ETSU coaches performance in the A-Sun era
With all the talk about firing/retiring coaches, replacing and cleaning house, I decided to actually look at the numbers. The last year of the SoCon to current day, how have the coaches done? Have they overachieved, underachieved or strived for mediocrity? Using the records published through media guides on etsubucs.com as well as some budget numbers I came across, I put together a spreadsheet checking records, average budget, NCAA appearances, conference titles, etc... I did not include invidual sports such as tennis, golf and track in this, simply because most of those athletes have individual instructors and it's not so much about coaching/strategy. If someone knows how to convert spreadsheets to .pdf, I'll post the spreadsheet too, if not, here we go.
Murry Bartow: 189-135 with a .583 winning percentage, Bartow has performed the best in the stick and ball sports with three NCAA tournaments, 2 other postseason apperances along with four conference titles. Along with that, comes 8 winning seasons, 2 losing seasons along with multiple off court incidents from DUI's to drugs. Along with this, comes the highest budget of any sport on campus, a budget that increased to almost 1.4 million dollars from 753K in 03-04.
Karen Kemp: 163-137 with a .543 winning percentage, Kemp comes in 2nd of the coaches who have been there more than two years. Four conference titles, three NCAA appearances as well as an NIT appearance. Kemp had six winning seasons compared to four losing seasons, and didn't have more than two straight losing records in what is the A-Sun era. Karen saw her budget increase from around 430K to over 900K in her last season. Zero off season incidents publicized.
Lindsey Devine: 165-154 for a .517 winning percentage. Until this past season, Devine was a below .500 coach. She has one NCAA appearance with her one conference title, five winning and five losing records having had consecutive losing seasons occur twice, including a 7-22 season in which she was not fired after. Her budget has increased by 211K dollars to be just over .500 and one championship that led to a bloodletting from Kentucky. Zero publicized off court issues, but there has been some great messageboard fodder over an alleged incident of someone not following protocol contacting players.
Tony Skole: 265-291 for an astounding .476 winning percentage. Skole has no NCAA apperances, as he's never won a conference title. Ever. Four winning seasons compared to six losing records, He's seen his budget MORE THAN DOUBLE in his time as the Bucs skipper. Officially he has had only one publicized incident where the players were ran until they laid on the field in their own puke, but there's been whispers over the years of an alleged incident that may or may not have occurred in the mid 2000's.
Andrea Mangrum: The fired ETSU softball coach finished up with a 126-161 record for a .439 percentage. No titles, no NCAA appearances and no facility other than playing softball games at the beer league park over by Science Hill. She did see a budget increase, and also in her time saw Dave and the Water Buffalo botch USA Softball coming to campus once she finally did get a stadium. She never had a winning season.
Brad Irwin: 26-71 - .268 in his short and probably soon to be ending time at ETSU. He has a facility, large enough budget and has yet to qualify for the conference tournament. I can't really add to this other than softball has actually gotten worse.
Heather Henson - 61-70-17 - Terminated without a conference title, NCAA appearance and only three winning seasons vs. five losing. Her teams classically underachieved.
Adam Sayers - 24-11-1, Sayers has really excelled in a short time in Johnson City. With a .667 winning percentage, he's already won a conference title but choked away the NCAA appearance. Jury is out here.
Scott Calabrese - 37-32-8, a winning record but not a winning percentage when you look that out of 77 games, he's only won 37. He does have a conference title and an NCAA appearance, but also has a great budget and facility to recruit to. Jury is out here, but in most places he'd probably be gone.
So here they are, my personal opinion is there's no way that Tony Skole and Lindsey Devine should have jobs. Hovering around .500 with only one conference title/NCAA appearance between them would get them fired ANYWHERE ELSE. Bartow's numbers are good enough that he bought himself one more year. Had the trend been that two straight losing seasons got you fired, then I could see the justification to have her "retire." Also, it's hard to believe that ETSU has won the All Sports Trophy all these times, but I guess Fred and Yaser's backs must be pretty sore from carrying that load.
Ultimately in the A-Sun, we've been a .500 athletic department in its' team sports, and only Heather Henson, Karen Kemp and Andrea Mangrum have been replaced.
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