Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 12, 1990 TAG: 9004120048
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill brill
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Makes sense to me.
Turner, formerly an associate athletic director at Virginia, where he also once served as sports information director, is a Raleigh native and a graduate of North Carolina.
He's in something of a tough position at Connecticut, where his president, John Casteen, is departing to become the president at UVa.
Turner and his basketball coach, Jim Calhoun, are not exactly bosom buddies. Does this sound like Jim Copeland and Terry Holland? Actually, it isn't, because Holland never was interested in the limelight.
Turner has found dealing with the other Big East schools much different than the way it works in the ACC, where everybody is open.
Connecticut is the only state school among the Big East's nine members. Most of the schools are relatively small, Catholic institutions that simply aren't willing to make their financial numbers public - or, at least, available to other league members.
Georgetown, Turner said more than a year ago when Connecticut played at UVa, was the worst. It would be easier to get information out of the Pentagon, he suggested. There never has been a question that John Thompson's attitude is, "The less you know about my operation, the better."
Turner, Southern born and bred, would be happy to return to the ACC, but if he should get the job, he needs to be aware of the pitfalls.
One of the more troubling problems with intercollegiate athletics is that schools persist on making the same mistakes, over and over again. Too often, their administrators make moves that make no sense at all.
The present UVa basketball situation is a perfect example. If sportswriters could find out a number of major negatives about Rick Barnes in a matter of a few days, what was Jim Copeland doing for nine months?
N.C. State is in the process of making a similar mistake.
You would think that a school that has been unmercifully battered by a Raleigh newspaper for more than a year because of the way it ran its basketball program would have learned a lesson. Apparently not.
There appears to be a good chance that N.C. State will hire a successor to Jim Valvano before it hires the new athletic director. Or so soon thereafter that the new athletic won't have any input.
That is ludicrous. Like UVa, N.C. State need not rush into a coaching offer. The school's own restrictions, imposed before the NCAA probation hit this year, have ended any recruiting for '90-91. So what's the hurry?
Wouldn't it be logical to have the new athletic director hire the coach, or at least serve on the search committee? After all, how well the coach and athletic director work together will be vitally important to their success.
But N.C. State, which has an interim athletic director in Harold Hopfenburg and an interim chancellor in Larry Monteith, seems determined to fill both vacancies as soon as possible.
Whoever gets the athletic director's job is going to have major problems. The school is likely to see a drop of at least $1 million in contributions to the Wolfpack Club. Valvano was popular with his constituency, which, sadly, is far more interested in wins and losses than with graduation rates.
N.C. State is not alone in that respect. That is the attitude at most schools.
Boosters may have their priorities fouled up, but so do coaches. How else do you explain prominent coaches rising at their convention in Denver to support Tom Abatemarco, who wound up getting a spot on Joe Harrington's staff at Colorado.
I'd like to see how many Abatemarco recruits - at Maryland, Virginia Tech, N.C. State or Lamar - ever graduated. Coaches are too protective of their own.
UVa is lucky not to have Barnes, Abatemarco should be selling Brooklyn bridges and N.C. State should hire an athletic director and let him pick the coach.
Just thought you'd want to know.
by CNB