Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Izulde Jestor the Wanderer

Izulde · 01-23-2011, 11:18 PM

...Not the best logo on the planet, but it's what I'll be under for at least the next year.

So, some facts about Bryant University. It was founded in 1863 and is a small (3,370 undergraduates, 224 graduates) private liberal arts college whose three masters programs are all in the business field. As you might expect from its graduate degrees, the university's known for business and was listed as one of the Top Undergraduate Business Programs by Business Week. As for its athletics program, 22 D-I sports, including football, which surprised me a bit.

The Bulldogs compete in the Northeast conference, made up of:

Bryant
Central Connecticut State
Fairleigh Dickinson
Long Island
Monmouth
Mount St. Mary's
Quinnipac
Robert Morris
Sacred Heart
St. Francis (NY)
St. Francis (PA)
Wagner

The Northeast is a one bid conference, although for some strange reason, I remember one of the years Monmouth won the tournament. I think I watched the conference tournament final and I thought to myself that Monmouth's court looked like a high school gymnasium. Sounds about right for this level.

News of my hiring was met with a collective shrug. But then again, it makes sense that nobody would care about this bottom-feeder team.

A few It's A Small World notes:
1) I have a friend who works in IT at Central Connecticut
2) Smithfield, RI, where Bryant is located, is 12 miles outside of Providence. Two of my roommates in Las Vegas were both from Providence and both attended the University of Rhode Island, albeit at different times. Both were also poets.

Sven and Lucy, the two poets, have both said they'll visit me next time they're back in Rhode Island. It'll be nice to see them again.

To say that I experienced culture shock after I formally moved to Rhode Island, with the help of my mom, my uncle, and my aunt (Dad stayed home in Wisconsin to watch the dogs), would be a minor understatement. Smithfield feels very Lilliputian after Las Vegas, and in fact feels a lot like Cornell, Wisconsin, even though 20,000+ is still a lot bigger than the minuscule population of that Northwestern Wisconsin town.

But, like Mom said, this is the opportunity for me to live a dream and who knows? Maybe in two or three years, a school from a bigger city will come calling.

Anyway, first things first, which was to assemble a coaching staff. That's not as easy as it sounds. I realized, as I was posting advertisements for it, that I've never actually been in a position where I've had to make a hiring decision. Assign grades? Sure. Set starting lineups and substitutions? Yeah. Interview people? Yep, did that too, mostly during a very brief stint at the University of Wyoming's student rag as a sports writer. Hire somebody? Not at all.

It's hard. There's only three coaching spots available and I have to determine who to interview in the first place, and then based on the question and answer sessions, who to offer those rare, precious spots to. It's a big responsibility, though I have to admit, it feels damn cool being on the other side of the table as it were.

We have a team budget of $155,000. Funny story about that, by the way. Or not so funny.

I discovered, much to my horror, that our jerseys don't have names on the back. As a sports fan, jerseys with no names has always been my biggest pet peeve. It makes it hard to tell who is who, especially in football, and it just doesn't feel as special not to see the names there, proudly proclaiming who you are and what team you belong to.

So I called Matt Schwarzwald, the fellow Delta Sig I mentioned last time.

"Hey, Schwarzy? Izulde here. Yeah, I uh just looked at the uniforms and noticed they don't have names on them. Can we get names put on them?"

He laughed, actually laughed.

"You realize how small the budget is? Tell you what, you get this team to a .500 record, and I'll find the money for you to get your names."

"Conference or overall?"

"Overall. Good luck."

So there you have it. We're stuck without names for the time being.

Anyway, like I was saying, we have a $155,000 budget. Sounds like a lot of cash, but I have to hire my assistants and do all of our recruiting for the entire year out of that money. That means I can only afford to pay each assistant $30,000 a year.

After weeks and weeks of this long, tedious, grueling process, I send out my first three offers. Two of them reject me immediately to take positions at South Dakota and USC-Upstate. Lovely. Although I offered one to be my recruiting coordinator and the other my scouting director, both took scout jobs.

Rejection #3. Backup recruiting coordinator goes to IPFW for the same job spot.

Rejection #4. Backup scouting director takes the same spot at Stony Brook.

Rejection #5. Top coaching assistant choice takes it at Coppin State.

Rejection #6. 3rd string recruiter to South Dakota, the second guy to do that. I made a mental note to schedule South Dakota and kick some Jackrabbit ass.

Rejection #7. 3rd string scout to Grambling State.

Rejection #8, 9, 10. Prairie View A&M, conference foe St. Francis (PA) in a real nutkicker, and Winston-Salem.

And then finally, all at once. It happened.

