Free of charge, I’ll offer up one standard rule of thumb for any college director of athletics whose duties include hiring and firing coaches.
If you hire a coach away from another school that’s not the least bit sorry to see them gone, then you’ve probably made the wrong hire.
That’s why Pitt’s decision to hire Kevin Stallings two years ago after Jamie Dixon bolted for his alma mater of TCU never made a lick of sense to me.
I’m not all that up on Vanderbilt sports, but I did have the distinct impression that, outside of Stallings’ immediate family, there weren’t more than a half-dozen Commodore fans shedding any tears when Pitt poached him away. If I’m reading that wrong, I invite any Vandy folks to set me straight.
Stallings was at Vandy for 17 seasons, during which time he won 332 and lost 201. But it was his 138-142 mark against the SEC teams he was hired to compete against that eased any pain over his departure from Music City, USA.
Yeah, I know he made the NCAA Tournament seven times in those 17 seasons, but only once over his final four. He was also 56 years old and had, to my mind, shown pretty much everything he could do.
His highly unprepossessing two-year run at Pitt, again, to my mind, confirmed my suspicions. And today, Heather Lyke, the director of athletics at Pitt, confirmed that Stallings’ 24-41 record (4-32 against ACC competition) at the convergence of the Alleghany, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers was unacceptable.
It was, from all reports, unacceptable enough that Lyke and Pitt remain on the hook for a $10 million buyout owned to Stallings.
Unacceptable, to me, has always been a confusing word. Over my 25 years covering Wake athletics, I heard it used countless times to describe the performance of a team, player or coach.
I’ve heard it with increasing frequency over the past eight seasons of Deacon basketball.
And yet if the director of athletics and those he leans upon don’t do what is needed to change the course of events, aren’t they accepting just what has been deemed unacceptable?
Danny Manning, in his four years as head coach at Wake Forest, is 54-72 overall and 20-52 in ACC play. That’s an improvement over the records (51-76 and 17-51) his predecessor Jeff Bzdelik rang up over four years, only if you want to call it that.
Is a .278 winning percentage over four season against ACC competition acceptable at Wake? And if so, who is it acceptable to?
Over the next month or so we’ll all find out, and we’ll find out together.
My Take on Whatever 
It ain’t even close to being acceptable to this 40 year deacon fan! I’m sick of it! I use to attend games all the time and now I rarely if ever go. I went to 2 this year. The team is simply awful and the games are quite boring. I don’t even watch the televised games. I miss the days of Tacy, Odom and Prosser and who could forget “NazTDeac” Those we’re the days….
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Manning’s performance is unacceptable to me. I don’t care if he lost a couple of players before the season started. Three of his four seasons here have been unacceptable and last year wasn’t that great. The team likely could have won 11 games this season without a coach. The last 8 years of WF basketball have been hard to take and a number of my fellow fans have totally stopped coming to games.
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Some would say they did win eleven games this season without a coach.
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Dan – do you really expect a change at Wake this year?
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No Gary. I really don’t. Have no real inside info. Just my feeling from watching these past 8 years. Ron’s a proud guy and would hate having whiffed twice in a row. My bet is Danny gets a 5th year.
Would love to get your thoughts.
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He’ll get a fifth year because of the incoming class. Wake should have really good talent next year but I don’t see Manning doing anything with it. He’s way over his head in the ACC in my opinion
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I have mixed feelings about the Deacon coaching situation. How often can you change coaches and not expect to start over as the new coach could lose a year of recruiting and potentially lose those recruits already signed. Under the circumstances, I would hope Manning gets another year but no more without significant improvement. I have followed Wake Forest athletics for more than 65 years and I don’t have many more “wait till next year” opportunities left.
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Danny isn’t going anywhere. It’s NCAA or bust next year for this Deacon fan. Wake Basketball fans deserve better.
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