pchrystie
Masters Student
Posts: 673
Reg: 03-14-06
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06-03-12 07:52 AM - Post#129671
In response to Bruno
Not sure I understand the obsession w/previous HC experience. The two worst coaches in Penn, and perhaps Division I, history both had HC experience and yet proceeded to drive the program to depths unthought of.
At the same time, one can come up with any number of coaches who had significant success in their first HC jobs (Pat Riley, Andy Reid). I'm not saying that Mike is those guys, but you won't know until you hire him.
And (and I don't mean this with my usual Penn disdain), Brown is not Kansas. So if Kansas can hire someone (Roy Williams) without HC experience and it can turn out OK, perhaps Brown can too.
Others have covered the hard work, turnaround, designing plays, blah, blah blah. My kudos is that Mike is not the same coach as he was when he came to Penn, and that's a good thing. He's shown an ability to grow and learn and improve (something that his "mentor" was not able to do).
Finally, while I think Mike is a great hire for Brown, keep your expectations realistic. You might not like the facilities as an excuse, but neither of your "great successes" at HC won a title (and this was when Harvard was a non-factor and one or both Ps were non-factors), and one left with an overall losing record at Brown (including his last two years, so you can't blame the record on the bad team he inherited). I do think that Mike will be a good coach, but turning water into wine might be above his pay grade.
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