All three job offers were accepted. I finally had a coaching staff of my own.

Cortez Evan (46) - Recruiting Coordinator
He continued the growing trend of people who laugh when I'm not trying to be funny when I rambled on about how excited I was he took the position. Middle-aged Hispanic guy with more charm than I have. Not that it's saying much.

Malcolm Chance (28) - Scouting Director
Played college ball at Campbell a few years ago and just now breaking into college basketball coaching after serving as a graduate assistant with the Camels and doing some high school assistant coaching. Honestly, he could make it either as a recruiter or a scout. Continues the minority theme of my coach hiring, since he's black.

John Burdick (44) - Coaching Assistant
Interesting story John has. Grew up in Manhattan Beach, California, but went to Southern Mississippi of all schools because his family's originally from there. The only one of our guys with head coaching experience, he was coaching a high school in New Hampshire (He's lived as many places as I have), and doing a damn good job of it, taking them to the state playoffs for quite a few years in a row. I don't think he'll be here long; bigger schools are bound to come calling. Oh, and he breaks my minority trend, being white.

No surprise that we didn't get invited to any tournaments, although I'd liked to have gone.

On to scheduling. South Dakota accepts my offer for a game. I can't wait to play them and show those two jackasses who dissed me they made the wrong choice.

Summer Recruiting
So, things got off to an awkward start, and it had nothing to do with players. It happened when I was talking to Cortez about travel plans and all of that.

Me: "So, um, Cortez, you can go with me on all the recruiting trips, except for the major cities, right?"
Cortez: "Um, why?"
Me: "...I don't drive."
Cortez: "...What?"

Needless to say, it ended in Cortez getting his second loud and long laugh of his employment at my expense. Only this time, he laughed so hard he literally cried. I made him swear not to tell Malcolm or John, which was pretty stupid, since they'll figure it out anyway. In the end, he agreed, with more laughter and a few smart ass remarks I won't repeat here.

We have four scholarships this first season. We're graduating three guards and a big man, our biggest guy on the roster at that.

"So what's your plan of attack?", Cortez asks me when we meet later that week to go over things.

"We don't have much money, so we'll stay local. Guys need to be able to at least handle the ball, if not pass. I hate turnovers more than anything. Other than that, I prefer height in the post. Guards who can steal, bigs who can rebound and block shots."

"And defense? Shooting? Those things are kind of important too, you know."

I shrug, "Eh, fuck it. Low turnovers plus rebounding plus turnover generation equals second chance points and controlling the game."

At least this time he only chuckles.

"Oh, one other thing. I don't want these guys flunking out like I did at two schools. So what do you say to a 2.5 GPA and a 1000 SAT score? That should be easy enough to do with the new SAT format, right?"

Cortez has his turn to shrug, "You're the boss."

Yeah. I am. I am the boss. He better not forget it, either. Not that I could fire him. I've failed students, referred cheaters to judicial boards, all of that. Never actually fired anybody. Hell, I had a hard enough time getting a staff together in the first place.

One final stipulation I came up with. High schoolers only. I don't mind transferring guys from other schools, and will probably end up doing that. But at least there, I have some sort of statistical baseline to work with, rather than trying to figure out the junior college conversion rate.

I'm stunned to discover there are actually good players out there who are interested in Bryant. Seems news of my unusual hiring generated some buzz after all.

I know I planned to wait and see what the scouting reports brought back and I know we need a big and guards, but when 6'6 Thomas Hernandez, Rhode Island's Mr. Basketball, is on the General Netball Ratings Interest Catalogue (GeNeRIC) as having High interest in us, I immediately send a scholarship letter.

Ditto Hollis Odum, a point guard whose 4.45 A/TO ratio and All-State Connecticut status have me convinced he's the real deal, sight unseen.

We also come up with a sliding scale with some give to it. If a kid is over 1000 on his SAT but is just short of the 2.5 GPA, or he's over 2.5 and he's in the 900s on his SAT, then we'll accept him. But players who are just short in both categories, such as New Hampshire's Mr. Basketball, Cletus Toole, won't be contacted by us, although I do put him on the watch list to see where he goes.

17 players made our initial call list, and although I was sorely tempted to break my academic rule to a 2.43 GPA, 1000 SAT 7 footer, I decided my first year was too soon to start making those kinds of exceptions.

Bad news came back after the first month. Thomas Hernandez and Hollis Odum got scholarship offers from Brown and Hartford respectively, and GeNeRIC had those schools both #1, ahead of us.

We have only $6,500 a month to recruit with, and because of NCAA-mandated minimum expenditures for each recruiting activity, we need to decide.

