Jim Valvano to be Inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame Friday
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
He wanted to coach here but Fred turned him down. Same thing with Pitino. He turned down Vitale. There seems to be a common thread here. They were all out going and flashy. They were all coaches that had charisma and could really talk it up. If you compared these coaches to colors they were pink, red and lavender much too flashy for an ultra conservative AD.
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Fred made some regrettable decisions when you consider men's basketball, particularly in the early years of conference realignment, but I don't think it's fair to say he wasn't a forward thinker at all. He got that it is football that drives the bus, parks it, maintains it, etc. He hitched his wagon to an eastern all sports conference that never materialized, tarnishing his legacy and setting the men's basketball program back for quite awhile, but his basic vision regarding the importance of football was spot on and ultimately proven correct.
I'll grant that to him, but isn't that the price of entry to be an athletics director at any division 1 school?
Sure, although it may not have been quite as obvious in the late 70's, particularly for a school that was having success in men's basketball and was still in the infancy of its move to big time football. Joining the Big East would have been the easy move and I personally regret that we didn't make it, but ultimately the interests of football did prevail. In that sense, I think it's fair to say that Fred was forward thinking as far as the trajectory of Rutgers athletics was concerned and that ended up biting him in the a**.