The way Paul Hewitt thought it would go, he would be almost a year into his break from college coaching about now.
He might have been dabbling in broadcasting or volunteer coaching in the NBA, something he explored before the lockout and another opportunity came knocking.
The newest coach of mid-major standout George Mason has been busy trying to get back to the NCAA tournament. Whether he does that from a corner office in the ACC or a rookie rung in the Colonial Athletic Association, he figures it doesn’t matter much anymore.
“Really when you get down to it, you realize that you’re only judged on one thing anyway -- the NCAA tournament,” Hewitt said. “That’s one thing I learned at Tech. It doesn’t matter what you did, as long as if you get to the tournament, you’re OK.”
The CAA got two at-large bids last year in addition to CAA champion Old Dominion and watched Virginia Commonwealth advance to the Final Four.
About that time, Hewitt was three weeks removed from being fired from Georgia Tech and still raw.
He turned down one coaching offer and says he probably would have turned down another had George Mason come calling that Final Four weekend in Houston. But George Mason didn’t call until late April when Jim Larranaga left for Miami. By then, a little more distance -- and one particular taxi ride -- began to chip away at Hewitt’s resolve.
He was on his way back to his hotel in Fairfax, Va., after a meeting with athletic director Tom O’Connor, when what started as a cursory curiosity took on new depth. He asked his cabbie to drive him around campus. Hewitt got an objective pitch he couldn’t have from somebody trying to convince him to take a job.
“He started talking about how his niece went to school here and how much she loved it, and how the experience was great and the spirit on campus,” said Hewitt, who had pre-conceived images of a “commuter school” in the D.C. suburbs. “That got me interested. Maybe there is something to this.”
Admittedly burned out at the end of his 11-year tenure at Tech, when fan disillusionment compiled with three losing seasons in his previous four tainted the end for Hewitt, the idea of something new intrigued him. When George Mason’s associate AD called to ask him to stay another day to meet with the president, Hewitt postponed a trip to Anguilla for his 20th wedding anniversary with his wife Dawnette.
“She’s like ‘Hey if you want to do it, that’s fine,’” said Hewitt, who made it up to her with a trip to the Caribbean island in late May.
Between the president’s enthusiasm, the prospect of a recruiting in a corridor from New York City to North Carolina, and living in a city his family was excited about, Hewitt was sold.
He had spent four or five months in Georgetown after graduating from college, just having fun, before moving back to New York to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. Now, at 48, he could do both.
Hewitt has reconnected with his best friend from high school, who lives in the area, and also returned three starters from a team that went 27-7 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Under Hewitt, the school he simply refers to as “Mason” is 23-8. The Patriots overcame the transfer of veteran guard Luke Hancock to Louisville and a 10-game suspension of returner Andre Cornelius. They won 16 of 18 games until losing in overtime at Northeastern and at VCU last week. They are in third place in the CAA at 14-4 and a long-shot to make the tournament.
Hewitt believes Mason will need to win this weekend’s CAA tournament to make it. So it’s not like he has had much time for reflection about the way things ended at Tech or much of anything else. But from the sounds of it, he doesn’t need it.
“The vast majority of coaches, we don’t get a chance to walk away on our own terms,” Hewitt said. “But I had an overwhelmingly positive experience at Tech and some really good moments there and met some really good people…
"You go out and do your job the best you can and if it’s acceptable great. If it’s not acceptable then you live with the consequences.”
Hewitt is drawing monthly on his $7.2 million buyout from Tech and will throughout the five years on his George Mason contract. He is not yet comfortable watching highlights of Tech games, but he has kept in touch with former players and he’s an active member of the former Tech coaches’ fraternity.
Hewitt called Bobby Cremins after he announced he was taking medical leave from the College of Charleston for exhaustion. They talked last week.
“He sounds great,” Hewitt said. “I don’t know what he’s going to do, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he’s back.”
Whether it’s later this year or next, Hewitt isn’t sure. But resilience is going around.
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