Here’s a classified ad you won’t find in the NCAA News, in USA Today or in your favorite newspaper and mine the Durham Herald-Sun, aka the Dewey-Defeats-Truman Gazette:
Wanted: Head men’s basketball coach at North Carolina University. Must be a UNC graduate with at least one year of head coaching experience. Preference will be given to former UNC players. North Carolina is an equal opportunity employer in all other job categories.
I don’t have any idea if Matt Doherty will succeed at North Carolina. I don’t know why he wouldn’t, though. You’d have to screw up awfully bad to lose at North Carolina, and Doherty is no screw-up.
In fact, Doherty is a tall Roy Williams. He’s emotional, he’s outspoken and he’s committed to the family approach to coaching.
My only question about Doherty is whether he has enough seasoning as a head coach to deal with the unlimited expectations he’ll face as the man in charge of North Carolina’s program.
Doherty thrived in his only season at Notre Dame, in large part because the Irish crept up on some unsuspecting foes and infused new life into a moribund program wallowing in the shadow of the school’s overwhelming football tradition.
Doherty’s first year as a head coach in South Bend was much like Williams’ first year at Kansas.
In 1988-89, KU wasn’t expected to repeat as NCAA champion because the Jayhawks couldn’t. The NCAA prevented it by placing Kansas on probation for irregularities in the recruitment of a player (Vince Askew) who never donned a KU uniform.
Doherty’s second season as a head coach will be nothing like Williams’ second on Mount Oread.
Still operating under diminished expectations, Kansas came out of nowhere in 1989-90 to post a 30-5 record, thanks in large part to transfers Rick Calloway and Terry Brown. That was Williams’ watershed season. Nobody asked “Who’s Roy Williams?” after that.
Nobody is asking “Who’s Matt Doherty?” A member of the Tar Heels’ 1982 NCAA championship team, Doherty is as close to a household name as a former Tar Heel can be without playing in the NBA.
So Doherty won’t have a honeymoon season at North Carolina in 2000-2001. In Carolina, the fans have surely forgotten the Tar Heels’ sub-par regular season. They do remember the Heels reached the Final Four and, now that Doherty is coach, the Carolina blue sky is the limit.
What is it about former North Carolina basketball players that makes them want to go into coaching?
Surely, the Tar Heels lead the nation in former players in the coaching ranks. Roy Williams, Matt Doherty, Randy Weil, George Karl, Larry Brown, Jeff Lebo, Buzz Peterson. Oh, and you can include Lawrence’s own Brad Frederick, an assistant coach at Vanderbilt who may be on a fast track to head coachdom after graduating from North Carolina in 1999.
Meanwhile, it seems like most former Kansas University players prefer the business world. Mike Maddox and Alonzo Jamison are bankers. Kevin Pritchard works for an investment firm. Chris Piper owns his own printing business. Heck, even Roy Williams’ son, Scott, works in a Charlotte, N.C., bank.
How many former Jayhawks are coaches? Mark Turgeon is head coach at Wichita State with Tad Boyle on his staff, Paul Mokeski will coach the new minor league team in Kansas City and John Douglas is head coach at an Alabama junior college.
Eric Pauley is an assistant at Tennessee. Toss in Jerod Haase and C.B. McGrath, current members of the KU staff, and that’s about it.
Two former Jayhawks Milt Newton and Mark Randall remain in basketball as NBA scouts.
So Kansas does not really have a coaching family like North Carolina does. Is that good or bad? Right now it doesn’t really make a difference. Williams isn’t going anywhere, and he’ll turn 50 on Aug. 1.
