Wednesday, March 21, 2007
A short note on Princeton basketball
Princeton's men's basketball team performed so poorly this year that I could not bring myself to go to a single game. True, I've been very busy, but I really just didn't want to see all that blood on the floor. Princeton finished in the basement of the Ivy League, 2-12 in league play and 11-17 overall. It hasn't been this humiliating to be a Princeton alumnus since, well, we hired back Cornel West.
Anyway, Princeton fans have been grumbling about the head coach, Joe Scott. Scott, who is himself an alumnus, had turned around the program at Air Force and came back to Princeton three years ago full of promise. The results have not been pretty. Whether or not he is responsible, the Princeton program has never been as bad as it was last season.
Many alumni wanted Scott fired, but Princeton gives its coaches a lot of rope. So it was with football coach Roger Hughes. After 2005's humiliating and uniquely inept loss to Yale, I called for his scalp. In 2006, though, the Tigers put together a wonderful gridiron finish, including victories against both Yale and Harvard. So I was wrong, and our patient administration was right.
Fortunately, Joe Scott has saved us the trouble of campaigning for his dismissal. He resigned yesterday to take the head coach job at the University of Denver. I wish him well. He was a huge success in Colorado the first time around, and is undoubtedly returning to a more supportive environment than prevails today here in Princeton.
The question is, who will Princeton hire to replace Joe Scott? For that we turn to SportsProf, the premier blog for Ivy League sports. SportsProf speculates that Princeton will turn to my classmate Craig Robinson '83, who is both Brown University's head basketball coach and -- I shit you not -- Barack Obama's brother-in-law. Robinson created a micro ripple in the national political chatter a few weeks ago when he recounted the story of his first meeting with Obama back in the early '90s:
As for his brother-in-law, Robinson still shakes his head when he remembers that initial meeting. "We were talking about a variety of things and he said, 'I'm thinking about running for president one day,' " Robinson said.
"I said, 'President? President of what?' "*
A damned good question, and worthy of the next great coach of Princeton basketball!
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*Yes, back in 1992 Barack Obama was talking to a man he had just met about his intention to run for President of the United States. Good for him. I think it is silly to suppose that anybody with the ambition to run for president only acquired that ambition late in life.
8 Comments:
By 
Escort81, at
Wed Mar 21, 06:02:00 PM:
TH -
SportsProf is indeed the #1 blogger for Ivy League sports. His insights are almost always dead-on, although I suspect in this instance and at this moment he did not fully sense the extent to which the ground was shaky underneath Scott's feet.
My father will be going to his 70th Princeton reunion in a few months, and is a very patient man at 91 years of age, but he wanted Scott gone a while ago. I gave him the good news last night.
I agree that Craig Robinson is a great first choice (and many who played for Pete Carril and soaked in his wit would be capable of the "President of what?" comeback), and Mitch Henderson would be a strong pick as well. Neither can do any worse.
By 
, at
Wed Mar 21, 07:38:00 PM:
Speaking of Coach Scott, I made a wager about him the other night at a dinner in Princeton. The guy sitting next to me, a Tiger alumnus, said Scott probably makes $100,000 a year. I thought it would be closer to $300K, so we have an over-under of $200,000. I searched and googled and can not find an answer. Does anyone have a clue?
By Escort81, at
Wed Mar 21, 09:58:00 PM:
Coach Paul -
The Princeton basketball coach actually holds an endowed chair -- the Franklin C. Cappon-Edward G. Green ’40 Head Coach of Men’s Basketball -- just as if he were a politics professor. I doubt his compensation is $300,000 per year, and it may be half of that. PU hoops does not generate enough revenue for the coach to command high numbers relative to a professor with similar seniority. Post your question at SportsProf and he might have a better answer.
By , at
Thu Mar 22, 09:52:00 AM:
Scott was making over 250K a year at AFA. AFA is paying its current coach over 300K. Chris Mooney is making over 600K at Richmond.
By , at
Thu Mar 22, 11:09:00 AM:
I was miffed when John Thompson III scooted for Georgetown, especially since it was very soon after Gary Walters, '67, engineered having him made an honorary member of our class. Maybe Gary will take over on an interim basis until the right choice comes along.
JLW III '67
By SportsProf, at
Thu Mar 22, 05:14:00 PM:
The amounts the coaches can make can be staggering. It was reported that Bill Carmody's total take at Northwestern is around $1.1 million a year, while Fran Dunphy was making $325,000 a year at Penn before leaving for Temple. Hard to say what Princeton paid Coach Scott, but I'd have to believe it was more than $100,000 a year and probably over $200,000 a year.
As for the '67 alum who posted about JTIII, let's cut him a break in that a) he returned home, b) he's carrying on his father's legacy, c) he took a better job (and at a school with ethics) and d) he has a chance to win a national championship there. While he was a loss to Princeton, it's great for him and a tribute to the Princeton program.
By Escort81, at
Thu Mar 22, 08:43:00 PM:
SportsProf always brings cogent analysis and clarity to the matter. Thanks for following up. Apologies to the previous anon poster for slightly lowballing a guess at Scott's compensation. Good for Chris Mooney if he is making CFO money at Richmond -- he was a tough player from the Philly Catholic Leagues and has worked very hard, including starting out as a coach of the women's team at what was then called (seriously) Beaver College (now Arcadia University) in suburban Philly.
By , at
Sat Mar 24, 03:24:00 AM:
The Black Squirrel's inside sources say that Scott's salary was approximately $175,000/year. Princeton is not noted for the generosity of its cash compensation for coaches - or for any non-Faculty member of the univesity administration. We do, however, make it up in volume.
Varsity coaches and assistants make a soupcon of extra money from camps / private coaching /etc. - enough to put Joe Scott around $200k.
He would have had at least another year with his own recruits to bring the program back to championship form. The administration and the AD are patient with people they like -Princeton is not Kentucky, thank the gods - and Joe was perceived as smart, very hard-working, and a generally good if unlucky guy by his colleagues.
The minor tragedy of his time at Princeton is, like most tragedies, partly of his making. Bad chemistry between Joe and the team he inherited from JT III started him on a death spiral that he never recovered from. It was also partly the inevitable bad spin of the Great Wheel of Basketball Fortune, which was bound to catch up to Princeton Basketball sooner or later.
The Black Squirrel predicts a return to meaningful games in the Palestra in 2009.
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- The Black Squirrel
Keeper of Dark Princetoniana
