Duke Women lose Coach
This move looks a lot like Roy Williams' move from Kansas. He got Kansas to the highest levels, but couldn't seem to win a championship, so moved to a place where he could. Gail Goestenkors has built Duke into a power that nearly matches the Men's team, but they've been plagued by coming up short in the NCAA's. I don't know the details of what offer Duke came back with, but rumors had been, that since the women's team was a money loser instead of winner for Duke, they wouldn't be offering enough to match what Texas can spend. Football is King where $$'s are concerned, and Texas has money to spare.
1 comments:
It's starting to look like the ACC coaching pool is the AAA affiliate for the University of Texas.
In 1997, Mack Brown left for Texas after taking Carolina to the top 10. No matter what he had done at UNC, Brown knew that UNC was first and foremost a basketball school.
After the 1998 season, Rick Barnes left Clemson to take over the Texas basketball program. Barnes had 2 reasons. Clemson was a football school, and in ACC Basketball, he felt that Duke and UNC would always rule both on and off the court.
Now at the end of 2007 Duke's coach G has left to guide the Texas Women's hoops program. The reason? Duke is a basketball school... a Men's basketball school.
Sure, Texas is historically one of the nation's top women's programs, but coach G had turned Duke into an elite program as well. The bottom line, Texas has more money than they know what to do with. They are able to spend more money on coaches than most programs. Duke is a small private university with a small alumni base and an even smaller athletic budget.
At Duke, men's basketball is king. No one cares about football and as a result, thier football program does not generate enough revenue to subsidize all of the non-revenue sports. Yes, the women's basketball program operated at a $ 2-million loss last year, but should that matter if you have an elite program?
The rally of support for coach G drew 200 people. How many people would have been at the rally if coach K was thinking about leaving, or if he had made it a priority to keep his counterpart on the women's team? My gut feeling is that if coach K wanted Goestenkors to stay, he and the university would have found a way to keep her. In the end, the real Athletic Director and Univeristy President at Duke let her go.
We wish coach G much success at Texas.
Post a Comment