There’s a long, illustrious history of superstar college coaches rebuffing major interest from professional teams but only after using it to squeeze bigger, better contracts out of their universities.
Former Florida football coach Steve Spurrier was a master in this area. Back when he had the Gators rolling in the 1990s, he hemmed and hawed so hilariously effectively when reporters asked him about the NFL that his alma mater first made him the college game’s only $1 million-a-year man and later made him its first $2 million-a-year man.
Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops, Alabama’s Nick Saban and Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly all became well-acquainted with this sort of maneuver, too, and there certainly were others. Spurrier and Saban each eventually gave the NFL a look-see and lasted very little time before running back to the college game, promising never to speak of his NFL experience again.
In basketball, the Lakers tried to replace Phil Jackson with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski in 2004, making a blockbuster offer that included partial team ownership. Coach K took awhile but said no, and soon after, his Duke salary was nearly doubled. Michigan State’s Tom Izzo turned down $6 million a year from the Cavaliers — and the possibility of coaching LeBron James — in 2010 and was rewarded by the Spartans with a major bump in pay and personal use of a private plane. Roy Williams could have taught a no-show course in leverage at North Carolina, he had so much interest from NBA teams through the years. He claims 14 different ones asked him to interview.
The newest member of the club is UConn coach Dan Hurley, whose Huskies have romped to back-to-back national championships. Hurley turned down a reported six-year, $70 million offer from the Lakers that could have involved coaching James and would have made him one of the six highest-paid coaches in the NBA. Instead, a year after signing a new, six-year deal worth more than $30 million, he’ll stay put and — the entire college basketball world assumes — watch his compensation skyrocket again and his program’s NIL stockpile become nothing short of mountainous.
“I am humbled by this entire experience,” Hurley said in a statement. “At the end of the day, I am extremely proud of the championship culture we have built at Connecticut. . . . Our focus right now is on getting better this summer and connecting as a team as we continue to pursue championships.”
Hurley is attempting to become the first men’s college coach since UCLA’s John Wooden to win back-to-back-to-back titles, so it’s understandable if he’s driven to chase all-time greatness at that level. But he’s also in a thoroughly unique position. No college coach has as much juice right now. No one is in a better position to lure recruits, especially those in the transfer portal. And at a young 51, Hurley doesn’t have to lock away his thoughts of the NBA, which are, in fact, real.
“I know Danny well, and I know the NBA will be on his mind again someday,” former college coach and longtime TV analyst Fran Fraschilla told the Sun-Times. “But his position right now is as stable as it gets in college basketball. He’ll still have headaches, but he won’t have as many headaches as the other guys.”
Those “headaches” are all most major-college coaches have time to think about these days. For decades, being a top college coach meant presiding over a fiefdom; there was no better job than that of the proverbial program CEO, and it never was the least bit surprising when someone didn’t want to trade that luxury for the grind of the pros. But now, with the nonstop, Wild West nature of college recruiting and the constant fundraising needed to have millions to throw at players who can go anywhere, at any time, the pendulum has swung.
“It’s a whole different animal than it was even two years ago for these college guys,” Fraschilla said. “You still have more juice as a college coach than you do in the NBA, where it’s all about serving the players, but I don’t know if it’s as enjoyable as it was for a lot of them.”
Illinois coach Brad Underwood, a feverish worker of the portal, admitted to the Sun-Times last month that he worries about “life balance” for himself and especially for coaches with young families.
“The profession is changing,” Underwood said during the NCAA Tournament. “It’s getting harder. It’s not getting easier. . . . We’re dealing with the portal right now. Right now. The portal. Really?”
It sounded almost like Allen Iverson’s famous monologue about “practice,” but there was nothing funny about it. Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot retired after Illinois knocked his team out of the tournament, and, while also sad, he was just plain relieved not to have to try to rebuild another roster.
“I don’t like the fact that guys can just quit [and leave] so quickly,” Dambrot said. “I don’t think that really teaches them much. I think it teaches them to quit. Some guys should leave, but others shouldn’t. That’s the part I don’t really like.”
On the whole, college coaches haven’t made easy transitions to pro coaching. Brad Stevens did well going from Butler to the Celtics, with whom he’s nearing a title as president of basketball operations. Billy Donovan hung a pair of NCAA banners at Florida but yearned for an NBA shot, and his reputation remains strong enough, despite his struggles to win with the Bulls. But John Beilein didn’t last a season with the Cavs after leaving Michigan. John Calipari, Lon Kruger, Fred Hoiberg: college guys through-and-through, it turned out.
But the guess here is that more college coaches will give the NBA a shot if offered. Hurley might even be the last no. College coaching isn’t what it used to be.
