In a move that would have been akin to Mike Price taking over for Ty Willingham, Mike Montgomery is apparently going to become the next head coach at California.
While I’m surprised Montgomery made the jump across the bay after so many years at Stanford (most recently as assistant AD), frankly I’m more shocked that it took this long for Montgomery to get another job. I also wish it had been in a different conference, because he’s a heck of a coach that just made things that much more difficult for everyone else.
I was always surprised that his name didn’t surface more often in connection with job openings. Maybe it’s because he was content to keep drawing those massive checks from the Golden State Warriors for doing nothing and all the ADs knew it, or maybe it’s because he’s not a hot, young, up-and-coming coach in a profession infatuated by potential and “making a splash.”
Whatever it was, as the Bears have made an excellent hire that is sure to revive the dormant program. Montgomery won 30 games three times at Stanford, taking the Cardinal to the NCAA Tournament 12 times in 18 years. If he can do it under the kinds of restrictive admissions guidelines he worked with at Stanford, he certainly will bring a winner to Berkeley.
Bennett getting another raise
Back in Pullman, the WSU administration is doing everything it can to make sure the Cougs are contributing to that conference clout, announcing that they’re reworking Tony Bennett’s deal for the second consecutive year. It appears that Bennett wasn’t the one requesting it, and that we’re not really changing any of the terms other than compensation.
This just shows what a tremendous understanding President Floyd has of what athletics do for the stature of a university, no matter how much academics want to pretend it doesn’t matter. I love the aggression in terms of making sure our coach is happy (put well in this Daily Evergreen piece), but this is uncharted territory for WSU. I can’t help but wonder if we can keep doing this every year.
Can we keep this up? And what kind of precedent are we setting if, say, Paul Wulff somehow puts together an instant winner on the gridiron?
Those questions aside, I love that we’re taking our shot now and being proactive, rather than waiting until later to try and do just enough to keep him, as we’ve been wont to do in the past. When you get lightning in a bottle, you better do everything you can to keep it.
