Thursday, April 23, 2015

What is Kennesaw State and why would Al Skinner go there?

At this point I should just expect all Eagles to end up in Georgia. There are multiple rumors that the suburban Atlanta school is set to hire the former BC coach. To me this makes perfect sense. For the rest of you, this is probably a head scratcher. 

Even though it is not a well-known outside of Georgia, Kennesaw State is a rising university in the area. They've improved their offerings, their grad programs and are trying to transition from their roots as a commuter school. They've built housing but like other younger universities, they view sports as a way to get more students excited about the school. Think of how much attention Georgia State received during this year's NCAA Tournament. The leaders at Kennesaw want that same exposure. They've already invested in football. Now it is time for basketball. Once they demoted their most recent coach, it only made sense to go after an established coach. Skinner won't sell tickets, but he will win there and that is the end game.

As for why Skinner would take this job...some times it is as simple as it is the only offer to come his way. Skinner has interviewed multiple times over the years and never gotten that second chance. His (unfair) reputation and now his age probably hurt his chances at most major jobs and the mid majors in the northeast. Kennesaw offers one last chance to do what he wants to do: coach. The salary won't be huge, but it will be more than he is making at Bryant. With Al's eye for talent and his easy to install system, he can be one of the top teams in the Atlantic Sun annually. 

I hope the two sides can come to an agreement. It could be a happy ending for both.

6 comments:

Hoib said...

Hope it's true, it would be great. Al has plenty of time left for a resurgence. Look at Larry Brown. I like the fact he would be down where ATL could keep an eye on him for his fans like me. The ultimate would be if he could get a game against that bird brain @ Penn, and dust his ass up.

EL MIZ said...

does salary play a part? he got paid $500K last year by BC. who knows how long that'll go on, but he's been getting hundreds of thousands for the past 5 years since he got fired.

hoping Al can have some success down there. if Gene had just insisted that Al bring in some new blood assistant coaches instead of canning him in 2010, i wonder where we'd be right now.

Hoib said...

EL MIZ

No need to wonder, we would have been a heck of allot better off. I doubt Al would have put up w/ Gene's meddling, much more likely to have fallen on his sword for his guys, ala Rick Barnes.

FakeShalomTfree said...

They probably have better facilities than BC

Best of luck to Al

Tim said...

Sorry to see the women's lacrosse team lost in their ACC tourney opener. They started the season 10-0 but have gone just 4-3 down the stretch.

JBQ said...

My hero, Jags, was canned because he interviewed with the Jets. It would appear that the real "Big Al" interviewed when asked not to. There is still lots of controversy over the slapping down of both.