Tony K on Doherty

[EastStang]

Tony Kornheiser has a radio show in the DC area on Sports Talk 980 every morning. When his sidekick Andy Pollen (who did some radio work with SMU in his younger days), read the Doherty story, Tony remarked," he should've stayed at Florida Atlantic, that's a dead end job." Later in the show he got an email from someone saying Doherty got a $400,000 raise to go to SMU, and Tony said, "he should've waited in a year or two he would've gotten more". Great PR for SMU there fans.

[93Mustang]

The fact that people in DC, NY, Atlanta, etc. are talking about SMU basketball is good PR. Haven't read anything on ESPN.com or from other national news organizations discussing how angry DISD coaches are at SMU. Look, we've just hired a guy that coached at one of the top 3 programs in the country. He is relevant on the national basketball scene. If he has any success, we will get national press. There's no one else that we were interviewing that would get anything more than an AP blurb about us getting a new coach. Doherty's hire demonstrates a commitment to basketball. Let's all get behind the guy and pray that he's the answer to our major sport futuility for the last 20 years.

[EastStang]

"Dead end job" is good PR. I guess Ted Bundy had great PR too under that logic.

[McClown27]

"Dead end job" is good PR. I guess Ted Bundy had great PR too under that logic.

I thought you said that only an "95 year old" high school coach would take the job. Or, was that just your hope?

[93Mustang]

Doherty obviously doesn't see it as a dead end job, nor do many others who will be mentioning Doherty's climb back from the bottom all year on ESPN.com and elsewhere. I'd obviously rather people be talking about what a great opportunity this job is and what a great school SMU is, etc., but that will take time - we've sucked since a brief period in 1992-3 unless you count our underacheiving Sasser/Davis teams a success. In the short term, having nationally syndicated sports writers and radio hosts talking about our basketball program at all is positive especially when the content of their talk is whether a once well regarded coach can turn things around here and/or resurrect his career as opposed to discussing why we've sucked for the last 20 years, why no one shows up to our games, or why Bosh, Diogu, Horton, Williams, and Wright all left DFW to have good or great careers in major conferecnes. The sleeping giant theory is in effect and hopefully Doherty is the man who can turn it around.

[RE Tycoon]

He quipped yesterday on PTI that Doherty should have stayed on the east coast becasue he's from the Jersey Shore, "like me". So I'd chalk this up as East Caost BS. Not saying SMU deserves any props, but this is a better job than FAU, everyone knows that.

[tmustangp]

"he should've waited in a year or two he would've gotten more". Great PR for SMU there fans.

no PR can be bad

[regis]

For once, the national media's talking about SMU without the phrase "death penalty". That's worth the $600K right now.

Anyone who disagrees with this hire is a non-fan and an idiot.

[GoRedGoBlue]

"Dead end job" is good PR. I guess Ted Bundy had great PR too under that logic.

Tony K would be right. However, that assumes that Doherty didn't think about that before...I highly doubt that Doherty took this job without concrete assurances that things would change.

Having said that, I highly doubt Orsini would have taken the AD job unless things would change.

Having said that, Orsini seems to have pulled off his first coup.

If we get construction on a practice facility in the next 6-8 months, then I am going to side with the benefit of doubt in SMU's corner of commitment.

[GoRedGoBlue]

Doherty obviously doesn't see it as a dead end job, nor do many others who will be mentioning Doherty's climb back from the bottom all year on ESPN.com and elsewhere. I'd obviously rather people be talking about what a great opportunity this job is and what a great school SMU is, etc., but that will take time - we've sucked since a brief period in 1992-3 unless you count our underacheiving Sasser/Davis teams a success. In the short term, having nationally syndicated sports writers and radio hosts talking about our basketball program at all is positive especially when the content of their talk is whether a once well regarded coach can turn things around here and/or resurrect his career as opposed to discussing why we've sucked for the last 20 years, why no one shows up to our games, or why Bosh, Diogu, Horton, Williams, and Wright all left DFW to have good or great careers in major conferecnes. The sleeping giant theory is in effect and hopefully Doherty is the man who can turn it around.

Likely, Doherty's meltdown at UNC was combo of 1) pressure 2) poor recruiting from his predecessor 3) shouldn't have left in year 3 after the success he ended up having