Lots of coaching exits and entrances — so many the WBCA hasn’t been able to keep up.
Seems to me the Big 10 is pushing itself to be…. well, “big” and the Big East is wondering “wha’ happen?” Any chance Hartford’s Jen Rizzotti would consider a move down to Queens? Other questions are: who wants to move where and, more importantly, what kind of institutional support *cough* Providence *cough Georgetown * cough* is there?
Speaking of coach Kim: Leaving St. John’s ‘100 times harder’ than new Michigan women’s basketball coach Kim Barnes Arico imagined
The Statesman does a Q&A with new Horns coach Karen Aston
Do you understand the pressure of winning here?
I get the thing about expectations. I really do. But that’s not the reason I coach. I coach for the same reason Jody (Conradt) coached: I want to help the players get better. If for some reason I don’t do the job I’m expected to do — and I don’t think that will happen — it’s still my job to help young people grow.
It’ll be intriguing to follow Aston. Some Texas fans are concerned about the small pool of coaches contacted, not to mention that tapping back in to the Jody-pool feels like going backwards, not forward. And you might not be too impressed with Aston’s lack of “big time cred.” Of course, no one thought much of Kim (Adelphi?!?) when she stepped in at St. John’s, and looked what happened.
Swish Appeal does a little catching up: Barnes Arico & Other Coaching News
Some random stuff:
From the LA Times’ Ben Bolch: Violet Palmer is just another NBA official and that’s a good thing
In 1997, Palmer and Dee Kantner became the first female referees to work in a major U.S. professional sport. Palmer is still here and has been assigned to the playoffs six straight years.
She has become every bit as much a fixture in the playoffs as Kobe Bryant, Marv Albert’s signature “Yesss!” call and a first-round flameout by the Portland Trail Blazers.
From the AP’s Teresa Walker: Warlick’s UT challenge: meeting Summitt’s standard
Holly Warlick has her work cut out for her as Tennessee’s new women’s basketball coach.
She is replacing Pat Summitt, which has been compared to following Dean Smith at North Carolina, John Wooden at UCLA or Bear Bryant at Alabama.
Warlick, however, says she’s simply taking over a program she’s very familiar with for her close friend.
And just like Summitt, Warlick welcomes a challenge.
From Jason Whitlock at Fox Sports: Pat Summitt’s wild ride
From Sally Jenkins at WaPo: Pat Summitt is still much more able than disabled
Let me make something clear: Pat Summitt’s dignity is unassailable. And thus far, so is her basic good health and fundamental acuity. It’s fair to say that the stigma of the diagnosis has been harder on Summitt than the actual effects of the disease. Ask her if she feels sick, and she says sharply, “No.” What’s more difficult is being treated as if she is sick, as if she can no longer have a valuable purpose, as if it’s necessary to talk around her instead of to her, as if she doesn’t know her own mind.
“Everybody wants to know how I’m doing,” she says, “but they forget to ask me.”
From Mechelle: Summitt always larger than life
Now that a very, very different conclusion to Summitt’s coaching career has come, we can’t quite believe it. We don’t want to. Because among the many things that Summitt gave women’s basketball, one of the most cherished — at least by me — was unassailable legitimacy. The person who never big-timed anybody was undeniably big-time even in the most macho corners of the sports world.
When Summitt walked into a room of reporters, everyone sat up a little straighter. I loved watching that. Even the curmudgeons who thought they were above covering this sport had respect for her. She had a presence that everyone felt, almost like her own personal force field that protected her integrity and status at all times. The biggest critics in my business didn’t dismiss Summitt, nor did they even seem to want to. She was so much bigger than any of their prejudices.
From Erin Bolen at the Springfield News Leader: Summitt’s influence felt by local coaches
When Shelly Jones went to visit Kickapoo High School girls’ basketball coach Stephanie Phillips a few months before Phillips lost her battle with colon cancer, Phillips couldn’t wait to tell her what had happened that day.
“She said, ‘You won’t believe who I talked to today,’” said Jones, a former Drury University assistant who was recently named girls’ basketball coach at Marshfield. “I said, ‘Who?’ And she said ‘Pat Summitt.’”
From Dan Felser at the Knoxville News: Lady Vols thankful for easy transition
From Dave Fairbank at the Daily Press (VA): Women’s basketball recruiting a complicated, evolving issue
Geno Auriemma remembers when he could call recruits all the time or watch a prospect in person four or five days a week. Believe it or not, he misses those days.
Even with seven national championships, 800 wins and the visibility that accompanies his position as one of the giant figures in women’s basketball, the University of Connecticut and U.S. Olympic team coach thinks that shoe leather and extra miles and conversations over the phone and face-to-face remain the best avenues to properly evaluate and recruit players.
Auriemma is troubled by the shrinking evaluation and recruiting calendar in women’s basketball, even though he and other Bigfoot programs are the primary beneficiaries.
***
But Auriemma said that many wounds caused by the current system are self-inflicted.
“Every time a new rule is enacted, it’s because coaches voted on it and that’s the rule they want,” he said. “Coaches may complain that they want more days in July. But the reality is that when the surveys go out, the majority of the coaches vote for not adding any days in July because they don’t want to be out recruiting.
