« Prognostication and public humiliation | Main | The decline of Dymo and other eccentricities »

UK has a coach, apparently

My friend Hayseed, still in exile in upstate New York, from which base he and Jimmy Ryan have recorded at least half of the best album he's made so far, wrote early this morning to send news that the University of Kentucky would announce the hiring of Texas A&M coach Billy Gillespie to replace Tubby Smith at the helm of the men's basketball program.

All I know about Gillespie is what I read in the Lexington Herald: that he's 47, has a 100-58 head coaching record, that he's rebuilt two programs, that he's a divorced workaholic and a regular at the Kentucky Derby. He has signed — or will sign, if these reports are accurate — in time to enjoy the opening of Keeneland's spring meet, though I suspect he'll be a bit busy.

I am somehow reminded of Jimmy Johnson who, when he left the University of Miami for the NFL Dolphins in effect fired his wife of many years because he wasn't going to have time for her. One way to spin this is that the University of Kentucky has run off Tubby Smith in part because he was too loyal, even to the point of starting his son at point guard. And replaced him with a single-minded middle-aged guy with no life outside the gym.

Somehow I sense the second coming of Joe B. Hall. Who, I guess, won some. If that's the whole score. But what I keep coming back to is, how is the new guy better than the old guy? Time will tell, I suppose.

For a lot of my early days I was not unlike that new guy, the single-minded work freak. I still cringe at the memory of dumping a really terrific high school girlfriend at the end of summer because I needed to concentrate on debate. And it took me a long time to work into being family friendly. But if they were recruiting my kid, I can tell you where I'd want her to go. (The funny thing is, I was admitted to the University of Minnesota, but was unable to go.)

And now back to making a magazine. And watching Maggie run.

Still struggling with balance, eh?

Posted by grant on April 6, 2007 10:20 AM | Permalink