Kaplony
Palmetto State Deplorable
Posts: 25,393
Joined: Apr 2013
I Root For: Newberry
Location: SC
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RE: 2015 Coaching Carousel (Men's Basketball)
(03-23-2015 02:15 PM)jgkojak Wrote: Marshall is from South Carolina... so I guess I could see Clemson being an appealing position within the ACC?
No. Marshall is a lifelong coot fan and according to people I know hates Clemson with a passion.
Not to mention this:
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketba...halls-plan
Quote:"One place, and I don't want to say which place, but one place offered me so much money and I basically just told them, 'I don't care how much money there is; that money won't help me sleep when I'm losing,'" Marshall said. "Winning is what I really like to do. I'm fine financially. My drug is winning."
Quote:Some coaches at schools in the MVC (and similar leagues) are so anxious to work at the power-conference level that they'll jump at almost any chance. Marshall, though, is not one of those coaches. Never mind all the opportunities he's passed on while at Wichita State, Marshall actually rejected power-conference jobs way back when he was coaching Winthrop in the Big South because, like he said, winning is his drug, and he knew he could probably win more consistently at Winthrop -- Marshall won six Big South titles in nine seasons at Winthrop -- than he could at a bottom-tier ACC or SEC school.
Would Marshall, theoretically, like to bang heads with a Mike Krzyzewski or John Calipari?
Sure.
He's a competitor at his core.
But he'll never take a historically average job relative to its league just to do it.
"The only way I'd leave for [a power-conference] job would be if I had an opportunity to fight on solid ground," Marshall said. "I would want to fight on equal footing."
Translation: Don't call unless you're an AD willing to give Marshall all of the resources he needs to compete at the top of any league. Otherwise, you're just wasting everybody's time.
Clemson is a football school and isn't going to divert the resources away from football to basketball to make him happy. He likes being the kingfish at whatever school he is at and I don;t see him taking a backseat to Dabo Swinney as the face of Clemson athletics.
Quote:And Wichita is an armpit - so anything would be an improvement.
Maybe so, but it's evidently a comfortable armpit
Quote:But I'm not sure most realize the opportunities Wichita State provides. For instance, nobody can ever tell Marshall he can't get a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, make a Final Four, host ESPN's GameDay, sign top-100 recruits or earn $2 million a year at Wichita State because "those are things I've already done," Marshall said.
"And we've been on national TV like 15 times this year," he added. "People know about the Shockers. We have a nationally relevant program, and that's what I want to maintain -- a nationally relevant program … like Gonzaga. Gonzaga is nationally relevant. VCU is nationally relevant. Butler is nationally relevant. And we are nationally relevant."
Beyond that, there's the off-the-court stuff.
And the off-the-court stuff is really, really nice.
Marshall is the most popular man in the city (even if the Koch brothers remain the wealthiest by a decent margin), and Wichita State's administration allows him to run his program like it's a top-tier power-conference program. The Shockers charter every single flight. Absolutely no exceptions. And the Marshall family has access to private planes for any and every personal trip they take.
"We're spoiled rotten here," said Lynn Marshall. "The way we get to travel is so fun."
Quote:Among those who agree with this sentiment: Judy Lamar.
That's Gregg Marshall's mother.
She was inside Koch Arena three Saturdays ago for Wichita State's win over Northern Iowa that delivered her son a ninth league title in 17 seasons as a head coach, and, afterward, she addressed the team and told them how proud she was of what they'd accomplished. Later, she explained to me how strange it was to fly to Wichita and, two days before the Northern Iowa game, turn on a radio "call-in show" and hear fans questioning this version of the Shockers, who are entering the NCAA Tournament with a 28-4 record and No. 14 national ranking.
"I heard that, and I was like, 'My goodness!'" Lamar said. "What in the world did they ever expect from this team?'"
(Gregg Marshall's mother really is terrific.)
In Wichita State's locker room, I pulled Lamar aside.
I asked her two questions:
1. What does she believe are her son's ultimate goals?
2. What are her goals for her son?
She answered the first question this way: "His goal is to be a success and to be happy at what he's doing, and he's both of those things right now."
She answered the second question this way: "My goal for him used to be to come back to the South. I used to want him to come back home."
But now?
"But now, after talking to him and hearing the joy in his children's voices and understanding how they've fallen in love with Wichita, I think they're happy right here," she said. "Once you get a few years on you, you realize being happy and content is far more important than $500,000 more a year. So I'm sure there will be other opportunities; there always is. But I don't know if any of them will be able to make him as happy as he is right here."
As for South Carolina he was interested in the job the last two times it was open. When they hired Darrin Horn they snubbed him. When they hired Frank Martin they wanted him but couldn't pay what he was asking to make a move. The general consensus around here is that ship has sailed unless something drastic changes on one or both sides.
(This post was last modified: 03-23-2015 02:34 PM by Kaplony.)
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2015 Coaching Carousel (Men's Basketball)
