Today Georgia Tech's Paul Hewitt became the latest college coach who'll be looking for a new job next season. It's not that Hewitt's a bad coach or that he did poorly in his 11 seasons (the Yellow Jackets went to the NCAA Tournament five times under Hewitt), it's just that success is defined differently at BCS schools than it is at mid-majors (where most BCS schools get their coaches from).
Hewitt went to Georgia Tech from Siena, where he went to the NCAA Tournament once and the NIT once in three seasons. At a school like Siena, just getting to any postseason tournament means you had a successful season. But at a school in one of the six BCS conferences, going to the NIT is considered a disappointment. Just ask Billy Gillespie. Gillespie was fired by Kentucky after the 2008-09 season, when the Wildcats finished 22-14. Why? Because Kentucky went to the NIT that season, ending a string of 17 consecutive NCAA appearances.
Steve Lavin's another great example. Lavin, who's currently the head coach at St. John's, was the head coach at UCLA from 1996-2003. Under anybody else's definition of success, Lavin was successful at UCLA. The Bruins went to the Sweet 16 in each of his first six seasons, but were 10-17 in 2002-03 and Lavin was fired. Normally one losing season is just considered a bad year, but not at UCLA. Lavin was a "failure" because he didn't win the National Championship every year. UCLA fans got spoiled during the '60s and '70s when John Wooden was the coach and they won the national title every season. Apparently their fans don't realize that going to the Sweet 16 every year isn't a bad thing (for the record, they went 11-17 in 2003-04, Ben Howland's first season, before Howland took them to back-to-back Final Fours). Steve Lavin is a very good coach. If you want proof, look at what he did at St. John's this season. St. John's hasn't been in the Tournament since 2002, but is going this season and probably will for the forseeable future.
Another one of my favorite examples is Harvard coach Tommy Amaker. Amaker started his career at Seton Hall, where he went to the NIT three times and the Tournament once (reaching the Sweet 16 in 2000) in four years. After that, he left Seton Hall to become the head coach at Michigan. In six seasons at Michigan, he went 108-84, winning the 2004 NIT and finishing second in the NIT two years later. But he never went to the Tournament, which is unacceptable at Michigan, so he got canned after the 2006-07 season.
Amaker was immediately hired at Harvard and turned the program around. Here's where I need to give you a little background about the Harvard men's basketball program. I was at Yale at the time, so I experienced this first-hand. Harvard basketball wasn't only bad, it was irrelevant. The administration wanted to change that, and they though a big-name coach was the solution. Fast forward four years. Amaker has led Harvard to back-to-back 20-win seasons and the first Ivy League championship in program history (they split it with Princeton this season). The Crimson lost a one-game Ivy playoff against the Tigers, just missing out on their first NCAA berth since 1946! It's only a matter of time before Harvard ends that drought.
Now, there are also a bunch of mid-major schools that are looking for new head coaches. For the most part, these firings are based on wins and losses. It doesn't matter how your school defines success, 6-24 is bad according to pretty much any definition out there. If it's your first year or there were a bunch of injuries maybe you get a mulligan, but a few years of not winning in a row means it's probably inevitable.
Anyway, when a coach at a BCS school gets fired, successful mid-major coaches are generally considered the most likely candidates. But when a coach at a mid-major is let go, those talked about as potential candidates are usually long-time assistants at major programs or young up-and-coming assistants who have never been head coaches before. I have no problem with the young up-and-coming assistants building successful mid-major programs, then moving on to bigger-name schools, but I think more programs could benefit from hiring the likes of a Tommy Amaker or another former Michigan coach, Steve Fisher at San Diego State. Fisher won the 1989 National Championship and went to two other National Championship Games while at Michigan before he was fired after the 1996-97 season. In 1999-2000, he took over at San Diego State, a program with absolutely no tradition that hadn't reached the NCAA Tournament in 17 years. San Diego State is currently 32-2 and has won at least 20 games in six straight years.
My point is, young assistants can be a risk. They might not work out, and if they do, they'll likely leave after a few years to take over at a big-time program. But if a mid-major wants to have "success" the way it's defined at that level, why not go the other way? Hire a guy who used to be at a big-time program. It's not that they can't coach. Paul Hewitt, Billy Gillespie and Keno Davis (to name just a few) all obviously know the game and know how to coach it. It's just that different expectations lead to different definitions of success. Maybe they need mid-majors just like mid-majors might need them. Just ask Tommy Amaker. Or Harvard's administrators. That one sure worked out nicely, didn't it?
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