Dirk X West

Have any of these "high profile former NBA player/former player for the school in question with relatively limited coaching experience" college head coach hires ever actually worked out well?

lol

For me, tolerating this is catering to a prima donna.

Yeah, holy shit. Exactly how many fentanyl patches have you applied so far today, Ttom?

I can't see him suddenly catering to prima donnas. It would obviously be counter productive to not take the most talented players he can, but he's shown what he can do with a handful of borderline elite talents and a bunch of grinders and role players. One of the luxuries he's afforded himself by staying at Tech is not having to deal with the expectation to load his team up with blue chippers, like he would at UT, much less UCLA or some place like that. He can take only the guys that he's sure will fit in with what he wants to do, and no one in Lubbock or at Tech will say a word about it. To your other point, it would hurt to lose Adams, regardless of any other factors.

There's all that, all the ties to the Lubbock area and family ties and he's got a pretty good gig working with a great HC and just got a nice raise, but also there's the fact that Chicago is terrible and will continue to be terrible, so that job might only last for a year or two. Maybe Beard can tell him "go get your money and there's a place for you when you want to come back", but I don't know if it really works like that.

Well said.

He's not going anywhere.

When the actual job search started, yes, there weren't many candidates besides him, for reasons I explained, but were people talking all the year before about how he would be the next Tech head coach, like UT fans watched Herman for two years before Strong got fired? Absolutely not.

He did get lucky, to the extent that the UNLV BOR balked at the contract their AD offered Beard after he had agreed in principle to take the job there, but to me, the bigger point was that when Tubby left - and he left at an inopportune time after most of the positions had been filled and there weren't so many decent candidates to look at - Kirby had done his homework and was ready to move on Beard, and get him, when Tubby did decide to go. Beard has his Tech ties, but I don't seem to recall people talking about him like some kind of obvious heir apparent for years before he finally got the job.

He does, like anybody making the kind of $ he is. But hasn't he done a lot more good than bad so far?

Dunkin Donuts suck. Their coffee is good, tho.

Do you honestly think that he's allowed to draw up contracts and hire head coaches with no oversight or input from anyone else? Everything I've ever heard about the internal operations of big time college athletic depts in general and about Tech athletics specifically, including the Mike Leach firing, tells me otherwise. I'm quite willing to concede that that comes to bear when talking about good coaching hires as well as bad ones, as far as that goes. With no real inside knowledge of how any of the hires have been made since Hocutt took over, it's pretty clear that he likes a certain type of coach (i.e. experienced, with good character and interested in bringing in good character players, focused on discipline, hard work and fundamentals, and yes, with ties to Tech and/or the panhandle region) and not coincidentally, those have been the ones who have succeeded for the most part, while those that aren't of that type, like Kliff, haven't panned out. Tadlock and Beard are very similar in many ways (as is Tubby Smith, save for ties to Tech), and Wells seems like an attempt at finding a football analogue. Kliff just doesn't fit that pattern, and considering his popularity with the fans and the perception that he could help people get over the trauma of the Leach debacle - and that football is so crucial financially - it's just not hard for me to imagine that he was prevailed upon to hire Kliff. He may not have been against Kliff, but he isn't Hocutt's type of coach. Again, with all the success Tech athletics is having, it seems bizarre to me that I have to offer some defense of Hocutt, but the neuroses that dwell deep in the subconscious mind of many Tech fans make it hard for many to simply enjoy success.

I'm not sure about that one. Gillispie was hired less than one month after Hocutt officially started as AD, and IIRC BCG's hire was being discussed in the media even before Hocutt started. I think he may have just had to sign off on that one. Either way, he followed that disaster up with another great hire in Tubby Smith. I know a lot of Tech fans bag on Tubby, mostly because of how he left, but he undeniably brought Tech basketball back from the dead and left a pretty full cupboard for Beard.

The girls basketball coach (the former Tech player) was a terrible hire and 100% on him, but anyway, now I know he's actually accomplished nothing, since any fool could've hired Beard and Tadlock and retained them after they've been wildly successful. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Lots of motherfucking laughs @ #2.

Of course he gets credit for Beard, but I don't think Kliff or his extension was totally his call and I have no idea if he was given free reign in hiring those coaches at Miami or what the circumstances there were. It is quite a different institution and athletic dept. than Tech. I just think it's stupid to criticize the guy who's hired the very best coaches Tech has ever had in 2 of the 4 major sports - best by a mile, that is. I know football is crucial for revenue, but there's no call for picking at Hocutt's track record in hiring coaches at this point. None at all. Tech athletics have never been this collectively strong across the board.

He's only hired one at Tech, and that was the guy roughly 99% of Tech fans wanted.

A., but by the slimmest of margins. C. would be anyone who uses the term "statist" unironically.

Cow farts hurr durr hurr durr

#rpikiller

The real questions are A. is UT with a new arena more attractive to Chris Beard himself than Texas Fucking Tech; and B. is Chris Beard as valuable to UT as he is to Texas Fucking Tech? We've got to wait until the UT job comes open to answer the first question, but the answer to the second is almost certainly no.

ClubWhatever - who called out your coach - seems to be a UT fan. The Tech contingent was only commenting on OSU's mouthy players.

Tech wins, 5-2 and sweeps Okie State.

"Palestine" in the Bible The names "Palestine" and "Palestina" occur four times in the Old Testament portion of the King James Bible (1611), the most influential English translation in history.