Why Hasn’t Jamie Dixon Been Called?
Yesterday’s quick coaching conversation.
I was speaking with a friend last night and we were trying to save the Wolfpack world. We actually came up with a lot of great ideas…but, I will spare you the details for now.
This particular friend is very connected at NC State and within the world of college basketball. It makes for great “scoop” because he hears/knows things from all sides — not just the one-sided spin that comes out of the antiquated NC State athletic offices where the internet is still treated as an evil fad that will just go away.
Between the two of us, we could of comprise a legion of coaches that we know have been contacted by Lee Fowler and NC State’s search. Sadly, many of the coaches who have been called make so little common sense that it is embarassing to know that the call was ever made.
But, one name that neither of us had reason to believe had ever been contacted about the job was Jamie Dixon at Pitt. Click here for biography.
I don’t have an inside track on Dixon or his potential interest. But to me, a name like Dixon represents a tier of candidate that seems to have been overlooked in this process. We know of many of the very big names that
But, I do know that Pitt does not have a lot of money and Dixon has recently considered much lesser jobs, like Arizona State. I also know that Dixon just got a raise that brought him up to a paltry $900,000 (just north of what Herb Sendek was making at State).
As opposed to spouting off a lot of statistics that you can get from the biography that I have already referenced, I will direct you to this more personal look at Dixon.
Jamie Dixon, the man in the background who became the front man for a basketball program that moved rapidly into the upper echelon of college programs in America.
Dixon’s combination of a likable personality with an analytical mind helped him become a successful, humble assistant coach
I’m not saying Jamie Dixon is “the guy”. I’m not even saying that I want him as the Pack’s coach. Honestly, I don’t know that much about him. But, I’m not sure that Lee Fowler knows much about him, either. That is the problem.
In the same bucket as Dixon would be names like Dennis Felton at Georgia, maybe Dana Altman at Creighton and even Jon Pelphrey at South Alabama. Why did we not move more on Mark Turgeon before he signed his new contract at Wichita State?
The absence of some obvious potential targets like Dixon from NC State’s coaching search is as puzzling as Lee Fowler’s obvious decision to place Steve Lavin ahead of current NCAA basketball coaches likes of Frank Haith, Billy Gillispie, Gregg Marshall, and others.
Once Fowler/NC State moved to “Plan B” targets, it seems the focus remained on style (name) over substance. Is that what is best for NC State…or what is best for Lee Fowler?
To put it mildly, the hire will determine Lee’s fate at NCSU. I personally think all of the latest Lavin, Beilein etc. is just smoke. Unless you hear it from Lee or Wendell don’t put much stock in the names that are floating around. Sometime this week it will be resolved and don’t look for DeCourcey, Katz or Glenn to be the first to let you know.
I can’t believe that Fowler’s focus on Lavin (or B-lein for that matter) can be what’s best for Fowler UNLESS he already has something else lined up for himself. The possible downsides of either of those 2 is just too big. And the way this coaching search has gone so far cannot be good for his reputation among other schools who might be looking for an AD IMO UNLESS he pulls a rabbit out of a hat soon so I can’t imagine what else he would have going for himself. I can understand somewhat laying off Haith, but to me Marshall, Gillispie, or even Whitt would be much “safer” targets for Fowler.
De plane boss – de plane!
Has anyone nicied that the Murphy Farm plane flew to Keene New Hampshire early this morning? It has been there for 2 hours now. Seems odd for a Sunday morning trip. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N89MF
I’m told that Lavin lives or has a home in Connecticut which is not too far away. Or maybe we are going after Jim Herrion. Time will tell.
Sorry I meant Bill Herion at Univ of New Hampshire and has anyone noticed the Murph Farm plane landing at Keen Airport. MOre fuel for the fires.
Jeff, impressive stuff on Dixon, and certainly seems a viable pursuit, albeit perhaps too late. Hard not to like the apprenticeship under Howland, and his demeanor, the fact that a player urged the chancellor to hire him, and that his playing days are remembered as the less-talented floor leady, scrappy, diving for balls, calm in the storm, etc. Sounds like passionate, intensive leadership qualities, something we could use around here.
