MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[BETHEL34]

DP - your team of 5 Sweeny's would get owned on the boards...

[Drake Palmer]

If a guy who loves (loved?) wearing velour athletic gear with the same team's hat cocked sideways can gain Drake's approval, why can't a drunk gain mine?...

Hey, hey, hey - I said I liked Sweeney's game, not his taste in fashion.  Even I got sick of seeing his gawdawful green Celtics jacket & even offered him some money once so he could buy a new jacket.   

Willy – I think if your boy Espo would have played at UST rather than Gustavus, he would have probably generated just as much ahem.. fan appreciation/heat as Sweeney.  I didn't know Espenson off the court, but I certainly enjoyed watching his intensity, effort & talent on the court.

Bet34- figuratively speaking of course.   

[abominable_snowman]

If a guy who loves (loved?) wearing velour athletic gear with the same team's hat cocked sideways can gain Drake's approval, why can't a drunk gain mine?...

Willy – I think if your boy Espo would have played at UST rather than Gustavus, he would have probably generated just as much ahem.. fan appreciation/heat as Sweeney.  I didn't know Espenson off the court, but I certainly enjoyed watching his intensity, effort & talent on the court.

i'll second that.  I was gonna bring up a S.S./ D.E comparison but held off because i had this eerie feeling it had been done before.

[Drake Palmer]

Too many haters out there Snow. tsk, tsk, tsk. That's why we gots to rein everyone back in & remind them of the words of Bob Marley - One Love.

[slickyquick]

According to my sources, which are extremely reliable, Whitmore has accepted the head coaching position at Hamline. Consider the deal done and it will be formally announced on Monday.

[AO]

I guess that national search wasn't as impossible as Pat initially made it out to be.  Will Hamline keep him for more than 2 years?  Will he want to stay for more than 3?

[Pat Coleman]

Indeed, it's an impressive hire for starting in July.

[Drake Palmer]

If all of this Wohler to Whitmore talk turns out to be correct, here are a couple of interesting posts from the SUNYAC board:

According to my sources, Brockport coach Nelson Whitmore will resign at Brockport and take the head position at Hamlin University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hamlin has a rich history of basketball, it held the first intercollegiate game in 1895. It is considered "the birthplace of basketball."

No, it's considered to be the birthplace of college basketball. The birthplace of basketball is Springfield, MA, which is where Dr. James Naismith invented the sport while a teacher at the YMCA School. That's why the Basketball Hall of Fame is located there.

And Whitmore's new school is spelled "Hamline". Incidentally, while it does indeed have a rich basketball history (including a 1978 trip to the D3 Final Four), Hamline has not added much to that rich history in recent years. The Pipers have definitely been an afterthought in the MIAC for at least the past decade, which has been dominated by St. Thomas, Gustavus Adolphus, and St. John's (with a brief flurry of competitiveness from Augsburg when Devean George of the Dallas Mavericks was an Auggie in the late '90s).

I'd be curious to find out why Whitmore has left a program that he has turned into a regional power and tourney presence within a weak region for an underperforming and poorly-supported program in a middling conference in a much stronger region. In other words, he's gone from being a big fish in a small pond to being a small fish in a big pond, competition-wise. Was it money? Dissatisfaction with Brockport's facilities, administration, or atmosphere? Or does he have some tie to Hamline or to the Twin Cities that made this a desirable choice? Because just looking at the facts on the surface -- which is all we have to go on at this point -- it appears to be a lateral move at best on Whitmore's part.

Sorry for the mix up with Hamline. As for a couple of interesting scenarios that were confronted at Brockport with Whitmore.

1) Whitmore was offered the job at Hamline and then came to Brockport to see what they could do as far as job duties, salary, etc. Brockport didn't give him ANYTHING. There was no offer for a pay raise (which is due, more on that in a sec) or decrease in administrative duties.

2) His job at Brockport is 50% administrative and 50% coaching. It is surprising how well he has done when you can't focus all your time to coaching. He was also the assistant athletic director.

3) His Brockport teams have the 7th most wins in the country since 2000. Not in the SUNYAC, not New York State, but in the country. Those are impressive numbers and he was not given any type of raise besides cost of living raises throughout that time. During that time, Brockport went to 2 Sweet 16's and 2 Elite 8's.

4) His staff at Brockport is the lowest paid in the SUNYAC. That includes his salary and his only paid assistant Gregg Dunne. There are several staffs that have two paid assistants or one paid assistant that gets a decent amount of money. It is very hard to recruit when an assistant coach holds another job outside the college.

