For the second time in two seasons there are reports of Coach Beilein receiving offers to go. Frankly, if this man wants out of WVU this damn bad – let him go.
The fact that both our football and basketball coaches have flirted with the idea of departing says more about the administration than the coaches. Coach Rod appeared to play the game with Alabama to gain leverage over the athletic department, because as a WVU alumnus and fan of the program he wanted them to pay his staff more and develop the facilities.
Yes, he got a pay increase but it was nominal considering his base pay. Why did he feel it necessary to push the administration this way?
So, now our basketball coach is considering leaving as well. Last year it was NC State and this year Michigan. In 2006, the argument was that NC State was a basketball program, part of the ACC and move up. Not since the Fab-5 has Michigan been a basketball school, and those moments were fleeting. Michigan has a good great name, but is the Big 10 a better conference than the Big East in basketball? Hardly.
A quick situational review (my new consultant speak): Coach B has a nice nucleus of young players and is starting to develop a great basketball program. He’s in the premier college basketball conference in the country (yes, probably debatable, but it’s good) and despite WVU’s football success we’re selling out basketball games, sending people to New York to watch the NIT and love the basketball program.
He can become a God in West Virginia; ask Gale Catlett and Don Nehlen. Yet, he’s flirting with leaving. If we agree Michigan is a lateral move (at best), why leave?
Some answers could be just his preferences, especially that one where he leaves a program after 5 or 6 years, likes developing and wants that challenge rather than maintaining (bad to good, there are managers like this, entrepreneurial mind-set) or could it be that he doesn’t feel like fighting the administration on development and knows he has one more move left?
If I didn’t have all those memories of Alabama boosters flying into Morgantown and taking Coach Rod around the east coast last spring floating in my mind; I’d lean toward the nomad argument but …
Beilein is going. That much I’m convinced of right now. To him, thanks for the hard work and don’t let the door hit you in the a#$ on the way out; to our administration – we alumni and those in West Virginia who support this school want excellence. Not mediocrity. We don’t accept we’re a small school, blah, blah, blah.
We want our coaches and administration in lock-step to develop this program. This means good people and good money. The only way to get good people is with good money. The only way to get good money is with good people. Notice the cycle. Start with the right people in the administration – AD and Fundraising; go find a coach who wants to see basketball win a national championship and has the skills to do it.
If Beilein goes and it’s because he felt that the administration wasn’t into winning the way he wanted them too (reference Coach Rod here) then some people in the administration need to go as well. Mediocrity in management will trump great employees (coaches and players) every single time.
Link to The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia – Here we go again
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