Editor’s note: In this letter, the author refers to the letter he wrote that was published in the Daily Lobo March 26. The letter, “Lobo Men’s Basketball deserves recognition for solid season,” urged readers not to overlook how well the men’s basketball team did overall this season in light of the loss to No. 14 Harvard in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Recently I lavished much praise on the men’s basketball team and its coach in a letter to the Daily Lobo, and while I am saddened by the choice of coach Steve Alford to leave, it is understandable in this day and age. During his press conference, he sat and gleefully articulated his thoughts in front of a Lobo backdrop and said “I’m going to UCLA,” as if he were a kid with his first box of Pop Rocks. Despite the raise and 10-year contract extension, in this day and age, this is how the college basketball world moves.
Hopefully Alford can continue his winning ways at UCLA, where a second-round loss to a 14th seeded team will not be rewarded with a raise and 10-year contract extension. Hopefully he can follow in the footsteps of John Wooden, the UCLA’s legendary coach, and bring the Bruins back to preeminence. Hopefully he will not follow in the footsteps of Ben Howland, who, with his run of Final Four appearances, was apparently not enough for the school and was bounced after a first-round loss. I hope coach Alford has more postseason gas in his tank in Westwood than he did in Albuquerque.
It’s always a tough time at the end of the season, when so many coaches move about the country. Generally they do so while pointing to the success of the Cadillac programs they are heading toward, the dream it is to coach there, and some legendary coach such as John Wooden who made them what they’ve become. It’s also tough because while these departing coaches leave to fill the shoes of the failed coaches before them, they emulate none of the qualities of the legendary men they praise. It’s hard to imagine John Wooden leaving UCLA after he had signed a 10-year extension, but this isn’t that era anymore.
While it is doubtful it will ever happen again, it would be nice to see a coach decide to come to and stick to a program to create and design their own legacy and define a school as a pinnacle program for basketball. Before John Wooden, was UCLA the top-tier program it is now? Not hardly, but he set about with conviction and loyalty to build it to that. Coaches jumping to these legendary programs have an almost 100 percent failing rate, but they continue to do so. UCLA will probably pay when Alford is canned ignominiously for failing to live up to the standards of a coach and program that had attributes that don’t exist in college ranks anymore.
Best of luck, coach Alford; may the coaching job you receive after you follow the current trend of ship-jumping coaches to failure at UCLA not be a 1-AA school.
Jason Stafford
UNM student
