Austin gained about 180,000 people between the 2010 census and the 2019 estimate. That's 22% The place is growing crazy fast. Not only is Austin blue, but Texas is heading that way as well.
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I really didn’t have much of an issue of promoting Ricketts if you were going the assistant route and not pull a sitting HC like UM. She was established enough in the softball community that a HC job was coming to her at some point. Being a SEC job as her first was a huge risk though. To be fair, Vann would have been the same. We have problem pulling actual immediate help in recruits that can compete in the SEC. The rankings are a bigger crap shoot in softball than most other sports. So evaluation and development has to be at an extremely high level. The best player in the state over the last few years is just committed to Washington, the one before that went to Bama, etc. When we do have a player that can come in and help from the state, we can’t get them.
In WBB he did NOT make the in house hire in a program that was rolling and is so far getting about the same kind of result. So in the softball program which was mediocre we hire from within, yet with the WBB program that was elite we apparently had to go find new blood. Hmm... neither is working. Think maybe Cohen got it backwards??
I would love to how many hires men / women doesn’t matter the sport, hired an assistant of the same coach he just fired..
I’m guessing not many ..
and I don’t mean a HC that stepped down, was asked to step down, retired , or left for another program...
Actually fired.
Again it’s just softball , I really don’t care but it shows to me how lazy of an hire it was and his inability to make a good hire.
Softball would have been a perfect time to go outside the box , hire someone from anywhere , a new face , some new blood..
Hell With all the top Softball programs in the SEC my first choice would have been there for an assistant.. somewhere where winning was in the culture..
He is a micromanager on roids and is trying his best to interject woke political beliefs onto the current staff. I won't get into a lot of it but let's just say he is starting to get some pushback on how he is running the department.
Apparantly you did not listen to the recent podcast interview with Vic wherein he stated that Texas is getting to ready to invest about $140 million in a new arena with separate offices, practice facilities, training facilities, etc., etc. for both men's and women's BB teams. Vic said there is nothing out there that's even close to it, nothing comparable anywhere. So, it's about more than salary/benefits. We were always going to be outspent by Texas if they decided to in meant something to them. No way about 99% of the rest of the country could either.
As far as why Vic left, I've heard that one of his players, who was still here this year under the NMP disaster, had an overbearing Mom, who would come down to the 1st row behind the home bench and yell at the coach for not playing her daughter. And that it all started during the 2019/2020 season, while Vic was still here, and he was tired of dealing with it. And instead of kicking the girl off the team, he decided to leave it behind and make it become someone else's problem.
Again. That's what I've heard, but cannot confirm it. One of the 1st 2 girls that entered the transfer portal, it was one of those 2 that had the problem mother. Not sure which it is, but I have an idea.
When you compare what OM did with Women basketball and softball hires, Cohen looks like a total loser ass AD. Carter did better with his first football hire too.
Go talk to the former W. Golf coach... go talk to some assistants about how he tries to interject things at practice of other sports.
The problem with hiring a mildly successful former coach as an AD is they think they know more than the people they hire
Name one sport we are better at right now since Cohen took over.
Basketball doesn't make money. Title 9 requirements prevent schools form doing it also. Now, our football is bad, basketball is bad, baseball is disappointing to this point. Give me a final four in any sport. Give me a World Series. I just want to win. Watching us lose or run middle of the pack bores me at times. And that extra $500K you save won't change a damn thing.
You think saving .01% (this is the high side of what was supposedly requested by those 2 coaches) of our athletic budget would have had any type of negative impact to our revenue sport’s? Let’s be real now. I don’t have a problem with letting one of them walk/fired because it was time to make a change but penny pinching to that degree is LT like.
We have one of the best golf facilities in the country - so that means the W Golf coach asked for more money? Sounds like we made a good move to hire a coach for whom money won't be an issue, and got a 2 for 1 deal with his LPGA star wife as a volunteer assistant coach.
What?
In Lemonis's only completed season, we went 20-10 in the SEC, hosted and won a Regional, hosted an won a Super Regional, and made it to Omaha. It was arguably our best season as a program since 1990, unless you put a whole lot of weight in coming in 2nd in Omaha (after 16-14 in the SEC) vs. 5th.
That doesn't mean he'll continue to be great, but so far he's exceeded any reasonable expectations, even the high ones we have here.