball loop,” he said, “which is good for me.”

Every now and then, Montgomery will drop by Maples Pavilion as the men’s basketball team is practicing. He’s known Johnson, his successor, for years. He recruited Johnson while working as an assistant coach at Boise State in 1974, and later hired Johnson for an assistant coaching position at Stanford in 1996.

He tries not to be around too much, however.

“I’m sensitive to Trent,” Montgomery said. “I don’t want to be around all the time where it feels like I’m hovering. He deserves the right to be his own man — and he’s doing a great job.”

Johnson, for his part, said he was happy to have his former coach and mentor around again.

“I think he likes to see somebody else sweat,” Johnson said with a smile. “He’ll come by and say ‘God, you’ve had a lot of close games’ or ‘You’ve done a good job controlling your temper, but you need to enjoy it more.’”

“Still, I would like a little more help,” Johnson deadpanned.

For Montgomery, having his former player and assistant follow his footsteps is the perfect fit. “The knowledge that he has of Stanford, of what it takes, the type of issues that you deal with is extremely beneficial,” Montgomery said. “I thought it was a pretty seamless transition.”

Transitioning to the NBA, however, was not seamless for Montgomery. He had a 68-96 record in two seasons as head coach of the Golden State Warriors before being released in August 2006. Running a college basketball program and coaching professionals in the NBA, he learned, are two different beasts.

“In college, you’re top dog, you’re in charge of everything, you’re the guy,” he said. “The kids will listen, they’ll look up to you, you’re making the decisions, top to bottom, pretty much unilaterally. In the pros, it’s pretty much a players’ league. And your job is to manage those players and make sure you can try to get them to do what you need them to do. It’s a little more difficult than it is in college. You don’t have the power.”

Montgomery said he had “no regrets” about taking the job, however.

“It was what it was,” he said. “You went in, a lot of things different [than] you maybe thought they were. I probably wasn’t as prepared as I needed to be, obviously.”

Montgomery, who led Stanford to 12 NCAA Tournament berths, four regular season Pac-10 championships and a 2004 Pac-10 Tournament title, said 1998’s Final Four appearance was not the best moment in his coaching career.

“I think obviously going [to the] Final Four, in terms of our program and the thrill of the Final Four, was spectacular, but that wasn’t our best team, I don’t think,” he said. “But things just really fell into place, which really was an indication of how the NCAA tournament is, things have to fall into place for you.

“I thought winning our first Pac-10 appearance was huge,” he continued. “We ended up doing it four times, but that first one — it was like ‘Stanford could win the Pac-10.’ UCLA dominated for so long, then Arizona came along. As good as we were, winning that championship was the best.”

For now, Montgomery remains a spectator. Coaching may come calling again, but in the meantime he can sit back and watch while his former protege has guided his team to a 20-3 season and a top-10 national ranking.

“I always knew this: when you’re done, you’re done, and people don’t really care,” Montgomery said of moving on. “You’re out and the next guy’s in; I’ve always said that. You’re old news pretty quickly. You have to be able to deal with that.

“It’s somebody else’s gig now, and everyone’s excited about the new guy,” he added. “And they should be, Trent’s done a great job.”