One reality to consider here is that this is a very important hire for David Sayler’s career.
He cannot afford to make another mistake after Owens.Cleve Wright and Hendrix. He needs another Duffy.
Sayler probably figured that with his early fundraising success at Miami he would be long gone by now to a better job. He is undoubtedly still at Miami because of our failure to really make a name in the high profile sports. You can argue that we have gotten respectable in football but it is still ia long way from the Miami of the past. Men’s BB, hockey and Women’s BB have been abysmal except for the Megan Duffy years.
Hiring Jermaine with his record carries a lot of downside if it does not work out. Despite all of the support for Jermaine on this board if it does not work out there are going to be many who will say “Why did he hire Jermaine? He should have known better.”
I like Jermaine but I think hiring him would not do any favors for Sayler’s career. The initial reaction beyond Miami would be “that is the best they can do?”. “They could not get anyone else to take the job?” That is the reality.
Yes, if Jermaine got it turned around Sayler would be a massive hero. Think Tom Butters at Duke when he hired Coach K.
If it did not work out Sayler might find it difficult to ever get another AD job and he might not keep the one he has.
Those are high stakes.
Sayler could probably survive bombing out on Travis Steele, Bruce Weber, Phil Martelli or Saddi Washington. I am not sure the same can be said of Jermaine at this point in his career.
I think this hire will either keep Sayler here for many years to come (he’s not getting fired), or it’ll catapult him to a better job. I don’t think it matters who it is, it needs to be a success.
Couldn’t you do the same thing for Steele? Before Steele got promoted, Xavier had only missed 1 NCAA tournament since 2006 and had been .500 or better every year in the Big East. With Steele, Xavier never made the NCAAs, was below .500 the last 3 years in conference despite 3 Top 20 recruiting classes.
I think you’d feel a lot differently if you were in school while Hendue was assistant coach.
There is a clear delineation between those who have seen/played for Coach Henderson and those who have interacted with him in any way. There was a reason that he was a finalist last time around.
Chet Mason has really been pushing hard on social media for Jermaine. I looked through the comments and “likes” to see who I saw. There are former administrators, former football players (a really big number), and so many basketball players. I knew he had some support but I was honestly surprised at some of the names I saw supporting him. I didn’t expect to see Dwight McCombs and Allen Roberts.
LaxDaddy makes some excellent points which I tend to agree with…a Jermaine Henderson hire would resound well within much of the Miami insider community, but will undoubtedly be seen as a bit of a “Ho-hum” move outside of Miami circles. Another assistant Coach who has only seen one winning season on staff in a decade.
So, from this perspective of it’s another failure, it will put a lot of heat on Sayler.
Even though a Steele hire may also prove unsuccessful, Sayler would get credit for going a new route, and presumably lining up money to pay for a HC coming from an elite hoops program.
All this said, I will defer to those of you that know Jermaine on a personal level, so if he’s hired I’d be OK with that (not that my opinion means a whit), but not terribly excited about it.
To me, no. I’m not taking the opinion of a former NFL S&C coach who hasn’t been at Miami, dealt with basketball, or done anything at the collegiate level in 16 years. I know everyone loves to pretend like Miami is some crazy, unique situation, but it really isn’t.
Henderson can build durable relationships. That’s very clear. Going after someone who was successful 20 years ago is the most Tennessee/Texas mindset. There’s nothing that shows Henderson’s success with millennials can translate to Gen Z. No 18 year old is going to be clamoring to go to Miami because we hired Henderson. We love to pretend like the game and athletes stay the same, but let’s be honest, it doesn’t. Football is posting fishing graphics daily to get the attention of kids. They tweeting about a “player of the day” during spring ball. That never happened a decade ago.
There’s got to be more than, “he passes the eye test for a coach,” which is all anyone has really been able to say.
Pedon and Hunter have shown they can coach in today’s game with today’s student athletes.
I’m not a fan of hiring Henderson or Steele, but if we hire them, I’ll support them 100% because they’re at Miami.
Yes, 29Redhawk, but only really matters if we start winning and become relevant again.
Jivehawk: I mostly agree with all your analysis except for the difference being I would personally like to see us try the model w a HC coming from Ohio recruiting riots with high level D1 level coaching experience…I get the knock on Steele is that is inherited an elite program and didn’t live up to expectations, but it was his first D1 HC gig and hopefully he has learned from it, and will bring his recruiting chops to the Miami job.
Whatever transpires, one has to have optimism that it will be a significant upgrade over the current Coaching staff.
I’ll say this: I also follow Minnesota basketball. Their last hiring cycle, the final pool of candidates consisted of four head coaches with proven track records and a career assistant with an underwhelming record who was only even considered because he’s an alumnus who’s personally popular with other basketball alumni. The other alumni waged a massive media campaign to get him the job, and the administration caved. He has subsequently driven the program off a cliff, as could be easily predicted from the start.
“I know the guy and I like him” is one of the worst possible heuristics for hiring decisions. You obviously still need to get in a room with someone and make sure they have a vision and aren’t an empty suit. But that’s a way of differentiating among candidates who are qualified and have a record of success, not an excuse for hiring someone who would otherwise never even be considered.
Pretty big difference between a Big 10 team hiring an assistant from a middle of the road Big East team and a MAC team hiring the head coach of a middle of the road Big East team.
The supposed selling point of Johnson was that he’d be a good recruiter. Given that Xavier has continued to recruit well without him and Minnesota’s recruiting has been pretty poor, I think it’s fair to attribute that recruiting success to Steele rather than Johnson.
Which is why the talks w Steele may have gone nowhere…even with his fall from grace at XU he may not have been ready to accept $400K in base salary from first offer after making $1.3mil and also maybe figured Miami’s comeback in hoops was too difficult to negotiate in a couple of years?
Help me understand this as maybe the world has passed me by: I live in California where taxes are bananas, and if you make 400k a year, you can live well. Like not buy an island well, but well. If you make 400k and live in Oxford, you are a king!
