AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2006 > September > 14
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Tech’s AD not playing softball
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OK, so it was only softball, but what do you think of Dan Radakovich making his first head coaching hire a Georgia assistant coach?
I think it’s brilliant, provided the coach is the best person for the job in all other respects. Hiring a key assistant coach from your rival: —Weakens your rival. —Gives you someone who already understands recruiting in your area. —Provides you instant insight into the way your rival thinks.
If I were an athletics director, I wouldn’t hesitate to hire a head coach who worked as an assistant for my rival OR a head coach whose alma mater was my rival. Anybody worried about divided loyalties is kidding themselves. Coaches are loyal to their job, first and foremost.
I grew up in L.A., where Henry Bibby played for UCLA and later coached USC’s men’s basketball team into the NCAA tournament Elite Eight. I worked in Mississippi, where Mississippi State grad Van Chancellor became a legend (or as close as a women’s basketball coach can get to that) at Ole Miss before becoming a multi-time WNBA coach of the year in Houston, and where Joe Lee Dunn went from interim head coach at Ole Miss to defensive coordinator for a Mississippi State team that played in the SEC football championship game. And, of course, I work in a state where some Auburn grad named Vince had a bit of success as a football coach at one of Auburn’s rivals. Then there’s Dick Bestwick, an assistant at Tech from 1967-75 and a longtime athletics administrator at a certain school in Athens.
I’m sure I’m leaving out a lot of the best examples, but you get the idea.
