Trickle-down effect actually works in coaching
Posted: Friday, November 13, 2009 9:30 AM
Filed Under:
Coaches
Ever wonder how trickle-down economics works? Don’t bother. Pay attention to trickle-down coaching effects instead.
When guys like John Calipari leaves Memphis for Kentucky, it affects more than just Calipari and his staff. It covers assistant coaches at both schools, the school that hires Calipari’s replacement, and so and so on.
Given all the offseason head coaching changes, you can imagine just how much trickle-down occurs. And sometimes, there doesn’t even need to be a head coaching change.
This AP story explores how it affects the numerous assistant coaches out there and how they jump from one job to the other in the offseason. But the best part? It’s the assistants doing the talking, not the head coaches. We hear enough from them already.
(For those who prefer visual learning, click here to see the fancy graphic illustrating these moves.)
Take Wake Forest assistant Rusty LaRue. He benefited from former Xavier coach Sean Miller taking the Arizona job.
Follow this:
La Rue was the boys’ basketball coach and athletic director at Forsyth Country Day School, located in Winston-Salem, N.C. But when Miller went to Arizona, Xavier promoted assistant Chris Mack, who then named Wake Forest assistant Pat Kelsey to his staff. Voila! An opening was all set for La Rue.
Rick Pitino’s son, Richard, had a similar move, then caused another trickle down.
He left his dad's staff to work for his father's most famous protege: Florida's Billy Donovan. The elder Pitino then replaced his son with his best friend: veteran Holy Cross coach Ralph Willard, who was taking a job once held by HIS son. Kevin Willard spent six years on Pitino's staff before moving to Iona in 2007.
And just think: Maybe none of those moves at Louisville takes place if Mark Gottfried doesn't first step down under fire at Alabama. When the Crimson Tide hired Anthony Grant from VCU, the Rams hired the Gators' Shaka Smart to replace him — creating an opening on the Florida staff and an opportunity for the younger Pitino.
"It's amazing how much trickles down when a head coach leaves," Richard Pitino said. "People don't realize how much an assistant coach leaving changes everything, and really all it takes is one job for it to do that."
Sure, it means a lot of assistant coaches spend each season jumping from job to job, but that’s how the game is played early on in a coach’s life. They usually start as a graduate assistant somewhere, pay their dues, find an assistant job and wait for the head coaching trickle-down to come their way.
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