Wednesday, May 19, 2004
The Other Shoe Drops
According to the AP and ESPN, Mike Montgomery will leave Stanford to coach the Golden State Warriors.Frankly, I'm stunned. As must be Stanford.
Montgomery has coached the Cardinal for 18 seasons, the last few with great success. He's built Stanford into a national power, securing top NCAA seeds in three of the past five tournaments. He's found a way to recruit (at Stanford, no easy feat), coach, motivate, inspire, handle NBA defections...In short, he's succeeded where few thought possible -- and at a level few imagined.
Wow.
Finding a replacement of his caliber will be next to impossible. I'm stumped as to where the Cardinals might look. Most college coaches couldn't handle recruiting not only athletes, but also students...Andy Katz put it this way:
The Stanford job likely would attract some of the top names in the business who have a history of working with academically rich, highly skilled basketball players. The Cardinal's recruiting pool is consistently considered one of the smallest in the country for a high-major program.