……I totally agree and I’ve thought the same thing about Dixon for a few days now……personally I believe that Fowler has become a big hindrance in the process and has alienated more coaches than he has attracted….and after a business career spanning 40 years in which I’ve seen many personalities in decision making positions, I’m afraid the worst of the worst is starting to emerge – that of an egotist of epic proportions and that of a man that has orchestrated a search that might become a business school study on how NOT to conduct an executive search……the bottom line is we know we have no say in who is eventually hired and even though we moan and groan a lot right now, I know we will all give the new coach support and a fair shke (for some period of time time) because we are all tied to NCSU by that invisible bond that will never break…..but I know one other thing – if I were running the show at NCSU, Fowler would be told to clean out his office while the ink is still wet on the new coaches contract….
getting the same feelings. in fact, i am going to reach out to a friend that played under V and find out if the former players, or we, the constituents, have any voice left. it has almost gone too far at this point
De plane boss – de plane!
Has anyone noticed that the Murphy Farm plane flew to Keene New Hampshire early this morning? It has been there for 2 hours now. Seems odd for a Sunday morning trip. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N89MF
I’m told that Lavin lives or has a home in Connecticut which is not too far away. Or maybe we are going after Bill Herrion former coach at Drexel and others — did coach at ECS and did well there also.
Time will tell.
Then what would you do? Hire Les back at NCSU? Take the AD job yourself? Lets give the guy a chance, like I said before, we have no idea what he does day to day, minute by minute. What if he makes a bad hire? Are you telling us that we as fans know MORE about the AD position and who to hire than he and the admin? I’m not sticking up for him, but based on rumors and what we hear, some of us have conceived a notion about what is going on, when we don’t have but an educated guess based on some peoples inside info. Lets let it play out before firing the AD, shall we?
Pretty impressive. I wouldn’t object to LF talking with him. Sure beats some names that have been spun around the internet.
Herrion coached Drexel to a 167-71 record in eight seasons from 1991-1999, including three NCAA tournament appearances. At the time, Drexel was part of the America East conference that UNH currently plays in. The Dragons finished first or second in conference play in seven of his eight seasons. He also posted five consecutive 20-win seasons, including a 27-4 campaign in 1996 when Herrion led Drexel to its first NCAA tournament victory with a first-round upset over Memphis.
Herrion, a four-time America East coach of the year, had a record of 121-32 in conference games while at Drexel.
I thought he just signed an extension at pit like last month? Maybe that doesn’t matter.
i am hoping that as strong, unified voices we can help our AD – we are constituents, most of us here – having paid thousands in tuitions, fees, WC dues, etc. Whatever decision he makes next, he should feel that he makes it with a majority backing of the constituency – never would be 100%, but on the other hand I would hope that the next move(s) aren’t made with blinders on toward us. He should certainly be able to justify and substantiate the decision criteria once we see the choice(s) (and again, hopefully its aligned well with the basketball leadership that we all desire), otherwise he would have a flawed selection process and poor directive and managerial decision skills.
Lavin got lucky at UCLA and didn’t make a big enough splash, with the standards the school had. I’d be wary to pull for coach, who has the worst single season record, longest title draught, etc. in the last 50 years, for a program. Maybe Lee’s on vacation and hasn’t told anyone. If it’s Whittenberg, I’m not disappointed, but he better have a good reason for taking so long to hire him, because Whitt could’ve been coaching here the nano-second after Calipari said no.
“Why did we not move more on Mark Turgeon before he signed his new contract at Wichita State?”
While I have no clue who has and who has not been on Fowler’s “list”, I have been disappointed that more names like Coach Turgeon and Chris Lowery have seemed to not get much discussion. Unless we are all completely surprised in the coming days, it looks like Lavin, Whit’, or Beilein. If so, I just do not understand why the entire search has been so (seemingly) focused on hiring the marquee name. There are some EXCELLENT basketball coaches that could potentially build their OWN marquee name in Raleigh. Any coach from Mike Montgomery down to the super-mid-major special is going to have to take some lumps to get his system in place I would think. Just don’t understand the silence and inattention to some of these guys. Turgeon and Lowery ((if they haven’t gotten strong consideration behind closed doors))… should have gotten or be getting some consideration.
