The Dark Side

If the rumors prove to be true and Mike Montgomery is indeed the next head coach at Cal, I will experience a profound sense of both relief and disquiet. Relief that the Bears are bringing on a winner, a man who will go from the role of arch enemy to potential saviour. It's not too different from the feeling you had watching Darth Vader pick up the Emperor and throw him to his death in Return of the Jedi. It's not like you ever liked the disfigured, heavy breathing menace in black nor could you have imagined him yucking it up with Han and Chewy, but you still cheered because dammit Vader was nasty tough and now he was working for the light side. Relief because with Monty stalking the sidelines at Haas, we will all sleep better knowing the days of the consistently inconsistent Ben Braun are forever behind us.

The trouble is that this hire was too safe, too damn easy and like most decisions that are made for comfort and instant applause, it will eventually be regretted. Mike Montgomery is already a Hall of Fame coach. If he works twenty hours a week and mails it in from here on out, no one will ever disparage him. The burning ambition that drives college head coaches to deprive themselves of sleep and to text message 17 year olds 100 times a night has been replaced in Montgomery by a beautiful house in Menlo Park, $150 haircuts at Di Pietro Todd and long meals with his wife Sarah at the Village Pub. He's already rich, he's already famous and his legacy is written.

It's not that he can't still coach, just listening to Montgomery call Pac 10 games on television and you realize this guy isn't just smart, he's a frigging genius when it comes to basketball. I can't imagine Long Beach State ever produced a more cerebral graduate. He's tough as nails and reeks of confidence. But Cal is his graceful exit not his big bang. Montgomery has been up front that his goal is to coach somewhere where his son could follow him. I have zero doubt that John Montgomery, a very capable and charismatic young coach, will be the first addition to the staff. This will be the fourth time in recent years where a hall of fame coach has cut a deal to bequeath his son his job. Let's review how the others turned out in a vain attempt to predict the future.

Bobby Knight leaves Indiana for Texas Tech. The Red Raider Faithful rejoice as they believe they are actually going to matter now in basketball. And in fact, they do matter MORE than they did before, finishing in the top 3-4 of the B12 consistently for the first time, winning 60% of their games and consistently seeing their coach on ESPN for his latest grocery store or hunting gaffe. But did Texas Tech become a power? Not in the least. The last three years have been a free fall to utter mediocrity and there is no conference championship or sweet sixteen run to sustain people in Lubbock now that they have Pat Knight as their coach. Eddie Sutton did wonders at Oklahoma State, but the day he announced his son Sean would be taking over for him, the program went sideways and now the Sutton era in Stillwater is over as Sean has been let go after two forgettable years. Dick Bennett, after toiling in relative obscurity at Wisconsin Green Bay (where his highlight was beating Todd Bozeman's NBA all star team cum Cal Bears in the NCAA first round) got a chance to become a hall of famer at Wisconsin and he delivered. He made Badger basketball big time, including a final four run. For his swan song, he took the job at WSU with the agreement that his son would take over for him. Dick then preceded to make the Cougars only slightly less mediocre than they were before his arrival before. To the incredible good fortune of Washington State, his son Tony proved to be a gem, a 1in a 100 type coaching talent. The punch line is that HOF coaches in the eighth inning of their careers who are focused on their sons future job prospects don't build big time programs and unless John Montgomery proves to be a special talent, Cal took less of a step forward and more of a step sideways than anyone likely wants to recognize.

For those of you too lazy to read my post below outlining why Monty was not the right choice for the Bears, let me recap the three salient points. Montgomery does not like to recruit and I have no reason to believe that even if he did, he would be good at it. Stanford recruited for Montgomery and even then he failed to consistently land the type of top talent one would assume a program of that weight would attract even taking into account the academic requirements. The opportunity in Berkeley is 90% about recruiting. It's about keeping the best NorCal talent at home and out manuevering USC, UW, ASU and Oregon for the very good but not elite west coast talent that UCLA and Arizona don't want. Secondly, Stanford under Monty was a team that always peaked early. They did great in conference play but come tourney time, they woefully underperformed. It was in part the lack of talent that is to blame for this but it's also the rigid system Monty used which maximized the performance of players who had limited athletic ability but who were smart and would stick around for all four if not five years to master it. That is not the recipe that will produce success in Berkeley. Lastly, Montgomery's countenance and style were picture perfect for the country club that pretends to be a place of higher learning known as Leland Stanford Junior College (oops I meant University). His arrogance and aloof demeanor were right out of central casting. In Berkeley? This plays about as well as a Bill O'Reilly speech in Sproul Plaza.

This isn't a bad hire. It's miles better than risking the job on Randy Bennett or Mike Dunlap but it's way too safe and easy. Reaching financially to grab a Jamie Dixon or a Jay Wright may not have been possible but landing a young Mike Montgomery in the form of Mark Fox or Tony Bennett or Anthony Grant, all with some potential downside but more importantly unlimited upside. We want our own Luke Skywalker, someone who will be remembered for the memories he creates in Haas Pavilion while coaching guys in Blue and Gold not Cardinal and White.