Do we go all in on Hernandez and/or Odum? Or do we forget those 3 star gems and dip into the 2 star recruits we actually might have a better chance with?

Tough decision to make.

01-23-2011, 11:18 PM	#2
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	...Not the best logo on the planet, but it's what I'll be under for at least the next year. So, some facts about Bryant University. It was founded in 1863 and is a small (3,370 undergraduates, 224 graduates) private liberal arts college whose three masters programs are all in the business field. As you might expect from its graduate degrees, the university's known for business and was listed as one of the Top Undergraduate Business Programs by Business Week. As for its athletics program, 22 D-I sports, including football, which surprised me a bit. The Bulldogs compete in the Northeast conference, made up of: Bryant Central Connecticut State Fairleigh Dickinson Long Island Monmouth Mount St. Mary's Quinnipac Robert Morris Sacred Heart St. Francis (NY) St. Francis (PA) Wagner The Northeast is a one bid conference, although for some strange reason, I remember one of the years Monmouth won the tournament. I think I watched the conference tournament final and I thought to myself that Monmouth's court looked like a high school gymnasium. Sounds about right for this level. News of my hiring was met with a collective shrug. But then again, it makes sense that nobody would care about this bottom-feeder team. A few It's A Small World notes: 1) I have a friend who works in IT at Central Connecticut 2) Smithfield, RI, where Bryant is located, is 12 miles outside of Providence. Two of my roommates in Las Vegas were both from Providence and both attended the University of Rhode Island, albeit at different times. Both were also poets. Sven and Lucy, the two poets, have both said they'll visit me next time they're back in Rhode Island. It'll be nice to see them again. To say that I experienced culture shock after I formally moved to Rhode Island, with the help of my mom, my uncle, and my aunt (Dad stayed home in Wisconsin to watch the dogs), would be a minor understatement. Smithfield feels very Lilliputian after Las Vegas, and in fact feels a lot like Cornell, Wisconsin, even though 20,000+ is still a lot bigger than the minuscule population of that Northwestern Wisconsin town. But, like Mom said, this is the opportunity for me to live a dream and who knows? Maybe in two or three years, a school from a bigger city will come calling. Anyway, first things first, which was to assemble a coaching staff. That's not as easy as it sounds. I realized, as I was posting advertisements for it, that I've never actually been in a position where I've had to make a hiring decision. Assign grades? Sure. Set starting lineups and substitutions? Yeah. Interview people? Yep, did that too, mostly during a very brief stint at the University of Wyoming's student rag as a sports writer. Hire somebody? Not at all. It's hard. There's only three coaching spots available and I have to determine who to interview in the first place, and then based on the question and answer sessions, who to offer those rare, precious spots to. It's a big responsibility, though I have to admit, it feels damn cool being on the other side of the table as it were. We have a team budget of $155,000. Funny story about that, by the way. Or not so funny. I discovered, much to my horror, that our jerseys don't have names on the back. As a sports fan, jerseys with no names has always been my biggest pet peeve. It makes it hard to tell who is who, especially in football, and it just doesn't feel as special not to see the names there, proudly proclaiming who you are and what team you belong to. So I called Matt Schwarzwald, the fellow Delta Sig I mentioned last time. "Hey, Schwarzy? Izulde here. Yeah, I uh just looked at the uniforms and noticed they don't have names on them. Can we get names put on them?" He laughed, actually laughed. "You realize how small the budget is? Tell you what, you get this team to a .500 record, and I'll find the money for you to get your names." "Conference or overall?" "Overall. Good luck." So there you have it. We're stuck without names for the time being. Anyway, like I was saying, we have a $155,000 budget. Sounds like a lot of cash, but I have to hire my assistants and do all of our recruiting for the entire year out of that money. That means I can only afford to pay each assistant $30,000 a year. After weeks and weeks of this long, tedious, grueling process, I send out my first three offers. Two of them reject me immediately to take positions at South Dakota and USC-Upstate. Lovely. Although I offered one to be my recruiting coordinator and the other my scouting director, both took scout jobs. Rejection #3. Backup recruiting coordinator goes to IPFW for the same job spot. Rejection #4. Backup scouting director takes the same spot at Stony Brook. Rejection #5. Top coaching assistant choice takes it at Coppin State. Rejection #6. 3rd string recruiter to South Dakota, the second guy to do that. I made a mental note to schedule South Dakota and kick some Jackrabbit ass. Rejection #7. 