There are many good coaches you have never heard of

[EufaulaSooner]

Right now throughout America, there are many good coaches at small schools and in non-major conferences who over the next 10-20 years will go on to win championships and become big successes. Right now, you have never heard of them. But you will, once they move to more prominent schools and begin to win big.

Right now there is some guy who will be as big as Coach K or Jim Calhoun, coaching at some podunk school.

Every big-name coach was unknown by the masses at some point. And then they moved up, started winning conference titles and tourney games, and became the people you know as legends today.

There is no reason we cannot sign one of them. A Ben Jacobson-type might be a great coach and, one would think, would certainly be sign-able by us. They are in plain view. It is merely a matter of selecting one.

It's not rocket science. You have to wade through lots of names to find them, do lots of research on them before seeing that all the attributes are there, and then you have to (of course) make a wise decision. This takes time. These are not obvious candidates.

I keep reading things like "We are f'ed", "No one good wants this job", etc.

BS. There are good coaches out there just waiting to be discovered. Remember the huge excitement when we hired Tubbs or Sampson? Me neither.

Of all the huge, successful coaching hires, how many were obvious big-gets on the day of the announcement? Very few.

So quit saying there are no good coaches out there we can sign. And if we don't hire someone universally admired as a genius (of which there are only about 10 total in the nation), don't complain. The next Tubbs, Sampson or Coale is probably someone you have never heard of.

 

[SoonerinNC]

What would you say if we hired a coach from Army. Duke did several years ago. He's still there.

Joe C has shown the ability to make a number of good hires. No matter how good you are you are going to miss on a few.

Also there are no good times to change. It is interesting to see so many bemoaning the fact that we fired Capel at the end of the season and should have sooner. I suspect that the vast majority of coaches are fired at the end of the season.

 

[MsProudSooner]

You guys are talking common sense,. Most people don't want to hear that.

 

[bocabull]

Great post.

The Capel hiring was not a mistake. Nobody could have expected better results than he delivered in his first 3 years. The mistake was giving a 34 year old coach a huge raise to fend off desperate suitors willing to overpay. The smart move would have been to let him walk and go find the next hungry coach. Instead we ended up with buyers remorse just like Marquette, Arkansas and Purdue will. I bet we could have hired Buzz Williams but calmer heads prevailed and said. "WAIT A MINUTE. This dude lost 15 games and we are going to pay what?"

There are plenty of great coaches who will come in for $750k a year and bust their butt winning games at a program like OU. They will be hungry with a chip on their shoulder. There aren't many difference makers out there. Programs like OU will win with a number of different coaches.

 

[stanley11]

Right now throughout America, there are many good coaches at small schools and in non-major conferences who over the next 10-20 years will go on to win championships and become big successes. Right now, you have never heard of them. But you will, once they move to more prominent schools and begin to win big.

Right now there is some guy who will be as big as Coach K or Jim Calhoun, coaching at some podunk school.

Every big-name coach was unknown by the masses at some point. And then they moved up, started winning conference titles and tourney games, and became the people you know as legends today.

There is no reason we cannot sign one of them. A Ben Jacobson-type might be a great coach and, one would think, would certainly be sign-able by us. They are in plain view. It is merely a matter of selecting one.

It's not rocket science. You have to wade through lots of names to find them, do lots of research on them before seeing that all the attributes are there, and then you have to (of course) make a wise decision. This takes time. These are not obvious candidates.

I keep reading things like "We are f'ed", "No one good wants this job", etc.

BS. There are good coaches out there just waiting to be discovered. Remember the huge excitement when we hired Tubbs or Sampson? Me neither.

Of all the huge, successful coaching hires, how many were obvious big-gets on the day of the announcement? Very few.

So quit saying there are no good coaches out there we can sign. And if we don't hire someone universally admired as a genius (of which there are only about 10 total in the nation), don't complain. The next Tubbs, Sampson or Coale is probably someone you have never heard of.

This is the best and most logical post since the search started.

 

[dahldennsull]

Great post.

The Capel hiring was not a mistake. Nobody could have expected better results than he delivered in his first 3 years. The mistake was giving a 34 year old coach a huge raise to fend off desperate suitors willing to overpay. The smart move would have been to let him walk and go find the next hungry coach. Instead we ended up with buyers remorse just like Marquette, Arkansas and Purdue will. I bet we could have hired Buzz Williams but calmer heads prevailed and said. "WAIT A MINUTE. This dude lost 15 games and we are going to pay what?"

There are plenty of great coaches who will come in for $750k a year and bust their butt winning games at a program like OU. They will be hungry with a chip on their shoulder. There aren't many difference makers out there. Programs like OU will win with a number of different coaches.

While you may be right, I would pump the breaks on the Buzz stuff. He lost 15 games, but played in the big east. Guy had like 10 straight games at one point against top 25 teams. That is just brutal.

That same Marquette team would have finished top 4 in Big 12 this year.

 

[ouboomer]

this is a very good thread. The new age of media has made many impatient with the need to always know whats going on. Also message boards bring out a lot of pessimism from posters.

 

[Big Old Booger]

Right now throughout America, there are many good coaches at small schools and in non-major conferences who over the next 10-20 years will go on to win championships and become big successes. Right now, you have never heard of them. But you will, once they move to more prominent schools and begin to win big.

Right now there is some guy who will be as big as Coach K or Jim Calhoun, coaching at some podunk school.

Every big-name coach was unknown by the masses at some point. And then they moved up, started winning conference titles and tourney games, and became the people you know as legends today.

There is no reason we cannot sign one of them. A Ben Jacobson-type might be a great coach and, one would think, would certainly be sign-able by us. They are in plain view. It is merely a matter of selecting one.

It's not rocket science. You have to wade through lots of names to find them, do lots of research on them before seeing that all the attributes are there, and then you have to (of course) make a wise decision. This takes time. These are not obvious candidates.

I keep reading things like "We are f'ed", "No one good wants this job", etc.

BS. There are good coaches out there just waiting to be discovered. Remember the huge excitement when we hired Tubbs or Sampson? Me neither.

Of all the huge, successful coaching hires, how many were obvious big-gets on the day of the announcement? Very few.

So quit saying there are no good coaches out there we can sign. And if we don't hire someone universally admired as a genius (of which there are only about 10 total in the nation), don't complain. The next Tubbs, Sampson or Coale is probably someone you have never heard of.

Case in point is Billy Tubbs and Kelvin Sampson. Neither was highly thought of amongst the fan base when they were hired, and both were very successful.

Tubbs, as I mentioned in another thread, when he was at Lamar the previous season, had just been beaten by Dave Bliss and the Sooners by about 40 points in Norman. The sooners scored over 100 points that game in what may be the only game Bliss Sooners scored over the century mark. Some of you may find this hard to believe, but Tubbs even got a technical that night. He may have even been booted out of the game, if I remember correctly.

Nobody thought he was a good hire, but what did he do? He changed Big 8 basketball and is the main reason the Big 8 became a very good basketball conference.

 

[scrybe]

Great post, EufaulaSooner. :clap