Unless you live under a rock you probably know Hope College and head coach Matt Neil "mutually separated" yesterday. This kind of news is really the equivalent of walking across a lawn of green grass on a clear blue sky day and being struck by lightning. There was absolutely nothing to lead anyone to believe anything like this was going to happen, not now and not even in the near future. The record for 4 years is nothing short of superlative unless you have absolutely ridiculous expectations of success at the D3 level. Three league titles, 2 league tournament titles, 3 trips to the NCAA's and a winning percentage over 77%, not to forget 8-4 against Calvin.
When it went public on twitter I immediately picked up my phone and texted someone who would probably know, and they didn't, they were learning it from me. No one knew anything and worse still everyone went silent soon after. It doesn't take a genius to figure out someone felt wronged by the situation and took legal council, at least that's easy to assume. At that point the walls go up, lights go dark and you will simply not learn anything.
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| The wall of silence |
As much as I or anyone would like to know what the hell happened and even as much as I feel like we deserve some kind of explanation other than "no comment on the no comments" from the college, it just simply isn't going to happen. At least not in the time frame you or I would like, and possibly never.
Where does that leave us?
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| That might be a storm or it might not |
Back to the spring of 2010, only not really. Back then Glenn Van Wieren had announced his retirement in the middle of April. While it was a little out of the blue, it lacked the shock value of yesterday. With Van Wieren you had a couple years to prepare yourself because you could see, or infer, the end was around the corner and much sooner than later. Even for me it came later than I was expecting.
James Bultman was the President then, a man who bled Hope athletics and has probably accomplished more to assure Hope's athletic success and standing within the MIAA and outside than anyone previously not named Ekdel J. Buys. Whatever you thought of the last coaching search it was clear, or maybe unclear, that Bultman had the last word and all bases would be covered. Whether Hope looked outside the program as seriously as it appeared or simply wanted to see how much Matt really wanted the job, the six week dance of do we stay in the program or go outside was nerve wracking and probably revealed things within the institution they may not have liked.
Either way my sunny June afternoon that year was interrupted by a phone call from a close friend telling me Matt Neil had been hired. We were both elated and looked with great optimism towards the future, after 4 years a future that was arriving. Hope had stayed within its tightly-knit cacoon for the umpteenth-billionth time, and I was ok with that. Many institutions just like Hope do the same, it works for them and it works for Hope.
Rinsing and recycling the names you'll hear:
This time its different. I don't know much about President John Knapp
other than what he tweets. He seems to be involved in athletics and genuinely proud of his student athletes successes. Sometimes his athletic tweets seem to outnumber all his others. Presumably he'll have the final word and unless I've missed something in the past year its his first significant athletic hire at the college. In 2010, at least to me, a successor was obvious, this time around I'm not so sure. I don't know if Tom Davelaar would be interested in being the head coach and probably wasn't last time which leaves Jeff Carlson. Within the tightly-knit cacoon I'm sure his name will be pushed about.
Other Hope College grads, within the cacoon type hires would be the obvious one across the hall, women's coach Brian Morehouse who summarily took himself out of the running almost immediately in 2010. You might infer that as professional courtesy to Matt Neil, or genuine disinterest. No mater, his name will come up again until he says he does or doesn't want the job. Chad Carlson's name will come up again like 4 years ago. Hudsonville High School head coach Eric Elliot's name will surely come up again as will Laingsburg's Greg Mitchell both Hope grad's. It isn't known if either would be interested.
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| Mike Phelps, not happening |
Whenever a local job opens in West Michigan the standard names get kicked around. Mark Werley, Mickey Cochran, Mike Phelps. Phelps is 65 now and to my knowledge out of coaching. Werley hasn't coached in a couple years. None of these guys will get the job or probably even be interested but their names will come up at some point just because they have to, its Dutch Law or something.
Outside the program beyond obvious Hope graduates, and standard local high school guys its a big field. One I know little about. But we'll recycle a couple names from the last search Brian VanHaafton and Matt Nadelhoffer. Brian is still at Buena Vista where his teams have gone 61-46 since 2010. He's probably not the same hot name as back then and 4 years later those Storm Lake roots have grown deeper. Matt just finished year 3 of the Millikin salvage job, his wife is from West Michigan and no doubt Holland would be appealing for both just as it was 4 years ago. But its harder to leave when you've just started something you expect to finish. Still though Decatur v Holland isn't much of a contest. Last a guy who to my knowledge never actually was a candidate but was probably contacted, Kris Korver of Northwester College in Iowa. His name was kicked about last time because it was James Bultman who hired him at Northwestern. Would he be interested, maybe, maybe not and more likely probably not. But its a name that will come up.
How many miles on that thing?
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| The magnificent Ferrari 458 |
For the next group of candidates Hope must look like one of D3's Ferrari programs. Its a great job with tremendous potential, and amazing support. But this "mutual separation" and subsequent silence can only leave a lingering dark cloud of doubt hovering around even if its innocent. You can look at the Ferrari, touch it, kick its tires. You just can't look at the engine or the undercarriage and never mind that blue smoke. Are you interested? Would you be?
Hope College and its men's basketball program took an abrupt left hand turn yesterday. A dark forbodeing path of silence that might lead nowhere or somewhere. It raises more questions than answers and that's never a path that leads to anything constructive.
The hard part of the silence for me is I know I will be let down by something or somebody and I know it will upset me.......I just don't know who to be upset with. Now its back to sitting on my deck, waiting for that call again.