I will support the ultimate hire.
geez i’m so excited that we may finally get a winning coach in Lavin. I hope the annoucement is made soon. The newly united wolfpackers will praise Coach Lavin for taking the wolfpack somewhere we haven’t been in 20 years. If you guys don’t want to beat the #1 team 4 times in 6 years or 4 sweetsixteens and one elite 8 then move on. Lavin is the answer and is the one coach left on my A list. Recruit the US better than any other candidate is what we will get with this guy. Those who don’t like lavin b/c of one losing season at ucla need to realize that he made what he could out of Harricks probabtion before him. and recruited the 95 ncaa champs. tarholes and dukies watch out, you are getting some tough comp now not a cake walk!!
…you’re correct that what we have to work with is not concrete and I don’t know any more than anyone else….but at the same time, what has been reported can’t all be smokescreens and if you take any subset of those tidbits and assume they are more true than false, then an image of a total trainwrck appears……Fowler may pull a rabbit out if his hat and if he does I will eat every word I’ve said….but the old gut says that probably isn’t the case and my gut also says that Oblinger is already aware it a mess and shoudlb e ready to act…..an no, I woudn’t hire Les…..maybe make a run at Bill Cowher??
Has anyone noticed that the Murphy Farm plane flew to Keene New Hampshire early this morning? It has been there for 2 hours now. Seems odd for a Sunday morning trip. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N89MF
Speculation above
Oh, Lee… you got some splaining to do?
…….Keene is in the center of the state and Durham (which is where UNH is) is on the coast with quite a few airports around it…..doubt there is anything to this….
Keene is in the SW courner of NH and it is not near any coast I am aware of…it is close to the Mass & VT State lines…this sounds like a meeting point but for what I have no idea.
I don’t follow this. We:
■ don’t know if Fowler knows much about him
■ don’t if Fowler has considered him
■ don’t know if Fowler has contacted him
■ don’t know if Dixon has turned us down
And yet this article indicts Fowler for failing on the Dixon front?
Why on earth would fowler hire someone who runs the princton noffence? If that happens I will begin to drink heavily.
I have already started lo.
http://www.850thebuzz.com/blog/?p=1254
The skinny on Lavin and Beilein
Adam Gold writes…
“There seems to be a little bit of a war of words going on as to the credentials of Steve Lavin and the perception of John Beilein. If I could, let me try and give you, not only my opinion, but the opinions of a lot of the people I talk with on a regular basis. Some of them are coaches, some are writers (all of the writers you have heard on my show several times, i.e., Mike Decourcy, Dick Weiss, Adrian Wojnarski, etc.)….
Steve Lavin is a very good recruiter — at least he was as an assistant and head coach at UCLA. How much of that was due to the four letters on the front of the uniform, we’ll never know. But, recruiting was never his problem. Lavin wasn’t the biggest disciplinarian in the business. His teams didn’t always play smart. They didn’t always play great defense. And, focus was sometimes a problem.
Is he a perfect choice for this job? No, but I’m not sure there is. If he’s a more mature coach, more willing to bring in an experienced staff that can help him adjust from game then his charisma and media savvy persona is exactly what this team needs. He’s certainly not going to be bothered or intimidated by the neighbors.
As for John Beilein, there’s no doubt that there’s a lot of similarities to Herb Sendek. They run very similar offensive systems. In fact, Beilein was a very interested bystander at some Wolfpack practices as he was considering installing his offense in Morgantown. Either way, the consensus opinion of Beilein is that he’s a brilliant tactical coach. His teams are impeccably prepared and they play smart. The knock is that he’s never really recruited the athletes necessary to compete on a consistent basis with the best in the business. That doesn’t mean that he’s incapable of recruiting the athletes necessary, it just means he hasn’t yet.
If the fans can accept the similarities, he’s a superb coach. Someone viewed in the coaching community as about as good a pure basketball coach as there is in the business. But, there isn’t that much of a difference between JB and HS, and that could prove to be a problem.”
Here is a question I have for all of you. If these two are the true candidates for the job, which option would you rather go with?
(a). Lavin with an ace X & O coach as his top assistant.
(b). Beilein with an ace recruiter as his top assistant.
Me, I would choose (b) ten times out of ten.