A Jersey Guy: BC Search List Lacks Color
Boston College Athletic Director Pat Kraft''s initial list of coaching candidates as a replacement for recently fired men's basketball coach Jim Christian reveals two disturbing trends: tone deafness and color blindness.
According to sources at BC, the list includes a variety of names, with a vast range of experience and backgrounds, including connections with Boston College.
It should also be noted that it is very much an initial list, which was described as a "work in progress''.
Included, without a priority label, are:
1. Former Michigan Coach: John Beilein.
2. Michigan Assistant Coach: Howard Eisley
3. Loyola Chicago Head Coach: Porter Moser
4. St. Bonaventure Head Coach: Mark Schmidt
5. VCU Head Coach: Mike Rhodes
6. Minnesota Head Coach: Richard Pitino
7. UMBC Head Coach: Ryan Odom
This list is intriguing for a variety of reasons, with its lack of diversity jumping off the page, particularly so right now because BC is dealing with racism allegations on campus as well as an administration which is also lacking in diversity.
Of that initial list, the only minority candidate is Eisley, a former BC basketball player, who has spent the past two seasons as an assistant at Michigan.
Also notable was the absence of Harvard coach Tommy Amaker, who has been in the discussion for openings at BC twice in the last 10 years and Cleveland State coach Dennis Gates, whose wife is the senior women's administrator in the BC athletic department.
Whether either Amaker or Gates has been included in later lists remains in question.
Each candidate has pluses and minuses, but the diversity issue becomes the prime topic if BC administrators are anywhere close to understanding the current culture of the BC campus.
Beilein is intriguing because he has most impressive resume, a proven winner, including Michigan. But he is also 69 years old and coming off a nasty quick exit from a stint as the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The other question is whether Beilein wants to be part of a reconstruction project at BC, which also has other academic and athletic obstacles to overcome. His return to coaching might be more suited to potential openings at schools in the Midwest such as Marquette or Indiana, both of which might become available in the next several weeks.
Eisley's main obstacle was lack of head coaching or any college coaching experience. He has done well in his two years as an assistant, gives BC both a coach familiar with the school and a minority hire.
The lack of head coaching experience may be mitigated if Eisley brings his former BC coach Jim O'Brien back in the role of 'veteran assistant coach'' a role filled at Michigan by former Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli, who is the top assistant for Juwan Howard, another rookie head coach when hired two years ago.
The only road block to that scenario is that O'Brien and BC President Father William Leahy had a contentious relationship at the end of O'Brien's tenure as BC's coach.
Moser's connection to Kraft is the most obvious. The two men worked together at Loyola a few years ago, but Moser also might be looking for the same jobs that could open in the Midwest as Beilein.
Schmidt is another BC alum whose coaching credentials are solid and has flirted with BC in the past.
Whether the atmosphere to hire a middle-aged white coach at BC could be an issue.
Rhodes, Pitino and Odom are wild-cards with questionable connections to BC.
Odom's claim to fame is that he is the son of former Wake Forest head coach Dave Odom and was the coach at UMBC a few years ago when it became the first No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 (Virginia) in the NCAA tournament.
How this evolves is still in doubt because the search process is still in its initial stages, but if the diversity issue is regarded seriously at BC, then Eisley (with O''Brien)