Eddie Sutton: Back in the Saddle

In college basketball, when a school has to make an in-season coaching change, is it is the standard operating procedure to replace the outgoing coach by elevating an assistant (from the existing coaching staff) to the status of "interim coach." Kevin O'Neal is the Interim Coach at Arizona because he was the top assistant when Lute Olson had to leave to tend to "personal matters." Last year, Assistant Coach Jim Molinari became the Interim Coach at Minnesota after Dan Monson was sent packing. When Indiana fired Bob Knight, Mike Davis was installed as Interim Coach and promptly guided the Hoosiers to the 2002 Final Four -- which led to Davis being rewarded with a multi year contract and a promotion to Head Coach.

I could continue to list examples of assistants who have taken over as Interim coaches, but I'd be here all day -- and Drive and Dish readers would quit reading this post.

My point is: if a coach has to be replaced when the season is in progress, the appropriate course of action is for the school to elevate an assistant coach to interim coach. This maintains continuity because, aside from the departed Head Coach, the rest of the coaching staff remains in place. They, in turn, continue to run the same system (offense, defense, plays, etc.) that the team had prior to the Coach's departure. Furthermore, it allows the school to conduct an in-depth coaching search after the season. The new coach is then able to hire his own staff and implement his system before the start of the next school year.

But that's not what the University of San Francisco did when their coach left. On Wednesday, San Francisco announced that Coach Jessie Evans would be taking "a leave of absence." Remarkably, they announced that Evans would be replaced by disgraced former Oklahoma State Coach Eddie Sutton -- who had no prior connection to USF and is coming out of retirement to take the position.

In light of this development, Drive and Dish held and emergency editorial staff meeting to discuss Sutton's hiring at San Francisco. This was no minor feat, since so many of our staff were on vacation for the holidays. But despite our many logistical headaches, we managed to convene and agree on the following conclusion:

San Francisco's hiring of Eddie Sutton is total horse shit.

If Eddie Sutton had really wanted to get back into coaching, he should have gone about his job search in a more traditional manner. Sutton should have waited until the conclusion of the college basketball season (when coaching vacancies open up) to contact schools in need of a new men's basketball coach.

But Sutton isn't actually serious about getting back into to coaching. Stuck at 798 career wins, he's only serious about getting into the 800 win club. He even admitted as much when he was announced as USF's coach on Wednesday!

Coach Sutton was forced out at Oklahoma State after the 2006 season following an in-season leave of absence that the university imposed upon him when he was charged with DUI in conjunction with an auto accident. For the purpose of damage control, Oklahoma State forced forced old "Fast Eddie" (who had struggled for years with his raging alcoholism) to seek treatment at a rehab facility. OSU then named Sean Sutton to be his dad's replacement, even though Eddie Sutton never backed off from his stated intention to return as the Cowboys' coach.

Oklahoma State knew exactly what they were getting when they hired Eddie Sutton. Long before he arrived in Stillwater, Coach Sutton had a well-documented checkered history. While the head coach at Kentucky, Coach Sutton famously ran a renegade program that landed UK on NCAA probation. Obviously, the Oklahoma State administration was well aware that Sutton was no angel when they decided to hire him in 1990. They knew that he was something of a reclamation project. After all, Sutton was only one year removed from a highly-publicized scandal that caused the NCAA to impose severe sanctions on Kentucky's basketball program in 1989 (Kentucky had traditionally escaped the eye of the NCAA infractions police, despite well-known rumors of shadiness that stretched as far back as the 1940's). But Oklahoma State also knew that Eddie Sutton had taken Creighton, Arkansas and Kentucky to the NCAA Tournament -- his Arkansas team got as far as the 1978 Final Four.

A generation earlier, Oklahoma State -- then known as Oklahoma A&M -- had been a basketball power under the stewardship of legendary coach Henry Iba. But the post-Iba era (i.e., the modern era) had not been kind to Oklahoma State basketball: the program had fallen so far from its previous elite status that, at the time of Sutton's hiring, the Cowboys had only played in the post season three times since 1957. Oklahoma State's rationale for hiring Sutton isn't terribly difficult to understand: Sutton is an Oklahoma State/A&M alum who played for Coach Iba in the 1950's, and more importantly, he has a long track record as a winning coach in college basketball. Oklahoma State hired a proven winner who provided a direct link to the program's glory days. However, OSU also knew that hiring Eddie Sutton would be a gamble . . . but it was a gamble that they were happy to make.

And Eddie Sutton didn't disappoint.

Coach Sutton turned an Oklahoma State program that had been moribund for three decades into a consistent winner. He took the Cowboys to Final Fours in 1995 and 2004. But OSU's on-court success came with a trade-off: Eddie Sutton had significant baggage, and he didn't exactly change his ways while in Stillwater. During his tenure at Oklahoma State, Eddie Sutton's teams were stocked with so many players who had been processed by the criminal justice system that OSU earned the nickname "Second Chance U."

Sometimes, given the extensive off-court problems that so many of its basketball players had encountered, it seemed as though OSU could be better described as "Third and Fourth Chance U." Whatever the case, the second chances finally ran out for the old coach who had offered so many second and third chances to so many troubled players over the years. When Sutton's 2006 car accident led to his being charged with DUI, there was no way for Oklahoma State to retain a sliver of respectability without disassociating itself from Eddie Sutton.

And it looked like the end of the road for Coach Sutton's career when his legendary drinking problems led to him being more or less pushed out at OSU. With his reputation as a cantankerous, unscrupulous, cheating old man with a drinking problem, no reputable institution of higher education was going to hire Eddie Sutton to lead their basketball program. Sutton understood this. So when San Francisco -- which, once upon a time, was a basketball power (Bill Russell played there during the Eisenhower administration) -- decided to let Sutton come on board to get his 800th win, old "Fast Eddie" jumped at the opportunity.

Which is really sad.

Eddie Sutton is an old, drunk, serial rule-breaker who is selfishly taking over a team that he's had no previous contact with (one wonders if he even knows anything about this year's team), and which he has no intention of coaching beyond 2008. What's worse, he's doing it 1/3 of the way through the season. That's just not fair to the current USF players. They should be given the opportunity to play for an interim coach, who the university should elevate from the remaining coaching staff. The interim coach would then continue to run the current system for the remainder of the season.

Drive and Dish wonders what could have prompted USF to make such a preposterous mid season hire. We wonder if they were just trying to make headlines. Whatever their motive was, the hiring of Eddie Sutton makes the University of San Francisco appear desperate for attention. San Francisco used to be a big time basketball school. It looks like they long to be relevant again.

But if that's the case, the joke's on USF. In college basketball, a school becomes relevant when it's basketball program wins on a consistent basis. Staging a cheap publicity stunt will not put a college basketball program on the fast track to relevance. Worse yet, by making headlines with their ridiculous decision to let Eddie Sutton sit in for his 800th win, the University of San Francisco has essentially made itself even more irrelevant than it already was.