Knudson: Reversal of Fortune
FacebookBy Mark Knudson, The Mtn. Insider
January 14, 2011
Part of me wonders why anyone would ever leave San Diego for any reason.
Why would Reggie Bush, Terrell Davis or anyone else ever choose to leave to play football elsewhere?
Why would Brady Hoke leave a coaching job in one of the most fertile recruiting grounds in America to move to a place where he will have to shovel snow half the year?
We may not like the answer, of course, but the fact remains that college football is a bigger deal at places like USC, Georgia and Michigan than it is in San Diego. And football is, of course, a huge deal to Brady Hoke, a Midwesterner with no qualms about cleaning snow off his car a few times a year. Brady is going back to coach in the Big Ten, taking over the winningest program in America.
He’s a Michigan Man. Hard to argue with that.
And San Diego State is certainly in good hands with the proven Rocky Long taking over.
SDSU is also in very good hands in basketball, too, where former Michigan Man Steve Fisher is now in charge. Yes, Fisher took the same path that Hoke is taking, only he went west instead of east. The irony here is obvious: The same week Hoke leaves SDSU and takes over at Michigan, former Wolverine head man Fisher and his Aztecs take over with the nation’s longest hoops winning streak.
Back in 1989 when the Wolverines were on the upswing in basketball, they were about to embark on what would end up being a championship run through the NCAA tournament. Word leaked out during the final week of the regular season that Head Coach Bill Frieder was going to take the job at Arizona State and would be leaving at the end of the season.
Michigan Athletic Director Bo Schembechler, the legendary former football coach, was having none of that. He quickly showed Frieder the door, saying, "A Michigan man will coach Michigan, not an Arizona State man.” That man was then-assistant coach Steve Fisher.
Fisher took over on an interim basis, and all he did was lead the upstart Wolverines through the tourney and into the title game, where they ended up beating Seton Hall in overtime to win the National Championship.
Schembechler removed the interim tag a week later.
Of course, everyone remembers that things got a little out of hand at Michigan over the next few seasons. The “Fab Five” freshman class arrived in ’92 and the Wolverines went to two more NCAA finals, losing both times – once to Duke and once to North Carolina. It was later found out that those players had received extra benefits and the whole mess ended up costing Steve Fisher his gig, even though the NCAA cleared him of any wrongdoing.
After a short time as a NBA assistant coach, Fisher took the path less traveled – Big Ten to Mountain West – when he took over on Montezuma Mesa in 1999. The Aztecs hadn’t been to the NCAA tourney in 17 years. Since Fisher arrived, SDSU has been to three NCAA tourneys and four NITs. Michigan, meanwhile, has struggled since Fisher left, with no coach there having posted a winning record in Big Ten play.
Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that after all this time, while Michigan struggles with hoops mediocrity, Fisher’s Aztecs are on a serious roll in 2010-11, owing that winning streak and camped comfortably in the top 10. They, not Michigan, look like a serious threat in the NCAA tournament.
It’s not like Fisher hasn’t been there, done that.
ALL TIMES MOUNTAIN
