Saturday, December 8, 2012

The $17 million roll of the dice

Doesn't look like Parx is getting any of Temple's business this time.

If your boss gave you $17 million to invest in some solid stock futures, would you instead hop in the car and drive up Route 1 to Parx Casino and throw it all on a crap table?
I didn't think so, but that's essentially what Temple's Board of Trustees gave Temple athletic direction Bill Bradshaw the day after Steve Addazio quit.
Edberg-Olson Hall is worth $17 million ($7 million in 2001, an additional $10 million this year) and, if Temple gave the head coaching job to an assistant coach who never held the clipboard as a head coach in battle before, that's a pretty expensive roll of the dice.
That assistant could become a Temple head coach and stay five years and go 3-9 each year or worse or go 9-3 or better.
You don't know. I don't know. Nobody knows.
If it is the lower number, the E-O might as well be padlocked after five years because nobody will come to watch the Owls play and $17 million will be essentially wasted.
These are just the candidates mentioned in the media.

A current head coach, though, with a head-coaching record of excellence, is like a solid stock future. There's no better predictor of future success than past success.
Loyal TFF reader Steve Sipe sent me five spreadsheets of data analyzing the possible candidates and I've published his experience chart here. To me, that's the most important qualification for Temple right now.
Fortunately, there's no indication Bradshaw is considering getting in the car and heading up to Parx any time soon.
In fact, the quotes by Bradshaw in this morning's Inquirer are downright encouraging. Without saying he's ruling out hiring a current assistant, it certainly looks like he's leaning that way.
On whether or not he's leaning toward hiring an assistant, like Addazio and Al Golden were:
"Some people will say you are going to get another Al Golden, another Steve," Bradshaw said. "I will say this is a different need, a different time in place."
 And ....
 "I have not restricted [the job] to that," Bradshaw said of hiring someone with prior head-coaching experience. "But somebody as a head coach, who's been successful as a head coach and recruiting has an advantage. No question."
Whew.
Players have walked off the Who Wants to Be A Millionaire TV show with a lot less money at stake than $17 million.
When it comes to the question of hiring an assistant coach, I think I'll walk, Meredith.
Looks like Temple will, too.
Based on Steve Sipe's analysis, Mike MacIntyre should be next TU coach. (Couldn't fit the recruiting areas part in there, but it is weighted on the left.)

Tomorrow: The Harold Stassen of Temple head coaching candidates