5) There were two other members of the athletic staff at Brockport that received significant raises after successful seasons. Nelson Whitmore and his basketball teams have been the most successful team on campus since he took over. I know you can argue with wrestling but it's different when you are competing with over 300 teams for NCAA bids compared to around 100 for wrestling.

6) At Hamline he will have a full time assistant, good facilities, and an administration that will be supportive. It is in a great city and the school is well known for their academics (law school especially).

7) Though Hamline hasn't been successful in recent years, Whitmore's philosophy is much different then anyone in that league. That will make him unique and bring a different style then what everyone else is use to. Kids love to play in his uptempo system.

Overall, I think it is a good opportunity for Coach Whitmore and his family. He feels like he is wanted in St. Paul and is obviously willing to move his family out there. To leave a potential National Championship contender about a week before classes start, he must of felt that he was severely snubbed by administration at Brockport. I wish him nothing but the best for him. I'm sure he will be successful.

For all the MIAC naysayers that said that Hamline doesn't pay their coaching staff very well or adequately support them, it would seem Hamline AD Dan O'Brien must have polished up the powers of persuasion & coughed up a few more greenbacks.  That, or a dollar in St. Paul goes a lot further than it does in New York.

This appears to be a "good hire", but certainly one that makes this poster scratch his head & wonder -- why would a successful coach leave his native state & potential pre-season 07-08 "top ten" caliber team for the uncertainty of Hamline?  Based on their returnees, I would venture a guess that the Pipes would be fortunate to finish 8th in the MIAC this season.   

Local, Woody -- we need the inside scoop.  I think Mose has given up on hoops & PI fell off the Hamline bandwagon earlier this summer.

[localcoach]

As slickyquick indicated, Mr. Whitmore accepted the Hamline head coaching position late Thursday and a formal announcement will come either tomorrow or early next week.

Drake - In response to some of your questions and to the commentary by slickyquick, here is what I am able to add about Hamline and the sum of its parts. 

1) The job at Hamline will likely be about 80% coaching and about 20% teaching.  As far as pay goes, I don't have a number, but I have a fairly good idea what the previous staff was receiving, and I would think that while the administration at Hamline wanted to put a nice package together, I would be shocked if Whitmore were to get more than 65-70k.  Now, how that compares to what he was receiving at Brockport, I don't know. 

2) He will have a full time assistant, this is true.  I believe Brady Larson is under contract for next year already and will obviously be retained.   If you look around the MIAC, most schools do not have a full time "basketball assistant", or not one that is able to devote 90%+ of their time to basketball. 

3) The overall state of facilities at Hamline is very good.  New football arena, very well kept academic buildings, etc.  Hutton Arena itself is an awesome facility to play in with a wealth of tradition.  Having said that, as was mentioned in an earlier thread, IMHO, Hamline has the worst locker room/ coaches offices in the MIAC and that will not change at least for a few years despite what some might tell you. 

4) As far as support from the administration, I will only go so far as to say that while I believe Dan O'Brien to be a supportive boss, I'm not sure that anything Whitmore wants that is above and beyond the norm will necessarily be at his disposal.  President Hanson has stated on record she wants a successful athletic department, and for an outsider looking in it would appear that she is working down that path. 

However, knowing the people I do that work inside Hamline, the bottom line as I've stated before is that more financial assistance is needed if you're going to recruit and beat out schools like UST, GAC, and SJU for talented student-athletes.  Very rarely do players pick a Division III level school based solely on the basketball program/coach.  Financial aid packages are the key and Hamline isn't working with as much $$$ as many of the other MIAC institutions.  Hiring Whitmore, or anyone else for that matter, is not likely to change that.    That decision must come from the top.

I wish Mr. Whitmore all the best, but IMHO, until Hamline makes some changes (i.e. $$$$) a good coach can string together a few winning seasons and quite possibly even a conference title at Hamline, but to win and win consistently will be a difficult thing to do. 

[Willy Wonka]

...until Hamline makes some changes (i.e. $$$$) a good coach can string together a few winning seasons and quite possibly even a conference title at Hamline, but to win and win consistently will be a difficult thing to do. 

I knew Loco couldn't hide his Wohler apologist side for very long! And you've got to love his stubborn insistence on calling everyone "Mr." It makes me wonder though, is his use of a first name for "Mr." Larson, "Mr." O'Brien and "Mr." Hanson a backhanded slap in the face?

