Shortly after the University of Massachusetts fired men’s basketball coach Matt McCall — though it let him finish out the season — a diehard St. Bonaventure fan emailed me with her concerns that, according to social media, Bonnies’ coach Mark Schmidt was being pursued for the open job.
With utmost confidence, I assured her that wasn’t going happen and gave her a list of reasons why:
n Considering his success over the past 15 years, the Bona job is his as long as he wants it.
n His base salary is over a million dollars, not including perks and benefits, pretty good money for Olean, New York.
n Next season, Schmidt will turn 60, and while several years back his stated goal was to coach at a Power 5 school, chronology is now working against him. At Bona he’s viewed by fans as an icon and has the ultimate job security.
n At best, a move to UMass would be parallel, and the school has a reputation for eating up and spitting out men’s basketball coaches like a wood-chipper. Since John Calipari left after the 1995-96 season, Bruiser Flint, Steve Lappas, Travis Ford, Derek Kellogg and McCall have paraded through Amherst with only modest success at best. The Minutemen have had four coaches since Schmidt took the Bona job in 2007.
n It’s unlikely UMass would pay enough to make it worth Schmidt taking the job if the rebuild took longer than two or three years and he found himself unemployed in his early 60s. When he was a finalist for the Pitt position six years ago, the salary was a reported $3 million and Schmidt maintained that even if he was fired after a couple seasons, he’d be set financially.
n Though a New Englander by birth and a Boston College alum, he totally bought into St. Bonaventure’s unique, cult-like basketball culture and Schmidt and his wife admittedly love this area.
STILL, the Schmidt-to-UMass story wouldn’t go away.
So, I checked the work of an old friend, Matt Vautour, whom I’ve known for some 30 years, dating back to his time as UMass beat writer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. These days he writes about New England sports for MassLive.com.
Sure enough, he had an early piece for the website speculating on Massachusetts’ next coach and did what we all do, tossed a bunch of names at the wall … 17 in all, but Schmidt’s was first.
Matt noted, in part: “Multiple sources said UMass is likely to take a run at the St. Bonaventure coach and that he’d listen. This seems like a long shot given that he’s already in the Atlantic 10 and leading a program that’s been consistently better than UMass for a while.
But Schmidt is at a bit of a crossroads. He’s banging his head on the ceiling of what can be achieved in Olean. He’s still underrated nationally. His success at St. Bonaventure should have earned him more Power 5 consideration by now. But even Boston College, his alma mater, a school that needs a coach who can compete with fewer resources against bigger programs hasn’t snatched him up. It becomes harder to move up after a coach hits 60. Too many programs get fixated on getting a young guy.
Schmidt is a native of North Attleborough, Massachusetts; UMass has better facilities and resources and can pay more than the Bonnies. The Minutemen are better situated in proximity to recruiting talent. It might not be the jump he had envisioned making for his next job, but it’s a jump.
This isn’t a gimme, but it’s possible.”
Ironically, Frank Martin, who ultimately got the job, wasn’t on Matt’s list.
BUT VAUTOUR was also prescient about UMass’ search, pointing out: “There will be lots of bad rumors around the country. Some agents and representatives like to raise their clients’ profiles by leaking information that’s blatantly inaccurate. Coaching rivals will start rumors to mess with recruiting. Coaches will use one school’s interest to get more money and an extension from their current employer. Nothing is really real until the contract is signed.”
Oh, how right he was.
Last Wednesday, Mark Blaudschun, a former sports staffer at the Boston Globe, who now writes for TMG Sports, posted that Schmidt had reached an agreement with UMass for $1.8 million annually.
Done deal.
Except it wasn’t.
BLAUDSCHUN quickly walked back his definitive statement, indicating that St. Bonaventure was putting up one final effort to keep Schmidt by matching the Massachusetts offer in what he called a “bidding war.” However, a decision had to be made within 24 hours or the school would continue its search.
The supposed deal-breaker was that if he took the UMass job, Schmidt immediately would have to divorce himself from St. Bonaventure … meaning he couldn’t coach his team in the NIT semifinals, one of the pinnacle moments of his career.
It’s been reported that while Bona didn’t match UMass’ offer, Schmidt got a bump to the $1.3-1.4 million range and his staff received upgraded salaries.
THERE ARE still unanswered questions, of course. It’s been reported Schmidt withdrew his name from consideration, meaning it doesn’t take Columbo to conclude he was in the mix and interested in the job, though it’s uncertain whether he interviewed.
And, we’re left to wonder whether he’d have taken the position had Bona lost to Virginia in the NIT quarterfinals. That wouldn’t have been a total stunner considering his five senior starters, who have played mountains of minutes, will be graduating and a major rebuild is in the offing.
It’s arguable whether Schmidt used the UMass offer to leverage a raise with Bona, but the fact he wouldn’ walk away from his team on the brink of the NIT Final Four, even with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table, speaks well of his character. There are any number of coaches annually, who wouldn’t do the same.
As for Blaudschun, who was eviscerated by Bona fans on Twitter, I’m not so sure he was totally wrong, but merely got out ahead of his skis on the story.
In his own defense, he pointed out, “That was a monumental series of miscalculations, mistakes and simply acts of fate which changed the coaching landscape.”
To be sure, UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford handled this coaching hire with the touch of a blacksmith and Blaudschun seemingly got caught in the crossfire.
But there’s one obvious message from this embarrassing fiasco … never say never.
(Chuck Pollock, an Olean Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
