Quote:
Originally Posted by hoosierdude
Hey, if you feel like you have pretty much done all you can at Lafayette, Penn St is not a bad opportunity. Going to be tough road for while, but, if you do it, I will be interested to see how you/staff move to Nittany Lions, and how things work out. Good Luck no matter what you decide.  |
You hit on the question I'm asking myself too, hoosierdude. We've made a Final Four, and if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't think about leaving. There
are things I haven't accomplished at Lafayette. We've never been ranked in the Top Ten. We've never signed a four- or five-star recruit. And while making a Final Four was incredibly satisfying, it also makes me want to take the last two steps and cut down the nets.
It's Father's Day, so I decided to ask my daughter what she thinks. She likes basketball, and she occasionally sits beside me on the couch while I play FBCB. She voted "stay at Lafayette."
I seemed to remember that the "real" Lafayette College had a long-tenured men's basketball coach, so I looked it up, and I was right.
Fran O'Hanlon came to Lafayette in 1995 and retired after the 2022 season. That's 27 seasons, and it appears Coach O'Hanlon turned down numerous offers to go elsewhere. O'Hanlon is also a Villanova alumnus, like Coach Sims--a fact of which I wasn't aware when I created my coaching alter ego.
Bob McKillop built an even longer and more storied legacy at Davidson before retiring at the end of the 2022 season. Both O'Hanlon and McKillop are institutions at their respective universities, with good reason.
"Young coach climbs the ladder to a national powerhouse" can be a compelling, entertaining story. So can "Young coach builds a program and leads it for decades." I think I'm going to try to write the latter story with Coach Sims.
There is one job I'll most definitely consider if it ever becomes available. If Villanova ever offers Graham the opportunity to return to his alma mater, it would be very, very difficult to turn it down.
But, for now, Coach Sims will remain at Lafayette.