Interesting find by Drake. Were not Madden and football previews taking up all my free time, I may have stumbled onto it myself. It seems like a great hire, though I'd guess he'll need some time to show his face around town for recruiting.

I've got to imagine Jim Hayes is very disappointed by this news, however. The guy has the credentials, was their best player in the last 20-30 years and has been passed over twice now for guys with no connection to the program.

People seem to lump the MIAC into a certain style. While those who have achieved national prominence of late (GAC, UST, CAR) all play a traditional midwestern style — Grinnell aside — I don't think I'd lump Hamline's style over the last few years into the MIAC norm. If Whitmore intends to play up-tempo, his players should be ready for it.

[Drake Palmer]

Thanks for the post Local, but after reading your post it makes me wonder all the more why Whitmore found the Hamline job attractive.  Based on what our eastern poster wrote & what Local described, one would think that Whitmore was jumping from the proverbial frying pan to pot.

If the financial picture is as bleak as Local is depicting at Hamline, (personally, I disagree) & with Dan O'Brien's semi permanent revolving coaching door, one would think a coach would be very wary of accepting a position at Hamline unless -- he had received certain assurances or commitments from Hamline administration.  I would hope for Whitmore's sake he did his due dilgence, fully researched this situation & received some solid commitments.

[miacsuperfan]

drake.
are the pipes rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic? 

[localcoach]

As always it's good to hear from you Willy.  It appears that I must offer some clarification. 

First off, my statement about Hamline and financial aid packages has nothing to do with defending Coach Wohler.  I think that those of us "in the know" on this message board will all agree that schools like UST, GAC and SJU put way more money into their athletic programs than say Hamline, SMU, and Concordia.   A perfect example are "leadership" and "minority" scholarships, that year in and year out get used to assist student-athletes at schools mentioned above.  Hamline does not have many of these scholarships and if they do, their value is a lot less than a comparable one at a MIAC counterpart or it is distributed to a non-athlete.

Bottom line - As an example, just look at the track record of the three schools I mentioned above over the past 10 seasons and then look at Hamline's.  You cannot tell me that $$$$ has no correlation to winning at the Division 3 level, or for that matter any other.  Coach Wohler and his staff had the program headed in the right direction, including recruiting two all-conference freshmen in Jon DeRock and Tony Thrasher.  Still, while the Pipers showed consistent improvement in his first few seasons, there was little chance, IMHO, that they would be able to hit that top three level or four on a consistent basis. 

As a final example, let's say you have a Division I or II transfer.  If he can go to UST, GAC or SJU for free or very little OR he can go to Hamline for say $7-10k/yr which do you think he's going to choose 9.9 out of 10 times? 

And the use of "Mr." is never a slap in the face.  If anything it's a compliment. 

Drake - I tried not to paint such a bleak picture, but you're right.  I hope to meet Coach Whitmore at some point this season and ask him about Hamline and why he found it so attractive.  I too hope that he did his research and that if in fact he was promised anything that the HU administration follows through. 

[Pat Coleman]

A perfect example are "leadership" and "minority" scholarships, that year in and year out get used to assist student-athletes at schools mentioned above.

If they are used to assist prospective athletes, they must be used to assist non-athletes at the same rate. The NCAA audits Division III financial aid and aid to athletes must not exceed aid to non-athletes by more than 4%.

[Drake Palmer]

Local - As I stated in an earlier post, I don't necessarily agree with your financial portrayal of Hamline.  They may not have as much money to put into their annual general operating fund or general athletic programs as say UST or SJU, but their financial aid packages are competitive.   Case in point – Tony Thrasher.  I know for a fact that he received a Hamline Presidential Scholarship which is a ¾, if not a full ride, academic scholarship.  I also know of a couple of players on the Hamline football team that were the recipients of a healthy financial aid package.  And most of the MIAC schools have very attractive minority scholarships that are used for the student–athlete and non athletes as well. 

The way I see it, at this point the big difference is that the "haves" –UST, GAC, etc. continue to win on the court, while at the "have-nots" – Hamline, Wohler didn't stick around long enough to develop a winning tradition & thereby attract those players that are now going elsewhere.  The kids want to play as soon as possible, but they also want to play at a school with a winning tradition.  All things being equal - if I'm Tim Brown, Isaac Rosefelt, Mike Keating, Ryan Lieser, Tyler Westman or Mike Moberg etc. do I pick Hamline or – UST, GAC, SJU or Bethel?