Players and coaches love to come home again, and fans revel in the excitement of one of their own leading their school as a head coach or athletic director. It makes people feel like the magic will be recreated from when the athlete was a star at their school.
UNLV great Stacey Augmon, (pictured above) who was passed over for the interim coach tag at his alma mater when Dave Rice was fired midway through the season, made headlines recently by actively lobbying for the job his mentor, the late Jerry Tarkanian, once held. Augmon told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he felt he was overlooked for the interim post, which was given to assistant Todd Simon instead.
“I want this job,” Augmon told the Review-Journal. “I don’t want it because I’m Stacey Augmon. I don’t want a token interview. I want it because I am qualified, have the experience and would be the best choice.
“I want to be very clear on this: I want this job. This is my school. This is my program. I love it more than anything. I have so much love for this university. I know that I’m going to be a college head coach and I want it to be here.”
Coaching unlv matters I will talk soon pic.twitter.com/mJCq0MhvlI
— realstaceyaugmon (@staceyaugmon) January 19, 2016
Many of Augmon’s former teammates, including Greg Anthony and Larry Johnson, have been very outspoken about UNLV hiring Augmon as the next head coach. Rice, by the way, was a former teammate of Augmon, Anthony and Johnson at UNLV. A noted recruiter, Rice was let go 16 games into this season with a 9-7 record overall and 0-3 in the Mountain West. His career record in five seasons with the Running Rebels was a respectable 98-54.
Rice was fired because he failed to rekindle the fire that Tarkanian had ablaze with the program in the early 1990’s. Right or wrong, that is the standard every coaching hire will be judged by going forward whether the coach is from UNLV or not.
Therein lies the pitfall of hiring an alum to be the head coach or athletic director. The move brings along with it added expectations to meet past glory simply because of the prior affiliation. If Augmon is hired, the UNLV faithful will expect him to bring back memories of when he played for Tarkanian. Augmon or any other coach will find that very difficult to do. UNLV is not the same since Tarkanian left. Anything less, will be a disappointment, but forgivable.
If somebody such as Arizona assistant coach Joe Pasternack is hired to coach the Running Rebels, fans will take a wait-and-see approach. They have nothing to measure Pasternack by other than he was Sean Miller’s lead assistant at a Top 10 program. It will be like turning the page and starting anew with a three- to four-year wait to see if he can bring prosperity back to the program.
UNLV athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy (pictured left) is a Las Vegas native who understands Augmon’s glorified past in the program. The school’s president, Len Jessup, however, has an Arizona past serving as dean of that school’s Eller College of Management from 2011 to 2014 — the same time Miller re-established Arizona has a national power, rekindling the magic from the Lute Olson era. Miller, a Pitt grad, had no past with Arizona and was hired over the wishes of some Arizona fans who wanted alum Josh Pastner to be the coach.
Largely because of Jessup’s ties to Arizona, Pasternack has become a rumored candidate for the UNLV job. Luke Walton, a former Arizona player who has become a hot coaching commodity because of his experience with the Golden State Warriors, has also been named as a UNLV candidate.
Any athletic director or administrator will tell you that the best hires are those with the best qualifications. Relationships such as Jessup with Arizona are important in terms of Pasternack’s candidacy. Athletic directors like prospective coach who they feel most comfortable with as they work together to make a program prosper. The athletic department’s support base, namely the boosters, also weigh heavily into the equation. It’s all about harmony.
Hiring Augmon as UNLV’s coach may please former players and fans who long for yesteryear, but it might not be the most harmonious with the powers-that-be with the school. That can’t be overlooked.
Augmon’s chances at landing the job are affected by comments such as those made by Anthony to the Review-Journal that “outside forces” are keeping his former teammate from becoming the head coach. Anthony did not name names or give an explanation but his comments make it seem like Augmon and UNLV’s brass are not in harmony.
“It seems outside forces are at work there and that’s very disappointing,” Anthony told the Review-Journal. “It’s odd to see Stacey not being valued in the way he should be. The fact he wasn’t considered for the (interim head coaching) position is mind-boggling.
“He has played and coached at the highest levels. A lot has transpired with the UNLV program the last 20 years and I’m not sure some there have a great grasp about those who did the most for it. Stacey is at the top of that list.”
The last stance Augmon should take is a me-against-them approach to UNLV if he wants the head coaching position.
In terms of whether hiring an alum is a good or bad idea based on past results, history suggests it could go either way.
CollegeAd.com’s Laurie Gallagher touched on this subject last December after Miami hired alum Mark Richt to coach its football program and Georgia, Richt’s former job, did the same by hiring former Bulldog defensive back Kirby Smart as its head coach. Some of the more notable alum hires include Jim Harbaugh at Michigan, Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State, David Shaw at Stanford and Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern.
Gallagher wrote about Cam Cameron’s short unsuccessful stint at Indiana’s head coach after playing for the Hoosiers. He was only 36 years old when he returned to Bloomington in 1997. He lasted only five seasons. He went on to establish himself as one of the best offensive coordinators in the NFL and is now the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at LSU.
“Cameron says that someone who is returning faces even more obstacles because they knew you when you adhered to someone else’s program and those people are in their comfort zone with what they’ve been doing since you left,” Gallagher writes.
Rather than carve their own niche, some coaches struggled at their alma mater such as Mike Shula at Alabama, Karl Dorrell at UCLA and Dave Wannstedt at Pitt because they became victims of the past.
Administrators, boosters and fans believed they should bring back the memories before forging ahead with new ideas. Demands for better facilities, higher wages for assistant coaches, etc., were not met because what was good for their previous coach should be good enough for them.
Returning alums, especially young and inexperienced coaches such as Augmon, are forced to prove themselves first based on their affiliation with their alma mater.
With the friction that is already occurring – Augmon passed over for the interim job and Anthony mentioning outside forces are against Augmon – it is in the best interest for Augmon and UNLV for him to branch out to other coaching opportunities in college or the NBA. Once he establishes himself, then he should seek to become UNLV’s coach down the road. At that time, more of a right fit should exist with the president, athletic director and boosters because Augmon will have a track record.
As it is now, his candidacy is more about his past with UNLV than what he can bring to the program in the future. That’s not always a winning formula for schools hiring young coaches like that. Augmon should create magic elsewhere for a better opportunity to bring his own niche later to UNLV.
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