Joe Paterno’s ouster at Penn State brought this to mind.
Not long ago, there were a LOT of college football and basketball coaches who were icons, who were almost synonymous with their universities- arguably BIGGER than their school’s programs, even bigger than their schools themselves.
Joe Paterno was such a man. Bear Bryant was, at Alabama. Bobby Knight used to be, at Indiana. Arguably Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, Dean Smith, and John Wooden.
Now, there are still MANY highly paid, highly esteemed coaches at many colleges, but no matter how well Nick Saban does at Alabama, he’ll never be the Bear. Even a great coach at Indiana will never be what Bobby Knight once was.
Is Mike Kryzewski the last college coach left wit the kind of stature Joe Paterno had? Or are there others I’m missing?
And finally, do you think any coach can ever have that kind of stature again?
What about Tom Izzo at MSU? It’s been his only head coaching job. He has 6 Final Four’s and a National Championship.
MSU wouldn’t think of firing him. Although he did have several conversations with the NBA but it looks like MSU will be his only head coaching job. His extended family is entrenched in the Lansing area so his wife doesn’t want him to relocate to anywhere else.
As far as up and comers go, ahead of coach Cal but behind Izzo, I’d add:
JTIII’s been at georgetown for the past 7 seasons and looks like to extend the Thompson dynasty for decades to come.
Bob Stoops has been at OU for a dozen years already, and Mack Brown a baker’s dozen. As high as the stakes are for both schools, I don’t see them going anywhere anytime soon.
Roy Williams is interesting because I can easily identify him both with Kansas and UNC, and he’s been at both schools for a good while.
The thing about Cal at Kentucky is that Kentucky basketball will never be synonymous with him. Kentucky basketball has always been, and will always be, Rupp’s. It’s like Roy Williams at UNC: he has as many titles as Dean Smith, but Carolina Basketball will forever be Smith’s program. Bubas and Foster went to Final Fours with Duke, but K has put an indelible stamp on the program. Izzo is an interesting case: Judd Heathcoate won a title there with Magic back in '79, but Izzo might attain “synonymity” stature in a few more years.
Boeheim at Syracuse and Calhoun at UConn are good examples: they built those programs. To be an über-coach, you have to be a program builder. You have to be the guy they name the courts, fields, stadia and roads after.
A coach like Mack Brown doesn’t really cut it at UT: he’s maintaining a program built by Royal. The stadium is named after one of those two, and will never be named after the other. At OSU, they’re never going to change Woody Hayes Road to Urban Meyer Road.
The Spartans love Heathcote and for good reason. He delivered the first championship and he is truly a good guy. But he did have Magic Johnson. Jud didn’t like recruiting, he liked coaching. Also from the recruiting standpoint he was up against one of the most corrupt programs in the history of college basketball. There was no way Jud was going to get a top recruit out of the Detroit public schools as long as Ed Martin and UofM had the lock on. That’s why MSU moved their recruiting efforts to Flint, MI. It paid off.
All that being said, Izzo, with 6 Final Fours and a championship has a job for life short of a PSU type scandal. Izzo is very conscientious of his image. He won’t hang out in bars. Last season he cut loose his best player for disciplinary reasons which he could ill afford to do.
He has made the MSU basketball program his program. When he retires he will be considered the best basketball coach in MSU history while it looks like Magic will always be the best player. That’s doesn’t diminish Heathcote in the least. I thing that Jud would say the same thing.
Agreed with the other posters about Boeheim and Calhoun. How could they be forgotten, they are on the same level as Coach K. Both are going to finish with over 900 wins. Calhoun has 3 championships