This is an interesting column on the Cal job with a lot of good insight.
The hard part begins for Barbour
Ray Ratto, San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, March 27, 2008
(03-27) 04:00 PDT Houston -- So Sandy Barbour found the million-dollar Easter Bunny (by all accounts, Bob Haas was the last to sign off) to free her and her e-mail queue from the angry cyber-villagers who demanded Ben Braun's head on a pike. He is now officially the 23rd college basketball coach to get croaked this year, and the second local (third if you count Michelle Bento-Jackson of the Santa Clara women's team).
That Barbour managed to scare up that kind of jack in this economy with the athletic department's other pressing needs speaks to powers of persuasion we never knew she had - that is, if that's how it went down; the common wisdom on this is still somewhat fuzzy.
But the firing is the easy part. Replacing the fired at a school with a largely mid-major profile is somewhat more difficult, and getting Cal to become a destination for top players rather than a backup backup backup choice will be far more difficult still.
And no, before you get your full Pete Newell on, forget Bob Knight. Too hard a sell to the administration given the baggage, real, perceived and caricatured. The UC system has never looked kindly upon ESPN studio figures, as you know. And forget Mike Montgomery, too. His contrarian mind would rebel at being the Internet flavor of the day, plus he would be trying to outdo the idealized version of himself, and nobody in their right mind ever tries that.
No, Barbour has to find someone who can overcome not just 12 years of Braun, but 48 years of post-Newell. Cal has been a national player only in the still-forbidden-to-speak-of Bozeman Era, which resulted in sanctions on sanctions, and chastened both the school and its fan base. Braun came in as the squeaky clean alternative from Eastern Michigan, but as time went on ... well, Cal became an NIT regular, and there are few things more damning in college basketball than that.
So now, with dreams of hitting the big time, Cal (Barbour and the big wallets) has to figure out how much big time it can or wants to afford. The bulk of the fund-raising/arm-twisting is aimed at tree demolition and concrete futures at the football site, which is a hard enough slog, but there is a more fundamental issue at play here, namely, this:
What makes Cal a better fit for an elite, program-turning player or players, than UCLA, USC, Stanford, the Arizonas or Oregon? What about Berkeley keeps national powers out of the Bay Area to pluck the best local players to schools and conferences that have better TV deals and a more glorious national profile? The answer to both those questions is nothing much. The most coveted preps need Cal a lot less than Cal needs them.
Can it be done anyway? Yes. Will it be? That's not the way to bet. As a basketball school, Cal is frankly just another joint, less appealing than not only the aforementioned Pac-10 schools, but also Gonzaga, Utah, and if Bill Grier stays long enough, San Diego.
Moreover, the hot coaching candidates (Grier if he wants to be a carpetbagger, Randy Bennett of St. Mary's, Keno Davis at Drake, Anthony Grant at Virginia Commonwealth, Tony Bennett at Washington State, etc.) can do better than Cal, and if they don't know it, their agents do. A football school, west of the Rockies, not part of the ESPN octopus, not known for throwing money and budgetary support around with abandon - among coaches with big dreams and growing profiles, what's not to dislike?
Can it be done anyway? Yes. Will it be? Only if Barbour hits it big with a relative unknown - her own version of Montgomery, one who plans to stay awhile.
Easy? Anything but. After all, Pepperdine thought it nailed its coaching problem by hiring the new offensive guru of the universe, Vance Walberg, a hire everyone loved for its boldness and outside-the-box thinking, and he lasted a year and change. USD, on the other hand, scored with a logical choice ready to leave the nest in Grier, and for as long as it can keep him, will be very happy.
And while we're at it, Cal fans need to decide what they deserve from their basketball program. Never having been overly gifted with patience anyway, a character flaw that long predates the invention of the chat room, an increasingly loud and cranky minority has reached the most dangerous stage of fandom - they aren't sure what they like, but they know what they don't like. This creates the specter of perpetual dissatisfaction, which is of course no way to get to payday every week.
What Cal fans actually deserve is a team that (a) graduates its players, (b) stays off the NCAA's bad books, (c) has a coach whose recruiting and coaching philosophies mesh far better than Braun's did and (d) a realistic understanding of where Cal fits in the college basketball universe. It is not UCLA. It is not Indiana. It is not Kansas. It is not North Carolina, or Duke, or 50 other places where basketball drives the entertainment train. It has limitations based on its academic and social culture, its geography and resources, even its place in its own conference.
These can be broadened; Stanford was once a basketball pit. But that happens only in incremental steps rather than quick fixes, with a coach who not only knows his X's, O's, C's and PG's, but flows with rather than fights against the prevailing tide, and who regards Cal as the ideal place to make a career stand. The way, if you'll pardon us baiting the hook again, Montgomery did at Stanford.
Finding said coach under said conditions will be considerably harder than just cleaning out Braun's office and getting him pointed toward the airport. And knowing how fractious Cal fans are under normal circumstances, let alone their just-sated blood lust, it will require a unanimity in the bleachers no coach since Newell has truly enjoyed.
Can it be done? Yes. Will it be? A lot of people are being asked to broaden their horizons at the same time, which is never a safe bet, so give the points. Barring Barbour selling like never before and hitting a grand-slam with this hire, Cal will remain what rational insiders and the history think it is: A program that could be better than it was, but not by quite as much as the true believers think it should.
E-mail Ray Ratto at
[email protected].
