Georgia Tech athletic director Dan Radakovich has a few people whom he would like to talk to about being his next basketball coach.
He also knows what he wants: "Looking for something to help re-energize the fan base and to continue to recruit quality student-athletes in the most prestigious basketball conference in the country, the ACC."
But the challenge is do they think they would be a good fit?
Radakovich is looking for a new coach after firing Paul Hewitt on Saturday.
Radakovich described three groups of candidates Tech will consider: current head coaches, current assistant coaches and then other candidates. He said he had no preference from which group the coach comes. A history at Tech would be a plus, but it's not a requirement.
"We are looking for the best person," he said. "There's not a set level of criteria. That's what the search process is for. As an institution and a city we have a great opportunity for someone to be successful at Georgia Tech. It's our charge to find the right person."
It's a selling process for both sides, but Tech has the $45 million McCamish Pavilion in its favor. It's scheduled to open in 2012. On the downside, it also has a fractured fan base who stopped attending games this season and sometimes booed their coach during home games, something the players noticed. Hewitt said the only advice he would give to the next coach is be prepared to answer "will you be here next year?" many times.
In addition to an internal group that will aid in the search, former collegiate coach Eddie Fogler will assist. He and Radakovich worked together at South Carolina. And money, despite Tech owing Hewitt $7.2 million, won't be an issue.
"We will give everyone the opportunity to be successful," Radakovich said. They hope to have the next coach, the 13th in Tech's history, named before the Final Four starts April 2 because Radakovich said they want to give him time to assemble a staff.
Radakovich has made some interesting hires since coming to Tech in 2006. He plucked assistants from other schools to lead softball and volleyball. He promoted an assistant to lead the swimming and diving teams.
Even the hire of Paul Johnson as the football coach surprised some. While Johnson was an established coach with a proven history of success at Georgia Southern and Navy, his experiences in Annapolis weren't the usual in college football. Agents and players leaving early or transferring, for example, weren't things Johnson had to deal with often. But that move, like the others, has worked well.
"The two assistants I hired, they were both incredibly knowledgeable about their sports with successful tenures, full of energy and wanted to be a head coach and wanted to be at [Tech]," Radakovich said. "Through the football search, when we had an opportunity to sit with coach Johnson, it became evident it would be a positive for us."
Those moves have worked out well. Softball won the ACC regular-season and tournament titles last season, and the football team won the ACC title in 2009.
Players Jason Morris, a freshman, and Iman Shumpert, a junior, said they haven't had time to think about what they want in their next coach. Shumpert said it seems the team doesn't get the respect it used to, especially after a few of the disappointing losses they've experienced the past two seasons. However, with the right coach, he said next year's team could be pretty good.
"Anytime someone can help me with something new, I'm all for it," Shumpert said. "I think everybody has an open mind."
What about Tech's future players? Radakovich said he spoke with one of the recruits, Milton High's Julian Royal, who has signed with Tech. The 6-foot-8 power forward said last week that if Hewitt were fired he may ask for a release from his letter of intent and re-open the recruiting process.
Recruiting is another reason Radakovich wants the next coach in sooner.
"[I] always worry about recruiting," he said. "That's the lifeblood of any program."
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