I have held onto a column written on March 8,1980 by Bob Smizik upon the resignation of Tim Grgurich, let me share a bit of it:
"They are looking for a basketball coach at Pitt today….it is not so bad for Pitt…not so bad for Grgurich…but it is too bad for the members of the Pitt basketball team, present and future. ….Tim Grgurich said goodbye to one of the true loves of his life, the University of Pittsburgh…..You’d want your son to play for him."
The article talks about lack of support for the program. It seems to me that not much has changed if you subscribe to the Pitt pushed Dixon out the door theory. A University’s support of a basketball program requires more than merely topping another school’s real or imagined offer to Jamie Dixon.
Over the years, being a season ticket holder for both football and basketball, I can attest that in almost every instance, the Athletic Department assumes you are a football first fan.
The University, once it built the arena and sold out the place, had a chance to move up in class in the world of college basketball. The breakup of the Big East, being football driven, was an event that required a new dedication to the basketball program. It was time to act like an ACC school, not just to keep Jamie Dixon, who did not embrace the move, but to be able to compete with ACC level programs. That was the time to get highly paid assistants, budgets, swag, basketball dorms, chartered flights, private jets, free Bojangles and whatever else it took to keep up with the level of the new league.
Now as a result we have this: Six to Ten Million being spent----- and for what? That type of cash infusion into the program could go a long way to making the program better not worse. Maybe keep Stallings, use the money to build the program and sell the fans on the youth, the grit, the growth ………. Or just start over.
"They are looking for a basketball coach at Pitt today….it is not so bad for Pitt…not so bad for Grgurich…but it is too bad for the members of the Pitt basketball team, present and future. ….Tim Grgurich said goodbye to one of the true loves of his life, the University of Pittsburgh…..You’d want your son to play for him."
The article talks about lack of support for the program. It seems to me that not much has changed if you subscribe to the Pitt pushed Dixon out the door theory. A University’s support of a basketball program requires more than merely topping another school’s real or imagined offer to Jamie Dixon.
Over the years, being a season ticket holder for both football and basketball, I can attest that in almost every instance, the Athletic Department assumes you are a football first fan.
The University, once it built the arena and sold out the place, had a chance to move up in class in the world of college basketball. The breakup of the Big East, being football driven, was an event that required a new dedication to the basketball program. It was time to act like an ACC school, not just to keep Jamie Dixon, who did not embrace the move, but to be able to compete with ACC level programs. That was the time to get highly paid assistants, budgets, swag, basketball dorms, chartered flights, private jets, free Bojangles and whatever else it took to keep up with the level of the new league.
Now as a result we have this: Six to Ten Million being spent----- and for what? That type of cash infusion into the program could go a long way to making the program better not worse. Maybe keep Stallings, use the money to build the program and sell the fans on the youth, the grit, the growth ………. Or just start over.