3rd string scout to Grambling State. Rejection #8, 9, 10. Prairie View A&M, conference foe St. Francis (PA) in a real nutkicker, and Winston-Salem. And then finally, all at once. It happened. All three job offers were accepted. I finally had a coaching staff of my own. Cortez Evan (46) - Recruiting Coordinator He continued the growing trend of people who laugh when I'm not trying to be funny when I rambled on about how excited I was he took the position. Middle-aged Hispanic guy with more charm than I have. Not that it's saying much. Malcolm Chance (28) - Scouting Director Played college ball at Campbell a few years ago and just now breaking into college basketball coaching after serving as a graduate assistant with the Camels and doing some high school assistant coaching. Honestly, he could make it either as a recruiter or a scout. Continues the minority theme of my coach hiring, since he's black. John Burdick (44) - Coaching Assistant Interesting story John has. Grew up in Manhattan Beach, California, but went to Southern Mississippi of all schools because his family's originally from there. The only one of our guys with head coaching experience, he was coaching a high school in New Hampshire (He's lived as many places as I have), and doing a damn good job of it, taking them to the state playoffs for quite a few years in a row. I don't think he'll be here long; bigger schools are bound to come calling. Oh, and he breaks my minority trend, being white. No surprise that we didn't get invited to any tournaments, although I'd liked to have gone. On to scheduling. South Dakota accepts my offer for a game. I can't wait to play them and show those two jackasses who dissed me they made the wrong choice. Summer Recruiting So, things got off to an awkward start, and it had nothing to do with players. It happened when I was talking to Cortez about travel plans and all of that. Me: "So, um, Cortez, you can go with me on all the recruiting trips, except for the major cities, right?" Cortez: "Um, why?" Me: "...I don't drive." Cortez: "...What?" Needless to say, it ended in Cortez getting his second loud and long laugh of his employment at my expense. Only this time, he laughed so hard he literally cried. I made him swear not to tell Malcolm or John, which was pretty stupid, since they'll figure it out anyway. In the end, he agreed, with more laughter and a few smart ass remarks I won't repeat here. We have four scholarships this first season. We're graduating three guards and a big man, our biggest guy on the roster at that. "So what's your plan of attack?", Cortez asks me when we meet later that week to go over things. "We don't have much money, so we'll stay local. Guys need to be able to at least handle the ball, if not pass. I hate turnovers more than anything. Other than that, I prefer height in the post. Guards who can steal, bigs who can rebound and block shots." "And defense? Shooting? Those things are kind of important too, you know." I shrug, "Eh, fuck it. Low turnovers plus rebounding plus turnover generation equals second chance points and controlling the game." At least this time he only chuckles. "Oh, one other thing. I don't want these guys flunking out like I did at two schools. So what do you say to a 2.5 GPA and a 1000 SAT score? That should be easy enough to do with the new SAT format, right?" Cortez has his turn to shrug, "You're the boss." Yeah. I am. I am the boss. He better not forget it, either. Not that I could fire him. I've failed students, referred cheaters to judicial boards, all of that. Never actually fired anybody. Hell, I had a hard enough time getting a staff together in the first place. One final stipulation I came up with. High schoolers only. I don't mind transferring guys from other schools, and will probably end up doing that. But at least there, I have some sort of statistical baseline to work with, rather than trying to figure out the junior college conversion rate. I'm stunned to discover there are actually good players out there who are interested in Bryant. Seems news of my unusual hiring generated some buzz after all. I know I planned to wait and see what the scouting reports brought back and I know we need a big and guards, but when 6'6 Thomas Hernandez, Rhode Island's Mr. Basketball, is on the General Netball Ratings Interest Catalogue (GeNeRIC) as having High interest in us, I immediately send a scholarship letter. Ditto Hollis Odum, a point guard whose 4.45 A/TO ratio and All-State Connecticut status have me convinced he's the real deal, sight unseen. We also come up with a sliding scale with some give to it. If a kid is over 1000 on his SAT but is just short of the 2.5 GPA, or he's over 2.5 and he's in the 900s on his SAT, then we'll accept him. But players who are just short in both categories, such as New Hampshire's Mr. Basketball, Cletus Toole, won't be contacted by us, although I do put him on the watch list to see where he goes. 17 players made our initial call list, and although I was sorely tempted to break my academic rule to a 2.43 GPA, 1000 SAT 7 footer, I decided my first year was too soon to start making those kinds of exceptions. Bad news came back after the first month. Thomas Hernandez and Hollis Odum got scholarship offers from Brown and Hartford respectively, and GeNeRIC had those schools both #1, ahead of us. We have only $6,500 a month to recruit with, and because of NCAA-mandated minimum expenditures for each recruiting activity, we need to decide. Do we go all in on Hernandez and/or Odum? Or do we forget those 3 star gems and dip into the 2 star recruits we actually might have a better chance with? Tough decision to make. __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)