Some random thoughts on the above:
Recruiting, in light of the recent issues at Baylor, is a hot topic for many reasons. I’ve heard some argue that the NCAA should have no limits on contact between colleges, players & parents (and, of course, their AAU coaches, since high school coaches are marginalized more and more –it’s an ongoing tension). They argue that any player or parent or AAU/HS can say, “back off, enough.” I’m thinking that it’s a rare high school kid who would have the chutzpah to say “Mr. Auriemma? Ms. Mulkey? Ms. VanDeerver? Would you please stop contacting me and saying you want me to play for your school?”
Additionally, you’ve got to wonder how these rules and regulations impact every player BELOW the Top 50 DI. Landing a Top 50 recruit is what’s newsworthy – and those ranking organizations are often linked to AAU programs that have an investment in saying, “my kid got recruited by *fillintheblank* university so your kid should play for my club if they want a fighting chance.” That’s not bad or good — that’s just a marketing reality. So those organizations have a vested interest in the Top 50 or 100 recruits. So who’s keeping up with the under-50s? With the DII and DIII student-athletes?
After the news of Baylor’s violations broke, Brad Wolverton at the Chronicle of Higher Ed asked: How Clean Is Women’s Hoops? Listen to the Players, referring to a 2010 NCAA survey that said “More than a third of the Division I players surveyed said they had been contacted too often during the recruiting process, and just 39 percent of players—the lowest percentage across all sports—said they “strongly agreed” that they could trust their coach.” *Dabnabbit! Another reason I may have to upgrade my ‘puter, the NCAA survey is in .doc-bloody-x so I can’t go back and review it.*
Since I can’t review the document, I can only wonder:
1) Did 2/3 of the players “feel” they were contacted too often, or were they actually “in violation” contacted to often. Either way, the follow up question is, “Did you say something to the coach and/or report them? If so, what was the reaction/response.” If not, why not? (Or, how about, do you and your parents and coaches know what the contact rules are?)
2) Trust. 39% “strongly agreed they could trust their coach.” What is the rest of the breakdown and what were the areas of “trust?” For instance, “I trust that my coach will treat me fairly when it comes to playing time” is different than, “I trust that the coaches will abide by the NCAA regulations.”
This goes beyond the question of players actually knowing what the recruiting/practice rules are. It’s about power. The power to speak up, the power enjoy by being wanted, the power of promises and potential, the power of name recognition. And that leads to the power of the top 25. Because, face it, when people bemoan the “state of college sports,” they’re rarely talking about women’s basketball, and they’re surely not talking about fencing, or wrestling or cross country. They’re talking about men’s basketball and men’s football.
I know it’s all the rage but I’m not sure I’m interested in getting into a discussion about whether student-athletes (read: male, football/basketball) should or shouldn’t be forced to stay in college for their four years of eligibility (even though colleges work on a year-to-year scholarship system). If some brilliant scientist-sophomore-on-scholarship got offered a job by, say, Dow Chemicals, would you force them to complete their four years? Many of the players in the Top 25 (men’s football/basketball, itty bit of women’s basketball) are using college as their internship-interview for their professional life in sports (witness the Kentucky men’s team). The college is a farm system the pros don’t have to fund. I guess it could be argued that how much “responsibility” a school should feel for the success or failure of an elite athlete (read: in football, men’s basketball) in their given profession should be measure the same way they measure the success of, say, their lawyers or doctors or teachers: did they get a job? were they prepared for the job? did they have the skills necessary to perform and excel in their job?
As for paying student athletes, whoa is that a slippery, swampy mess. Let’s not talk about the legal ramifications (Hello, congress!), or the not-Division I Top 25 BCS football/men’s basketball ramifications (remember Pennington’s series back in 2008: Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships), or the “let’s really take a look at the cost effectiveness of college athletics across the board” discussion. I certainly haven’t heard anyone discuss the poverty level living status of non-athletic scholarship students, or the fact that partial scholarships in the “non-revenue” sports are still par for the course.
The NCAA keeps reminding us that “There are over 300,000 NCAA student-athletes, and most of them will go pro in something other than sports.” The reason those student-athletes are going pro in something other than sports is because it’s a limited profession that gets a disproportionate amount of attention of the public’s attention (and yes, I’m guilty — I’ve spent hundreds of hours writing and blogging about women’s basketball — a fraction of that on my own profession: education). But, as the situation at Kean shows (NCAA drops hammer on Kean University women’s basketball, warns athletic department of more penalties to come), lack of ethics crosses Divisions.
So what’s the answer? Hell if I know — but this is what happens to my brain on a rainy Sunday morning when the spring migration is slow…. honestly, this is a discussion best suited for a sports bar accompanied by wings and beer, but…
The un-realist in me wonders “should athletic ability be a reason for a scholarship?” Should we simply “track” elite high school athletes and separate them from general high school sports? Should BCS football and the Big Six basketball just admit what they are and become professional?
What I do know is that the term “college sports” is simply not specific enough. Right now, to the majority of the public and journalists, it means “men’s football and basketball of the top 25.” So, perhaps, all I can really ask is that writers to be more specific when they outline their concerns and complaints. And that, when the NCAA (as in, the athletic directors and coaches) looks to “fix” college sports, they dare to pay more attention to the majority of the 300,000.
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