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Letter: Head coach was fall guy for program

April 01, 2009

Dear Editor,

Once upon a time there was a high profile college that was looking for a head basketball coach to rebuild its program.

It selected a one-man selection committee to find the right person to head its basketball program. And this one-man committee made arrangements to bring his choice to the school to introduce him (the new coach) to the media as the school's new head basketball coach.

Well, this new coach didn't get to stay long enough to rebuild the program and instill his system of plays. He didn't get to stay long enough to recruit enough players to fit his system and thus the chance to rebuild the program to where it was thought it ought to be.

The one-man committee and the college's president decided they needed a new man at the helm of the basketball program and thus let its (the school's) head basketball coach go (he was fired).

These two people said that the head coach wasn't a perfect fit. But when they introduced this same person as the school's new basketball coach they proclaimed he was the man to bring back prominence to the basketball program.

The head coach's personality and that of those who introduced him clashed, and later the one-man committee and the school's president declared the coach wasn't a perfect fit.

The new coach was who he was at the other schools where he coached. The one-man committee just didn't do his homework and do a complete job of checking out the new coach beforehand.

The new coach had turned around two other programs before being persuaded by this one man committee, and nothing was said or written or implied about what this new coach was to do except coach and recruit good players to rebuild the basketball program back to prominence.

So the coach was the fall guy because the search committee didn't do a complete background check on the new coach other than check his win-loss record at his previous two schools.

They did a similar thing to a previous football coach.

Terry L. BuggHarrodsburg

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