Has anybody ever just sat and thought deeply what it takes to be a coach in college? Mannn You got to coach your team watch film prepare practice manage politics people parents players , all while recruiting next year and the year after class forming relationships with those players families flying all over the place watching those players selling your program , then caring to YOUR family. Now dealing with agents. All while winning! I guess at a point it just becomes a habit and normal…but I don’t think I could do it.
I mean, some of these things can be handled or at least minimized if you hire the right staff ... or enough staff.
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The discussion on TB requires a lot of nuance and no message board is the right place to hash *all* of it out. But I'll take a stab at it in bullet-point form:
- There is a growing divide between coaches who fit the old model/climate/rules of college basketball (/athletics) and those who have embraced the new era. The ones who do more of the grousing about what their jobs have become are the ones who have put in decades of being head coaches; the ones who are newer to the profession only know about that life as assistant coaches, hence, they're not doing as much of the complaining. The newer ones still acknowledge it; but they're not the ones stepping away.
(
that's why I wrote this story on Scheyer's reaction to TB's retirement; and did
the same thing on the WF site for Steve Forbes)
- While understanding the timing couldn't be helped, TB having a revelation during fall break that his heart wasn't in it, this fact remains: The timing sucks. He recruited a team under the notion that he'd be their coach this season and pulled a rug out from that 20 days before their opener.
- He wanted his guy to get the job. Ron Sanchez left a program he'd run for 5 years to go back to UVA. As we've seen how many times now: The best way to make sure your handpicked successor gets the job is to orchestrate it while you still have the job. There is nothing about this aspect that should be used as a commentary on the state of college basketball.
- The NCAA has to find some way to curtail agent involvement and unlimited transfers. I don't know what the solutions are -- but that's the combination that's made things the biggest headache for coaches.
